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ἐς τὸν Εὐφρήτην, the reading of all MSS., must mean that travellers from the north became involved in a labyrinth of canals at Ardericca, from which it took them three days to get clear into the Euphrates. It is usual, however, to omit ἐς, in which case H. means that a traveller on the Euphrates passed the same village three times in three days; in this land of marvels he accepted this statement from some waggish fellow-traveller, who hoaxed him. H. probably travelled straight by boat from Thapsacus to Babylon (cf. Grote, u. s.), and the villages he passed were no doubt as much alike as castles on the Rhine to-day. Matzat (p. 445), however, very ingeniously tries to prove that H.'s statement is possible. The river runs thus , each bend being fourteen to eighteen miles long (+ = site of Ardericca; 1, 2, 3 = the position of the boat on three following days). He finds a confirmation of these windings in 179. 4 (q. v.), the distance of Is from Babylon.

If Ardericca be a real place, it may be Idikara (cf. Ptol. v. 17. 19), about fifty miles above Sippara, where the course of the Euphrates was much diverted on account of rapids. The ‘Ardericca’ of vi. 119 (near Susa) is a different place.

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