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PART 13

XIII. Such in my opinion is the condition of the Egyptians and Libyans. As to the dwellers on the right of the summer risings of the sun up to Lake Maeotis, which is the boundary between Europe and Asia, their condition is as follows. These nations are less homogeneous than those I have described, because of the changes of the seasons and the character of the region. The land is affected by them exactly as human beings in general are affected. For where the seasons experience the most violent and the most frequent changes,1 the land too is very wild and very uneven ; you will find there many wooded mountains, plains and meadows. But where the seasons do not alter much, the land is very even. So it is too with the inhabitants, if you will examine the matter. Some physiques resemble wooded, well-watered mountains, others light, dry land, others marshy meadows, others a plain of bare, parched earth. For the seasons which modify a physical frame differ ; if the

[p. 111] differences be great, the more too are the differences in the shapes.

1 Or, more idiomatically, "the variations of climate are most violent and most frequent." The four changes at the end of the four seasons were only the most important of many μεταβολαι. See Chapter XI, and pp. 68, 69.

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