--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:
>
> >[Herodotus] never visited the eastern Black Sea coast and did not
know how
> >treacherous that could be for any campaign or migration.
>
> Actually, just an interjection concerning the logic of the above
> statement. I know some things about Europe. I've never gone to
> Europe and so my knowledge of Europe might be fuzzy... but I know
> some things about Europe. This is because my knowledge is
second-hand,
> given to me by others who *have* gone to or who live in Europe.
> So, clearly Herodotus doesn't have to visit the eastern Black Sea
> coast to know about that area as long as he has contacts that
> *have* gone there and know what it's about. How can one prove
> that he didn't have contacts?
I've been to Europe 4 times, but did not get that much geography out
of the trip. Most of what I know is from books.
As for Caucasian geography, my knowledge is very fuzzy. I can locate
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia instantly on a world map, but ask me
about all those other Caucasian places and I go fuzzy. I gather
Chechnya is North Caucasus. Dagestan faces the Caspian north of
Azerbaijan. These places, the peoples living there, and all those
languages they speak are little known to Americans, and when you do
learn something, you only get confused. It's a jumble.
The Caucasus themselves run from the Kerch Strait across from the
Crimea essentially to Baku, in Azerbaijan, on the Caspian,
approximately on a NW to SE slant. The mountains seem to be quite
steep: you don't normally go up the hill to the top and down, but
rather, you go around and around. There are nice flat strips along the
coast of the Black and Caspian Seas but these are easily controlled
from the heights just beyond them. In other words, if locals want to
obstruct your travel, they can don so very easily, and very cheaply.
Hostile armies would have a hard and bloody time getting thru here.
The rivers are obscure to us in the West. The Kuban looks like a ditch
at the base of the North Caucasus, draining straight into the Black.
Draining to the Caspian in the N. Caucasus are the Kuma and Terek, two
rivers no one's heard of here in the West. The Rioni is in Georgia,
and presumably this is where Jason met Medea. In Azerbaijan, on the
other side from Georgia, is the Kur. The big river seems to be the
Aras/Ara, which flows along the border of Iran and Armenia, into the
Caspian.
This is about all I know. I have no idea of what the exact route the
Cimmerians would have been; does anyone? As for Armenia, the obvious
approach is via the Aras, tho' this looks awfully defensible by local
yokels. I confess to being very vague about exactly what the borders
of Urartu were, or what those of historic Greater Armenia were.
I have no idea of how variable the terrain is. Some of it is downright
impossible, impassable except to knowledgeable locals on narrow
trails. The rest of it seems to be pretty bad, made almost nice in
modern times only by the application of lotsa dynamite.
Can anyone add anything else that would be useful?