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Before you come to Scythia, on the sea coast, lies Thrace. The
land here makes a sweep, and then Scythia begins, the Ister falling
into the sea at this point with its mouth facing the east. Starting
from the Ister I shall now describe the measurements of the seashore
of Scythia. Immediately that the Ister is crossed, Old Scythia
begins, and continues as far as the city called Carcinitis, fronting
towards the south wind and the mid-day. Here upon the same sea,
there lies a mountainous tract projecting into the Pontus, which is
inhabited by the Tauri, as far as what is called the Rugged
Chersonese, which runs out into the sea upon the east. For the
boundaries of Scythia extend on two sides to two different seas, one
upon the south, and the other towards the east, as is also the case
with Attica. And the Tauri occupy a position in Scythia like that
which a people would hold in Attica, who, being foreigners and not
Athenians, should inhabit the high land of Sunium, from Thoricus to
the township of Anaphlystus, if this tract projected into the sea
somewhat further than it does. Such, to compare great things with
small, is the Tauric territory. For the sake of those who may not
have made the voyage round these parts of Attica, I will illustrate
in another way. It is as if in Iapygia a line were drawn from Port
Brundusium to Tarentum, and a people different from the Iapygians
inhabited the promontory. These two instances may suggest a number of
others where the shape of the land closely resembles that of Taurica.
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