Kitap 2
4.6
No less idle is the statement which has also been advanced. that the Don, after crossing the Caucasus, flows northward and then turns towards the Maeotis.This was the opinion of Theophanes of Mytilene, who followed Pompey in his expeditions to the East. The Caucasus here mentioned is that which bounds Georgia in the north, and from whence the modern river Kuban (the Vardanus of Pompey) takes its rise. This river does incline slightly to the north, and afterwards turns westward in its course to the Palus Maeotis. It is possible that some confusion between this river and the Don gave occasion to the belief that the latter rose in the Caucasus. No one, however, [with the exception of Polybius,] made this river flow from the east If such were its course, our best geographers would never have told us that its direction was contrary to that of the Nile, and, so to speak, diametrically opposite thereto, as if the course of both rivers lay under the same meridian.
