41. Matt, xvi, 18.
42. Matt, xxiv, 14.
43. For a description of Taprobanê (Ceylon) see Book XI.
44. Malabar, see below, Book xi.
45. Ibid.
46. Gr. a)po_ persi/doj xeirotonou&menoj . This is the verb used in the Acts of the Apostles, xiv, 23: ordained by the laying on of hands.
47. Dioscoridês is the island now called Socotra. The name, though in appearance Greek, is in reality Sanscrit, from Dvîpa Sukhâdâra, that is, Island Abode of Bliss. A description is given of it in c. 30 of the Periplûs of the Erythraean Sea, which was writtten about the middle of the first century. It is described as "of great extent but désert, and very moist, and as having but a scanty population, which was settled on its north side, and consisted of an intermixture of foreigners----Arabs, Indians, and even Greeks----engaged in commerce." The people of the interior are still of distinct race, with curly hair, Indian complexion, and regular features, while the coast people are of mixed descent. Abulfeda says the people were Nestorian Christians and pirates, but the late Sir H. Yule says that "some indications point rather to a connection of the island's Christianity with the Jacobite or Abyssinian church. Thus they practised circumcision .... and De Barros calls them Jacobite Christians of the Abyssinian stock. Barbosa speaks of them .... as Christian only in name, having neither baptism nor Christian knowledge .... Now not a trace of former Christianity can be discovered, and the social state of the people could scarcely be lower." See his edition of The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. ii, pp. 401-2.
48. Gr. a)ndra&sin tw~n e0kei= . . . . e/lqou~sin e/n th~| 'Aiqiwpi/a| .----Montfaucon translates: qui in Aethiopian proficiscebantur. Cosmas had probably met them at Adule or at Axum.
49. The Garamantes were the inhabitants of the great oasis in the Libyan desert called Phazania, and now Fezzan, but the name was often used in a wider sense to denote the people of northern Africa who lived to the south of the Syrtis.
50. Pentapolis, the name for any association of five cities, denotes here the five chief cities of the province of Cyrenaica in north Africa. These were Cyrênê, Berenice, Arsinoê, Ptolemais, and Apollonia, the port of Cyrênê.
51. Africa, in its narrow sense, meant the regions between Mauretania and Cyrênê.
52. Gr. Gadei/rwn, ta_ pro_j no&ton . Cosmas slips here in his grammar, using ta_ for tw~n . A little below he speaks of another Gades---- Gadeira tou~ Wkeanou~ , that is, Gades in Spain. Southern Gades, Yule thinks, may be Tingis, or Cape Spartel, called by Strabo Kôteis.
53. "In the time of Pliny, Arrian, and Ptolemy", says Gibbon, "the Lazi were a particular tribe on the northern skirts of Colchos. When the Romans stationed on the Phasis were either withdrawn or expelled, the tribe of the Lazi, whose posterity speak a foreign dialect, and inhabit the sea-coast of Trebizond, imposed their name and dominion on the ancient kingdom of Colchos. Their independence was soon invaded by a formidable neighbour .... In the beginning of the sixth century their influence was restored by the introduction of Christianity, which the Mingrelians still profess with becoming zeal, without understanding the doctrines or observing the precepts of their religion."---- Decline and Fall, Chap. xlii.
54. The Heruli under Odoacer, who is styled their king, in A.D. 476 overthrew the western empire. Their seats lay to the north of the Euxine.
55. Gr. 9Elladikw~n .
56. Towards the end of the seventeenth chapter of the Decline and Fall, Gibbon has summarised what Cosmas here says regarding the wide spread of Christianity.
57. Gr. e0k derma&tw~n cu&lwn -----Montfaucon translates ex pellibus ovium, taking cu&lwn to be a mis-reading of the MS. cu&lon , however, has sometimes, especially in Alexandrian Greek, the meaning of live-wood, or a tree.
58. Gen. iv, 16.
59. Gen. iv, 17.
60. Gen. iv, 20.
61. Gen. iv, 21.
62. Gen. iv, 22.
63. Cosmas refers here to the work of Archimedes, which is still extant, on the Quadrature of the Parabola.
64. Eccl. i, 1.
65. Gen. i, 1.