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For Καππαδόκαι cf. 6. 3 n.


H. rightly recognizes the importance of the Halys, which is the ethnic frontier in Asia Minor (cf. App. I, § 1); its change in direction from south-west to north-west is implied in ἄνω; it rises in ‘Little Armenia’. The Armenians, who were Φρυγῶν ἄποικοι (vii. 73), had already spread beyond the Halys.

For H.'s Cilicia cf. iii. 90. 3 n.

Ματιηνούς. The passages as to the Matieni may be summarized as follows (cf. T. Reinach, R. E. G. vii. (1894) 313 seq.):

(1) They are placed on the south-west of the Caspian, though not touching it (Strabo, 514; in 509 S. puts them in Media), but had originally a greater extension to the south-west; so Xanthus, fr. 3 (F. H. G. i. 36) places L. Urmiah (L. Matianus) among them.

(2) This wider sense is the usual one in H.; the Matieni (iii. 94. 1), are grouped with the Saspeires (south-east of Trapezus) and the Alarodii (in valley of Araxes) in the eighteenth satrapy; so the Araxes rises ἐκ Ματιηνῶν (202. 3).

(3) But their name extends even more widely, e.g. Mount Zagros = ‘Matienian Mountains’ (189. 1), and in v. 49. 6, 52. 4-5 Matiene fills the whole space between Armenia and Susiana, and is crossed by the Royal Road in thirty-four stages; i. e. it includes what H. elsewhere calls ‘Assyria’, and = modern Turkish and Persian Kurdistan. But H. is inconsistent: for in v. 52. 4 he makes the Greater Zab rise in Armenia, though its source, being south-east of that of the Araxes, should be in Matiene.

(4) Quite different is the meaning in the passage here and in vii. 72. 2, which put the Matieni on the bend of the Halys, near the Paphlagonians.

Reinach conjectures they were once a widespread race, reaching from the Halys to near the Caspian; but they were cut in two by Armenian immigration, and so survived at two ends of their former home; perhaps they may = the ‘Mitani’ of Tell-El-Amarna tablets. Of the four uses of Ματιηνοί (2) is the official name, while (3) is the older geographical name of the whole region.

Συρίους Καππαδόκας. H. sometimes puts the general name first (as here and in vi. 20), sometimes the special name (Ἀρκάδες Πελασγοί 146. 1).


πέντε: this estimate is repeated ii. 34. 2, where Sinope is given as the northern limit; but the distance from Sinope to the Mediterranean is about 350 miles, while Asia Minor is 300 miles across where narrowest. Moreover, the route across Asia Minor is through difficult country. Similarly Pliny (N. H. vi. 7) gives the distance as ‘200 miles’. Some suppose that H. has confused with the ordinary time for the journey the ‘record’ of Persian couriers (cf. viii. 98. 2 for their relays). Pheidippides (vi. 106. 1) is credited with about 140 miles in two days, and Rawlinson (ad hunc loc.) says a modern Persian courier covers 50 miles a day. But H. is speaking simply of an εὔζωνος, i. e. expeditus, and he elsewhere calculates a day's journey at 200 stadia, i.e. about 23 miles (iv. 101. 3). We can explain the mistake easily if we suppose that H. misunderstood his informant; it was ‘about five days' journey’ from Sinope to the northern boundary of the Persian Cilicia (iii. 90. 3); H. took the distance as referring to the southern boundary. Meyer (ii. 287) thinks the mistake proves that there was a direct road across Asia Minor here. H. is followed in the mistake by the pseudo-Scylax (Per. 102).

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    • Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 6.7
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