BOOK v [Report on the Regions of the Persian Empire]

As this city of Qazvīn was the last of the provinces of Persia visited by the Ambassador, it is fitting that he should give a brief report of what he learned there concerning the remaining regions of this empire that he was unable to see or visit during his sojourn. Such an account would be necessarily inaccu- rate if it were based solely on interviews, [margin: even] if these were to be conducted with men who in our own day have carefully examined and ob- served these regions. Instead, we must make good use of the lessons of history, which are what bestow true light and knowledge on everything we need to know about the world. Thus, the setting for this Eastern realm, so renowned and distinguished throughout the ages, and which so many important authors have memorialized for future ages, is the Caspian Sea, [fol. 333v] which laps at several of the most celebrated kingdoms and principalities of the earth. It is well first to understand its location and contours, which are quite different from how geographers and many historians of most recent times have depict- ed it. We will also need as guides four or five rivers, so familiar to ancients and moderns alike that even the most ignorant are acquainted with them be- cause of their great size and because they bear the same names today as in the past. To begin, the Caspian, or Hyrcanian, Sea, which is nowadays called the Bākū Sea, lies mainly along an axis extending from the - to the -, which are respectively equivalent to and .1 The Sea extends so far to the south that its most austral point is located at just a few minutes high- er than 36 degrees, judging from what [margin: we know] to be the precise lo- cation of the city of Qazvīn and how far it is from the sea, this being calculated from the lay of the land as one travels between the two points.2 Ancient histori- ans and geographers paid attention to overland distances only, focusing on the names of provinces, the names of the mountains and rivers that divided them, and the names of the principal cities that lay within them. They did not attend to how a place was situated with respect to the heavens, nor its meridian paral- lels, by which its precise location can be determined. And we find that most of

1 Silva y Figueroa interestingly uses these names for intercardinal directions. 2 Qazvīn is indeed situated at 36°16′02″N, 50°00′16″E.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004346321_007 [Report On The Regions Of The Persian Empire] 509 the tables of Ptolemy,3 the only source for this kind of knowledge, are so faulty and defective that they offer very little in the way of certainty. I was thus greatly astonished to find, contrary to my original understanding, that this southern part—which is such a noble and renowned region of Asia, comprising the area between the Caspian Sea and the heart of Persia—lies so much farther to the south, not only by a few minutes but by many degrees. The chief reason for this great error is the pure and delicate air. This en- tire region, though very mountainous, is dry to the last degree. It produces no woods or trees naturally; the only ones are those found in orchards and gardens, which are the product of human industry, aided by water channeled from nearby or from some distance. The air here is so delicate and uncontami- nated [fol. 334r] that although in the summer it preserves things for a much longer time than in other places without them becoming altered or corrupted, it is incomparably colder during the winter than in other climes that are higher and closer to our pole. This cold turns most of the usual rains to snow , which is so abundant that the mountains, or more accurately, hills of no great height, which lie at 30 and 32 degrees, are capped in snow most of the summer. And thus in the city of Shīrāz, which is the same as ancient Cyropolis, founded by Cyrus and ennobled by the tomb of this great king,4 it was colder in the winter than in any clime situated at 40 degrees, though its position lies at no more than 28 degrees and 44 minutes, as was already mentioned when that city was described more specifically. [margin: The ten leagues] from Shīrāz to Margascan,5 which is near what must certainly be the ruins of Persepolis, takes one to the north-east and east by north-east, which in Greek are respec- tively [ ]6 and . From there one heads north-west and north by north- west to Eṣfahān, and at the end of the journey a short distance due north. Hence the first two cities mentioned above are definitely farther to the east than Eṣfahān, and thus it cannot be that both of these cities, being so close together, are actually within the so famous and renowned realm of Persia. According to the shared doctrine of the ancients, Media was directly north of Persia, so that if the city of Eṣfahān is not part of Media, it should be considered part of Persia

3 Astronomical calculations prepared by Ptolemy in tabular format to determine the positions, movements and opposition of heavenly bodies. 4 There are two points of confusion here. First, Cyropolis was located near present-day Istaravshan or Kurkath in Tajikstan; second, Cyrus’s tomb is near Pasargadae, which is close to Shīrāz but very far from Cyropolis. See P’yankov, “Cyropolis.” 5 See p. 350 n. 130. 6 A blank space is found here in the MS; Silva y Figueroa assuredly intended (Spanish “gregal”), the name for the north-east wind; see his mention of the “Greek wind” on p. 548.