Margus
Μάργος
Margus (Μάργος, Strab. xi. p.516; Ptol. 6.10. §§ 1, 4), the chief river of the province of Margiana, which in all probability derives its name from it,--now the Murgh-áb or Merv Rúd. It is said by Ptolemy to have taken its rise in the Sariphi mountains (now Hazarás), a western spur of the great range of the Paropamisus, and, after a northern course and a junction with another small stream, to have flowed into the Oxus. The travels of Sir Alexander Burnes have demonstrated that the Murgh-áb no longer reaches the Oxus, but is lost in the sands about 50 miles NW. of Merv (Burnes, vol. ii. p. 35); but it is probable that as late as the time of Ibn Haukal (about A.D. 950) it still flowed into the Jihon (De Sacy, Mém. sur deux Prov. de la Perse, p. 22). The Margus passed by and watered Antiocheia Margiana, the capital of the province.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.