History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War by Procopius
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page 4 of 287 (01%)
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and eighty-five days for an unencumbered traveller. For as to the land
about the Euxine Sea, which extends from Byzantium to the Lake, it would be impossible to tell everything with precision, since the barbarians beyond the Ister River, which they also call the Danube, make the shore of that sea quite impossible for the Romans to traverse--except, indeed, that from Byzantium to the mouth of the Ister is a journey of twenty-two days, which should be added to the measure of Europe by one making the computation. And on the Asiatic side, that is from Chalcedon to the Phasis River, which, flowing from the country of the Colchians, descends into the Pontus, the journey is accomplished in forty days. So that the whole Roman domain, according to the distance along the sea at least, attains the measure of a three hundred and forty-seven days' journey, if, as has been said, one ferries over the Ionian Gulf, which extends about eight hundred stades from Dryous. For the passage across the gulf[9] amounts to a journey of not less than four days. Such, then, was the size of the Roman empire in the ancient times. And there fell to him who held the power in the West the most of Libya, extending ninety days' journey--for such is the distance from Gadira to the boundaries of Tripolis in Libya; and in Europe he received as his portion territory extending seventy-five days' journey--for such is the distance from the northern[10] of the Pillars of Heracles to the Ionian Gulf.[11] And one might add also the distance around the gulf. And the emperor of the East received territory extending one hundred and twenty days' journey, from the boundaries of Cyrene in Libya as far as Epidamnus, which lies on the Ionian Gulf and is called at the present time Dyrrachium, as well as that portion of the country about the Euxine Sea which, as previously stated, is subject to the Romans. Now one day's journey extends two hundred and ten stades,[12] or as far as from Athens to Megara. Thus, then, the Roman emperors divided either continent |
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