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[2] First they barred the way to their country by digging a wide trench from the Tauric mountains to the broadest part of the Maeetian lake;1 and then, when the Scythians tried to force a passage, they camped opposite them and engaged them in battle.

1 The Sea of Azov. It is not clear where the τάφρος was. Some think that Herodotus may have had in his mind the so-called “Putrid Sea,” the narrow stretch of water between the Arabat isthmus and the Crimea. This at least corresponds with the “point of greatest breadth” of the Sea of Azov.

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