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Γέρρου. The ‘limit’ of Scythia (71. 3); hence some have proposed to alter ‘forty’ into ‘fourteen’, because Scythia is only ‘twenty days' journey’ across (101. 3). But ‘Scymnus’ (l. 817; G. G. M. i. 230) in the first century B. C. says the Borysthenes is navigable for ‘forty days’ but no more, and Stein points out that H. is speaking of a voyage, and so the calculation takes into account the windings of the stream; the number therefore may be explained by the great east bend of the Dnieper. But though H.'s informants may have known of this, he himself certainly did not, for he thinks the Dnieper ‘flows from the north’; Stein explains this of its course just at Gerrhi, and points out that the Dnieper does flow from north to south as far as Kief, and then south-east by east; but H. says it flows from the north all the way from Gerrhi. It is curious too that he knows nothing of the rapids of the Dnieper, which begin at Ekaterinoslav, 260 miles from its mouth; had he known of them, he must have compared them with the Nile cataracts. H. faithfully reproduces his sources, but his own knowledge of the river is limited to what could be gained on the voyage, up or down it, to Exampaeus. He shines, however, by comparison with Strabo (306), who says the Dnieper is only navigable for 600 stades!

δέκα: cf. 18. 2 n.

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