Note 476 — Chapter XVII · LYDIANS. — MEDES. — CIMMERIANS. — SCYTHIANS.

Read the description of the difficult escape of Mithridates Eupator, with a mere handful of men, from Pontus to Bosphorus by this route, between the western edge of Caucasus and the Euxine (Strabo, xi, pp. 495-496),—ἡ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν καὶ Ζυγῶν καὶ Ἡνιόχων παραλία,—all piratical and barbarous tribes,—τῇ παραλίᾳ χαλεπῶς ᾔει, τὰ πολλὰ ἐμβαίνων ἐπὶ τὴν θάλασσαν: compare Plutarch, Pompeius, c. 34. Pompey thought the route unfit for his march.

To suppose the Cimmerian tribes with their wagons passing along such a track would require strong positive evidence. According to Ptolemy, however, there were two passes over the range of Caucasus,—the Caucasian or Albanian gates, near Derbend and the Caspian, and the Sarmatian gates, considerably more to the westward (Ptolemy, Geogr. v, 9; Forbiger, Handbuch der Alten Geographie, vol. ii, sect. 56, p. 55). It is not impossible that the Cimmerians may have followed the westernmost, and the Scythians the easternmost, of these two passes; but the whole story is certainly very improbable.