ncient author who gives any circumstantial
account of the country, greatly exaggerated its dimensions; it was in
reality about 250 m. in length by less than 150 in breadth. With the
exception of a narrow strip of the district called Melitene, on the
east, which forms part of the valley of the Euphrates, the whole of this
region is a high upland tract, attaining to more than 3000 ft., and
constituting the most elevated portion of the great tableland of Asia
Minor (q.v.). The western parts of the province, where it adjoins
Lycaonia, extending thence to the foot of Mount Taurus, are open
treeless plains, affording pasture in modern as in ancient times to
numerous flocks of sheep, but almost wholly desolate. But out of the
midst of this great upland level rise detached groups or masses of
mountains, mostly of volcanic origin, of which the loftiest are Mount
Argaeus (still called by the Turks Erjish Dagh), (13,100 ft.), and
Hassan Dagh to the south-west (8000 ft.).

The eastern portion of the province is of a more varied and broken
character, being traversed by the mountain system called by the Greeks
Anti-Taurus. Between these mountains and the southern chain of Taurus,
properly so called, lies the region called in ancient times Cataonia,
occupying an upland plain surrounded by mountains. This district in the
time of Strabo formed a portion of Cappadocia and was completely
assimilated; but earlier writers and the Persian military system
regarded the Cataonians as a distinct people.

Cappadocia contained the sources of the Sarus and Pyramus rivers with
their higher affluents, and also the middle course of the Halys (see
ASIA MINOR), and the whole course of the tributary of Euphrates now
called Tokhma Su. But as no one of these rivers was navigable or served
to fertilize the lands along its torrential course, none has much
importance in the history of the province.

The kingdom of Cappadocia, which was still in existence in the time of
Strabo, as a nominally independent state, was divided, according to that
geographer, into ten districts. Of these _Cataonia_ has been described;
the adjoining district of _Melitene_, which did not originally form part
of Cappadocia at all, but was annexed to it by Ariarathes I., was a
fertile tract adjoining the Euphrates; its chief town retains the name
of Malatia. _Cilicia_ was the name given to the district in which
Caesarea, the capital of the whole country was situated, and in which
ros