Res Gestae

The complete voyage around its shores, as one would encircle an island, is a distance of 23,000[*](Polyb. iv. 39, 1, gives 20,000: Strabo, ii. 5, 22, 25,000; Pliny, N.H. iv. 77, says that Varro made it 21,000, and Nepos, 21,350.) stadia, as is asserted by Eratosthenes, Hecataeus, Ptolemy, and other very accurate investigators of such problems; and according to the testimony of all geographers it has the

form of a drawn Scythian bow.[*](The descriptions of the Scythian bow in the handbooks on antiquities vary, and are sometimes misleading, in particular the comparison with different forms of the Greek sigma. As represented in vases and other works of art, it has, as a general rule, the form of the following cut: Figure from Smith’s Dict. of Ant. 1 p. 126. It is well defined in the note on Strabo, ii. 5, 22, in L.C.L. i. 479, n. 4. When it was drawn, which is commonly taken to be the meaning of nervo coagmentati, the arms were bent down and the handle remained immovable; see also note on § 37, below.)