Res Gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).

And where the sun rises from the eastern ocean it comes to an end in the marshes of the Maeotis[*](The Palus Maeotis is on the northern side of the Euxine.) ; where it inclines towards the west it is bounded by Roman provinces; where it looks up to the Bears it breeds men of varying languages and habits; on the southern side it slopes downward[*](The directions are so uncertain that the meaning is not clear. ) in a gentle curve.

Over this vast space are scattered cities of the Greeks, all of which, with a few exceptions, were founded at varying periods by the Milesians, who were themselves colonists of the Athenians. The Milesians in much earlier times were established among other Ionians in Asia by Nileus, the son of that Codrus who (they say) sacrificed himself for his country in the Dorian war.[*](Cf. Hdt. v. 76; Val. Max. ii. 6, ext. 1.)

Now the tips of the bow on both sides are represented by the two Bospori lying opposite to each other, the Thracian[*](At Constantinople.) and the Cimmerian; and they are called Bospori, as the poets say, because the daughter of Inachus,[*](Io; cf. Ovid, Metam. i, 586 ff. A more probable reason is that they were so narrow that an ox could swim across them. Amm. is wrong about the second curve, which extends to the Colchi, while the Cimmerian Bosporus (between the Euxine and the Palus Maeotis) is in the middle of the curve; of. Mela, i. 112, 114; Procop. viii. 6, 14 f.) when she was changed into a heifer, once crossed through them to the Ionian sea.

The right-hand curve of the Thracian Bosporus begins with the shore of Bithynia, which the men

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of old called Mygdonia, containing the provinces of Thynia and Mariandena, and also the Bebrycians, who were delivered from the cruelty of Amycus through the valour of Pollux;[*](Amycus mistreated his subjects and compelled strangers to box with him, until Pollux came with the Argonauts and slew him in fight.) and a remote station, a place where the menacing harpies fluttered about the seer Phineus and filled him with fear.[*](Cf. Virg., Aen. iii. 212 ff.; Apollod. i. 9, 20; Val. Flacc., iv. 464 ff.; Hygin. Fab. 17.) Along these shores, which curve into extensive bays, the rivers Sangarius and Phyllis, Lycus and Rheba pour into the sea; opposite them are the dark Symplegades, twin rocks rising on all sides into precipitous cliffs, which were wont in ages past to rush together and dash their huge mass upon each other with awful crash, and then to recoil with a swift spring and return to what they had struck.[*](Like the lightning, it was hardly necessary for them to strike the same object twice; the recoil was rather to be ready for the next thing that passed between them.) If even a bird should fly between these swiftly separating and clashing rocks, no speed of wing could save it from being crushed to death.

But these cliffs, ever since the Argo, first of all ships, hastening to Colchis to carry off the golden fleece, had passed between them unharmed, have stood motionless with their force assuaged and so united that no one of those who now look upon them would believe that they had ever been separated, were it not that all the songs of the poets of old agree about the story.[*](See Apollodorus, i. 9, p. 480, L.C.L. )