Belias.]

[Footnote 71: Plutarch seems to mean something like drums furnished
with bells or rattles; but his description is not very clear, and the
passage may be rendered somewhat differently from what I have rendered
it: "but they have instruments to beat upon ([Greek: rhoptra] ῥόπτρα),
made of skin, and hollow, which they stretch round brass sounders"
([Greek: êcheiois] ἠχείοις, whatever the word may mean here). The word
[Greek: rhoptron] ῥόπτρον properly means a thing to strike with; but
it seems to have another meaning here. (See Passow's _Greek Lexicon_.)
The context seems to show that a drum is meant.]

[Footnote 72: Margiana was a country east of the Caspian, the position
of which seems to be determined by the Murg-aub river, the ancient
Margus. Hyrcania joined it on the west. Strabo (p. 516) describes
Margiana as a fertile plain surrounded by deserts. He says nothing of
its iron. Plinius (_Hist. Nat._ vi. 16) says that Orodes carried off
the Romans who were captured at the time of the defeat of Crassus, to
Antiochia, in Margiana.]

[Footnote 73: So Xenophon (_Cyropædia_, i. 3. 2) represents King
Astyages. The king also wore a wig or false locks.]

[Footnote 74: The peculiarity of the Parthian warfare made a lasting
impression on the Romans; and it is often alluded to by the Latin
writers:--

Fidentemque fuga Parthum versisque sagittis.

Virgil, _Georgic_ iii. 31.