Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Various locations for destination: "FASSIS Ancient city KOLCHIS".
(Chobos). A river of Colchis falling into the Euxine, north of the mouth of the Phasis.
Apsarus (Apsaros, Apsorros), or Absarum (Plin. vi. 4), a river and
a fort, as Pliny calls it, in faucibus, 140 M.P. east of Trapezus (Trebizond).
Arrian (Peripl. p. 7) places this military station 1000 stadia from Trapezus,
and 450 or 490 stadia south of the Phasis, and about the point where the coast
turns north. The distance of 127 miles in the Peutinger Table agrees with Arrian.
Accordingly several geographers place Absarum near a town called Gonieh. Its name
was connected with the myth of Medea and her brother Absyrtus, and its original
name was Absyrtus. (Stephan. s. v. Apsurtides.) Procopius (Bell. Goth. iv. 2)
speaks of the remains of its public buildings as proving that it was once a place
of some importance.
Arrian does not mention a river Apsarus. He places the navigable
river Acampsis 15 stadia from Absarum, and Pliny makes the Apsarus and Acampsis
two different rivers. The Acampsis of Arrian is generally assumed to be the large
river Joruk, which rises NW. of Erzerum, and enters the Euxine near Batun. Pliny
(vi. 9) says that the Absarus rises in the Paryadres, and with that mountain range
forms the boundary in those parts between the Greater and Less Armenia. This description
can only apply to the Joruk, which is one of the larger rivers of Armenia, and
the present boundary between the Pashalicks of Trebizond and Kars. (Brant, London
Geog. Journ. vol. vi. p. 193.) Ptolemy's account of his Apsorrus agrees with that
of Pliny, and he says that it is formed by the union of two large streams, the
Glaucus and Lyeus ; and the Joruk consists of two large branches, one called the
Joruk and the other the Ajerah, which unite at no great distance above Batun.
It seems, then, that the name Acampsis and Apsarus has been applied to the same
river by different writers. Mithridates, in his flight after being defeated by
Cn. Pompeius, came to the Euphrates, and then to the river Apsarus. (Mithrid.
c. 101.) It is conjectured that the river which Xenophon (Anab. iv. 8, 1) mentions
without a name, as the boundary of the Macrones and the Scythini, may be the Joruk;
and this is probable.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited October 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Bathys (Bathus), a small river on the coast of Pontus, 75 stadia north of the
Acampsis (Arr. p. 7), and of course between that river and the Phasis. It is also
mentioned by Pliny (vi. 4), who places only one stream between it and the Phasis.
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