of the city of Rhages within this territory is somewhat doubtful. All
accounts place it near the eastern extremity; and as there are in this
direction ruins of a town called Rhei or Rhey, it has been usual to
assume that they positively fix the locality. But similarity, or even
identity, of name is an insufficient proof of a site; and, in the
present instance, there are grounds for placing Rhages very much nearer
to the Caspian Gates than the position of Rhei. Arrian, whose accuracy
is notorious, distinctly states that from the Gates to Rhages was only a
single day's march, and that Alexander accomplished the distance in that
time. Now from Rhei to the Girduni Surdurrah pass, which undoubtedly
represents the Pylae Cacpise of Arrian, is at least fifty miles, a
distance which no army could accomplish in less time than two days.
Rhages consequently must have been considerably to the east of
Rhei, about half-way between it and the celebrated pass which it was
considered to guard. Its probable position is the modern Kaleh Erij,
near Veramin, about 23 miles from the commencement of the Surdurrah
pass, where there are considerable remains of an ancient town.

In the same neighborhood with Rhages, but closer to the Straits, perhaps
on the site now occupied by the ruins known as Uewanukif, or possibly
even nearer to the foot of the pass, was the Median city of Charax, a
place not to be confounded with the more celebrated city called Gharax
Spasini, the birthplace of Dionysius the geographer, which was on the
Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Tigris.

The other Median cities, whose position can be determined with an
approach to certainty, were in the western portion of the country, in
the range of Zagros, or in the fertile tract between that range and the
desert. The most important of these are Bagistan, Adrapan, Concobar, and
Aspadan.