Dionysius to the same effect says:
Kai\ th_n me\n naeth~rej, e0pi\ prote/rwn a&nqrw&pwn
Klh|zome/nhn Kotinou~san, e0fhmi/canto Ga&deira . Perieg. ll. 455-6.
31. Barbaria extended from the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to the Aromatic Cape, now called Cape Guardafui. Ptolemy, however, in his Geography (Books I, c. 17, and iv, vii, 28) applies it as a general designation to the coast regions of East Africa from the Aromatic Cape southward as far as Zanzibar, beyond which his knowledge did not extend. The author of the Periplus again says that Barbaria, h( Barbarikh_ xw&ra , extended southward from Berenice, a great seaport in the south of Egypt, not far from the Tropic.
32. Gomer is taken by Josephus to denote the Galatians of Northern Phrygia, by others the Gimmeri, or Cimmerii, who inhabited the Crimea and eastern shores of the Euxine; others, again, the Cappadocians.
33. Magog is supposed by some to have been the ancestor of the Scythians and Tartars, and by others of the Persians.
34. Gen. x, 2.
35. Gr. Iouau~n . This is the reading of the Laurentian codex, while the Vatican has 9Iuwoua~n . Javan was the ancestor of the Ionians and of the Greeks generally. The form of the name in the cuneiform inscriptions is Yavnan or Yunan, and this designates Cyprus, where the Assyrians first came into contact with the Greeks. Elisa is the Elishah of Ezekiel, xxvii, 7: "Blue and purple from the isles of Elishah". Josephus identified Elishah with Aeolis; but it is generally taken for Elis in the Peloponnesus, or for the Peloponnesus itself. The Tyrians found along the shores of Greece and her islands the shellfish which yielded their famous purple dye.
36. Gr. 9Elladikou_j. #Ellhnej often means Pagans or Gentiles.
37. Tubal, supposed to be the ancestor of the Tibarêni, who were settled along the coast of Pontus. They are mentioned by Herodotus, and are thought to have been a Scythic people.
38. Meshech, a remote nation, and one of the rudest in the world. "Woe is me", saith one of the Psalms of Ascents, "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech!"
39. By the islands of the Gentiles are meant the sea-coasts and islands of the Mediterranean. The Thracians, I take it, were called Thêres, i.e, wild beasts, on account of the barbarity and ferocity for which they were proverbial.
40. The Tarshish of scripture and Tartessus of Greek writers, who designated thereby the district of Spain which lay beyond the pillars of Hercules, and also a city in the region, probably Gadeira.
41. The Kêteioi are mentioned by Homer, Odys., xi, 521, and also by Strabo in several passages (B. xiii, i, 69, and iii, 2; B. xiv, v, 23 and 28). He makes them, however, a continental people, and places them between the Cilicians and the Pelasgi. They are the Kittim of 7. Chronicles I, v. 7, as the Rhodians are the Rodanim of the same passage. For Khti/ouj the Florentine MS. has Skuqi/ouj .
42. The word Ham means adust, and has reference to the dark sunburnt complexions of the Ethiopians and Egyptians, of whom Ham was the progenitor. Mizraim was the name of Egypt in Hebrew and Mesr in Arabic. The Cushite settlements have proved a fertile theme of discussion among critics. Cush, as a country, is African in all passages of the Bible except Genesis, ii, 13, where the Revised Version has Cush instead of Ethiopia, as in the Authorised. It was supposed by the Greeks, after the conquests of Alexander had made them acquainted with India, that the Egyptians, Ethiopians or Nubians, and Indians, were derived from the same stock (Arrian, Anab., vi, 9); while Dioclorus Siculus held that the Egyptians and their civilisation were derived from Meroë. It has again been supposed that the early Babylonians came from Ethiopia; but though in support of this view some striking evidence was advanced, it is now rejected along with that of Diodorus. It has been thought that there took place a later emigration of Cushites from the Nile to Western India, through Arabia, Babylon, and Persia.
43. Phut is Libya. In the Atlas Antiquus, however, of Justus Perthes, Phut is placed along the south-western shores of the Red Sea, to the south of the Troglodytes. The tribes descended from Canaan are enumerated in Genesis, x, 15-19. They occupied Palestine and Phoenicia, and spread as far north as the valley of the Orontes.
44. Saba denotes here that part of Arabia which is known as Yemen, or Arabia Felix, and which of old was thought to have been situated at the very ends of the earth. It was civilised in very early times. The climate was salubrious, the soil fertile, and its products varied and valuable. The inhabitants at the same time were noted for their great stature (Isaiah, xlv, 14), their commercial enterprise, and their opulence and luxury. The Homerites are the Himyari of Oriental history. Their alphabet is one of the oldest, and is thought to have been the source of the Indian. Saba denoted also the kingdom of Meroe, or at least that part of it which extended along the western shores of the Red Sea, from the Adulitic Gulf southward to the Aualitic. Elêsâ probably denotes the Elisari (the El-Asyr tribe of Burchardt), who are mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography as situated between the Cassaniti and the Homerites at the Straits of the Red Sea. Cosmas may have called at Muza (one of their ports) on his way to India, and have there heard of this people.
45. Elam is the name in scripture of Susiana, one of the provinces of which was Elymais.
46. The Huns are again mentioned in Book xi, where see note regarding them ( Montf. p. 338). Baktria is now the province of Balkh.
47. The Baltic is, however, omitted.
48. Gr. ( Ko&lpoj ) o( kata_ th_n Rwmani/an . Montfaucon has the following note upon this. " Romania hic intelligitur terra illa omnis, quae ad Romanam ditionem pertinebat. Quo item usu Athanasius, p. 361, et Epiphanius, p. 728, Rwmani/an memorant." The numbers refer to the pages in his own editions of these two authors.
49. The Erythraean, in its wider sense, includes both the Arabian and Persian Gulfs, beside the ocean between Africa and India.
50. On Zingium Montfaucon has the following note: "Cosmas after the custom of his age designates by Zingium not only the strait of the Arabian Gulf (Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb), but also the sea-coast beyond the Straits, and likewise the adjacent sea; which name still subsists, since the Zanguebaric coast, from the strait of the Arabian Gulf almost to the very Cape of Good Hope, which is constantly visited by European ships, is by the inhabitants called Zangui, for Zanguebar signifies the sea of Zangui." Ptolemy in his Geography, iv. vii, 11, has a cape called Zingis or Zengisa on the coast of the Barbaric Gulf, which seems to be Ras Hafun in Lat. 10°25' N. Ethiopia designated vaguely those parts of Africa which extended from the southern limits of Egypt and Libya southward to the Equator. It designated also the frankincense country of southern Arabia----as shown by the famous bilingual inscription of Axum. Dr. Glaser derives the name Ethiopia from atyôb (the plural of taib, frankincense), so that it thus denotes generally the frankincense countries. In its restricted application Ethiopia designated the Kingdom or Island of Meroë. This realm, which lay between the Abyssinian highlands on the east and the Libyan desert on the west, and which was watered by the Nile and some of its affluents, was wondrously opulent, and the scat of a civilization introduced in early times from Yemen, as shown by its place-names, many of which are Sabasan.
51. Cosmas is here in agreement with the author of the Periplus, who makes the Aromatic Cape (Guardafui) the end of Barbaria: teleutoi=on th~j barbarikh~j h)pei/rou . Ptolemy, however, makes it begin here, and extends it to Rhaptum in the Gulf of Zanguebar.
52. Cosmas shared the error prevalent in ancient times, that the Caspian was not a land-locked sea but was a gulf of the great ocean. Herodotus, however, is not chargeable with having been under this delusion.