Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume VIII, No. 5 [‎30v] (63/154)

4G6
A JOURNEY" IN THE VALLEY" OF THE UPPER EUPHRATES.
inscriptions have been published, and where we copied another.* Ihe site is
identified by Ramsay with Dascusa on the authority of one of the inscriptions
found there, in which Ala II. Ulpia Auriana, according to the Notitia Dignitatum
stationed at Dascusa, is mentioned.f But Ramsay, in his map of Cappadocia, assigns
a position to Dascusa 50 miles south of the position given to it in his text, and
places Zimara in the map, where, according to the text, Dascusa should be. The
position given by Ramsay to Zimara is confirmed by the existence of the modern
village with the same name, Zimara, very near to the spot at which the inscriptions
were found, and just about in the position in which we should be inclined, if work
ing from the Tables, to look for the site. So that if, following the evidence of
the inscription, we place Dascusa on the river-bank opposite Pingan, it will be at
a spot only about 6 miles distant from the probable site of Zimara. But the
Peutinger Table and Itinerary place Dascusa at a point from 60 to 70 miles south
of Zimara, and their testimony is supported by a statement of Pliny,t who says
that Dascusa was 75 miles lower down the river than Zimara. Hence, if the
evidence of the inscription is to hold good, it seems necessary to conclude that the
station of Dascusa is wrongly placed by the Table, the Itinerary, and Pliny, and
has been shifted by these authorities from its real position, which is where the
inscription was found opposite Pingan. A minute examination of the literary
evidence bearing on these places makes, however, another explanation open to us,
by the adoption of which we should do less violence to the authorities. Ptolemy
mentions a Aaa-Kovtra in conjunction with Zimara in Armenia Minor on the Euphrates,
and another place, Adyovcra, in conjunction with Sinis and Melitene, also on the
river, in the a-rparriy'ia of Melitene. A Dagusa is mentioned also by Orosius§ as
being situated “inconfinio Armenise et Cappadocise,” so that there is some evidence
in favour of there having been two places on the Euphrates with very similar
names, Dascusa and Dagusa. The position of the first of these, as defined by
Ptolemy, would fit [in very well with the site opposite Pingan; the name is the
same as that of the station of the Ala II. Ulpia Auriana, given in the Notitia, and
the coincidence of its being joined with Zimara by Ptolemy, and of the preservation
of the name Zimara only 6 miles from the spot where the inscription of the Ala
was found, is very striking. The position of Dagusa may, then, be found in that
of the Dascusa of the Table and Itinerary, and would be, according to the distances
which they give and the statement of Pliny, about 70 miles lower down the river.
The confusion of two so similar names is so likely to have happened as to require
no explanation. On the whole, this theory of there having been two places,
Dascusa and Dagusa, on the Euphrates seems to offer the simplest way out of the
difificuity, though of course it adds complication to the topography of the district.
If it is adopted, the Dascusa, which is placed in Ramsay’s map at a point near the
junction of the two branches of the Euphrates, must be changed, on the authority
of 1 tolemy, into Dagusa, and Dascusa must be placed, in accordance with the
evidence of the inscription, on the river-bank opposite Pingan. A point in favour
of this arrangement is the fact that Zimara is one of the few stations between
Melitene and Satala whi ch has no tro ops assigned to it in the Notitia, and if this
* Vide p. 335, note.
t The evidence of the inscription, however, is not conclusive, as it is merely the
tombstone of a soldier belonging to this Ala, and it is quite possible that he died while
away from his post.
X J- He , sa y 8 ’ however, that Zimara is only 12 miles from the source of
the - uphrates, so that it is possible that there were two places with this name, as
Ritter (vol. x. pp. 822, 823) maintains.
§ I. 2. 23,