Note 800 — BOOK III. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED. INTRODUCTION.

Now the Don. It was usually looked upon as the boundary between Europe and Asia. Pliny’s meaning seems to be, that the Tanais divides Asia from Europe, and the Nile, Asia from Africa, the more especially as the part to the west of the Nile was sometimes considered as belonging to Asia. It has been however suggested that he intends to assign these rivers as the extreme eastern boundaries of the internal or Mediterranean sea.