DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4679#0325
7. VALENTIA. 299
Arrian': his argument is that the lake is not' so strongly impregnated
with salt as to enable the inhabitants to collect it from the shores
after the waters had dried up.' But I have myself seen the shores, as
they dried up, covered with a whitish incrustation, and the inhabitants
scraping it together into great heaps and carrying it off: I thought
the substance was salt, but when I enquired I was told that it was
saltpetre. Either Arrian's account is founded on the report of an
eye-witness in Alexander's army, who had made the same mistake
as I at first did, and did not enquire so minutely into the facts; or
Arrian has erroneously applied to Askania the description of the
neighbouring lake Anava, whose salt was used by the inhabitants.
Hamilton is probably more accurate when he identifies the lake
Askania1, which is described by Pliny XXXI 110 as being sweet on
the surface but having the water underneath impregnated with salt-
petre, as Buldur lake (but it is an exaggeration, in that case, to say
that the surface waters of the lake are sweet enough to drink).
The saltpetre-producing lake Askania is mentioned also by Aris-
totle Mir. Ausc. 54, 55, and Antigonus Caryst. 122; but the former N
implies that it was in Bithynia, confusing it with the lake of
Nikaia.
The confusion about the two lakes Askania and Anava among
modern geographers has been extraordinary; but a certain amount of
confusion also characterizes the ancient accounts. It seems clear that
Kharax on lake Anava was identified in tradition as a halting-place
of Alexander; and this implies a belief that the salt-producing lake
along which he marched was the lake beside Kharax as distinguished
from the saltpetre-producing lake of Buldur.
§ 9. The Tuhkish Conquest of Southern Phrygia and Pisidia.
Evidence as to the Turkish conquest of the Phrygo-Pisidian frontier
lands and of Pisidia proper hardly exists. This whole country was
ceded to the Turks in 1071-2 (see p. 15 f); and there is no record
that a Byzantine army ever again entered it. In 1148 Otto of Frei-
singen's Crusaders were destroyed, and in Jan. 1149 the army of
Louis VII of France (see pp. 19, 162) was attacked and put in great
danger of destruction, on the high pass that separates the waters of
the Kadmos from those of the Kazanes 2. The troops who attacked
them are represented as being partly Turkish and partly Christian;
1 Haase and others have identified leia is said to have been Turkish, and
this lake Askania as the lake of that to have been continuously hostile to
name beside Nikaia. the Crusaders.
2 The country henceforward to Atta-
Arrian': his argument is that the lake is not' so strongly impregnated
with salt as to enable the inhabitants to collect it from the shores
after the waters had dried up.' But I have myself seen the shores, as
they dried up, covered with a whitish incrustation, and the inhabitants
scraping it together into great heaps and carrying it off: I thought
the substance was salt, but when I enquired I was told that it was
saltpetre. Either Arrian's account is founded on the report of an
eye-witness in Alexander's army, who had made the same mistake
as I at first did, and did not enquire so minutely into the facts; or
Arrian has erroneously applied to Askania the description of the
neighbouring lake Anava, whose salt was used by the inhabitants.
Hamilton is probably more accurate when he identifies the lake
Askania1, which is described by Pliny XXXI 110 as being sweet on
the surface but having the water underneath impregnated with salt-
petre, as Buldur lake (but it is an exaggeration, in that case, to say
that the surface waters of the lake are sweet enough to drink).
The saltpetre-producing lake Askania is mentioned also by Aris-
totle Mir. Ausc. 54, 55, and Antigonus Caryst. 122; but the former N
implies that it was in Bithynia, confusing it with the lake of
Nikaia.
The confusion about the two lakes Askania and Anava among
modern geographers has been extraordinary; but a certain amount of
confusion also characterizes the ancient accounts. It seems clear that
Kharax on lake Anava was identified in tradition as a halting-place
of Alexander; and this implies a belief that the salt-producing lake
along which he marched was the lake beside Kharax as distinguished
from the saltpetre-producing lake of Buldur.
§ 9. The Tuhkish Conquest of Southern Phrygia and Pisidia.
Evidence as to the Turkish conquest of the Phrygo-Pisidian frontier
lands and of Pisidia proper hardly exists. This whole country was
ceded to the Turks in 1071-2 (see p. 15 f); and there is no record
that a Byzantine army ever again entered it. In 1148 Otto of Frei-
singen's Crusaders were destroyed, and in Jan. 1149 the army of
Louis VII of France (see pp. 19, 162) was attacked and put in great
danger of destruction, on the high pass that separates the waters of
the Kadmos from those of the Kazanes 2. The troops who attacked
them are represented as being partly Turkish and partly Christian;
1 Haase and others have identified leia is said to have been Turkish, and
this lake Askania as the lake of that to have been continuously hostile to
name beside Nikaia. the Crusaders.
2 The country henceforward to Atta-