Note 412 — LIFE OF ANTONIUS.

The Mardi inhabited a tract on the south coast of the Caspian, where there was a river Mardus or Amardus.

Plutarch has derived his narrative of the retreat from some account by an eye-witness, but though it is striking as a picture, it is quite useless as a military history. The route is not designated any further than this, that Antonius had to pass through a plain and desert country. It is certain that he advanced considerably east of the Tigris, and he experienced the same difficulties that Crassus did in the northern part of Mesopotamia. (Strabo, p. 523, ed. Casaub. as to the narrative of Adelphius, and Casaubon’s note.)