CA´SPII
Eth.
CA´SPII (Eth.
Κάσπιος), a nation apparently originally inhabiting a district of Media, near the mouth of the Cyrus (
Kúr), and adjacent to a mountain which bore the name of M. Caspius. Their exact position and their extent are equally uncertain and indefinite as the name might apply to any of the tribes who lived near the Caspian Sea, which derived its own name from them. Hence it is that we find mention of a similar named people in another locality on the eastern confines of Media near Hyrcania, and at the Caspian gates (
Hdt. 3.29; Strab.
Epit. xi.), and also in Albania (
Strab. xi. p.502), occupying a district which bore the technical name of CASPIANE, and to whom Strabo attributes the name of the Sea.
According to Strabo (xi. pp. 517--520), the manners of these people were of the most barbarous character, and resembled those of the people of Bactriana and Sogdiana. Ptolemy placed the Caspii rather more to the SE. than other geographers. (
Ptol. 6.2.5; Mel. 1.2, 3.5;
Curt. 4.12.)
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