Volume 2

A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/1428
    OF GREEK AND ROMAN GEOGRAPHY. ^ lABADIUS. lABA'DIUS (’laSaStow vrjaos, Ptol. vii. 2. § 29, viii. 27. § 10), an island off the lower half of the Golden Chersonesus. It is said by Ptolemy to mean the “ Island of Barley,” to have been very fertile in grain and gold, and to have had a metropolis called Augyre. There can be little doubt that it is the same as the present Java, which also signifies “ barley.” Humboldt, on the other hand, considers it to be Su- matra (Kritische Unters. i. p. 64); and Mannert, the small island of Banca, on the SE. side of Su- matra. [V.] JABBOK (^loSaKKos, Joseph.; ’Io§clj%, LXX.), a stream on the east of Jordan, mentioned first in the histoiy of Jacob ((?ere. xxxii. 22). It formed, ac- cording to Josephus, the northern border of the Amorites, w'hose country he describes as isolated by the Jordan on the west, the Arnon on the south, and the Jabbok on the north. (^Ant. iv. 5. § 2.) He further describes it as the division between the dominions of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, whom he calls king of Galadene and Gaulonitis (§ 3)—the Bashan of Scripture. In the division of the land among the tribes, the river Jabbok was assigned as the northern limit of Gad and Reuben. (JDeut. iii. 16.) To the north of the river, in the country of Bashan, the half tribe of Iilanasseh had their possession (13,14.) [Amimonitae ; Amorites.] It is correctly placed by Eusebius (^Onomast. s. v.^ between Ammon, or Philadelphia, and Gerasa (Ge- rash); to which S. Jerome adds, with equal truth, that it is 4 miles from the latter. It flows into the Jordan. It is now called El-Zerha, and “ divides the district of Moerad from the country called El- Belka.” (Burckhardt’s Syria, p. 347.) It was crossed in its upper part by Irby and Mangles, an hour and twenty minutes (exactly 4 miles) SW. of Gerash, on their way to Es-Szalt. {Travels, p. 319, comp. p. 475.) [G. W.] JABESH (Td§eis, LXX.; ’id^Tjs, 'laQiaad, ’la- €ia6s, Joseph.), a city of Gilead, the inhabitants of which were exterminated, during the early times of the Judges (see xx. 28), for not having joined in the national league against the men of Gibeah (xxi. 9, &c.). Three centuries later, it was besieged by the Ammonite king, Nahash, w'hen the hard terms offered to the inhabitants by the invaders roused the indig- nation of Saul, and resulted in the relief of the town and the rout of the Ammonites. (1 Sam. xi.) It was probably in requital for this deliverance that the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, having heard of the indignity offered to the bodies of Saul and his sons VOL. II. JACCETANI. after the battle of Gilboa, “ arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh and burnt them there ; and they took their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.” (1 Sam. xxxi. 11 —13; 2 Sam. ii. 4—7.) It was situated, according to Eusebius, in the hills, 6 miles from Pella, on the road to Gerash; and its site was marked in his time by a large village (5. vv. ’Apicrd)d and ’Idgts). The WTiter was unsuccessful in his endeavours to recover its site in 1842; but a tra- dition of the city is still retained in the name of the valley that runs into the plain of the Jordan, one hour and a quarter south of Wady Mus, in which Pella is situated. This valley is still called Wady Tabes, and the ruins of the city doubtless exist, and will probably be recovered in the mountains in the vicinity of this valley. [G. W.] JABNEH. [lAMNiA.] JACCA. [Jaccetani; Vascones.] JACCETA'NI (Ta/f/feraj/ol), the most important of the small tribes at the S. foot of the Pyrenees, in Hispania Tarraconensis, E. of the Vascones, and N. of the Ilergetes. Their country, Jaccetania (Ta/f/ferai/i'a), lay in the N. of Arragon, below the central portion of the Pyrenaean chain, whence it extended towards the Iberus as far as the neigh- bourhood of Ilerda and Osca; and it formed a j>art of the theatre of war in the contests between Ser- torius and Pompey, and between Julius Caesar and Pompey’s legates, Afranius and Petreius. (Strab. iii. p. 161; Caes. B. C. i. 60: concerning the reading, see Lacetani ; Ptol. ii. 6. § 72.) None of their cities were of any consequence. The capital, Jacca {Jaca, in Biscaya), from which they derived their name, belonged, in the time of Ptolemy, to the Vas- cones, among whom indeed Pliny appears to include the Jaccetani altogether (iii. 3. s. 4). Their other cities, as enumerated by Ptolemy, and identified, though with no great certainty, by Ukert (vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 425), are the following:—Iespus (TeorTrdy, Igualeda)', Ceresus {Kepeaos, S. Columba de Ce- ralto) ; Anabis QAvdSis, Tarrega) ; Bacasis (BaKaais, Manresa, the district round which is still called Bages) ; Telobis (TrjAogts, Mavtorell); Ascerris QAcKeppls, Sagarra); Udura (Ou- dovpa, Cardona); Lissa or Lesa {A^aa, near Man- resa); Setelsis (SereAuG ^e\erals, Solsona); CiNNA (KiVi/a, near Guisona), perhaps the same place as the Scissum of Livy (xxi. 60, where the MSS. have Scissis, Stissum, Sisa), and the Cissa of B