Volume 1

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.

    50/1140 (page 28)
    Ionian Gulf, the sea without that entrance, previously known as the Ionian or Sicilian, came to be called the Adriatic Sea. The beginning of this altera- tion may already be found in Strabo, who speaks of the Ionian Gulf as a part of the Adriatic: but it is found fully developed in Ptolemy, who makes the promontory of Garganus the hmit between the Adri- atic Gulf (6 ’ASpios koKttos') and the Ionian Sea (to Auviov TreAoyos), while he calls the sea which bathes the eastern shores of Bruttium and Sicily, the Adriatic Sea (rd 'ASpiariKov TreAayos): and although the later geographers, Dionysius Periegetes and Agathemerus, apply the name of the Adriatic within the same limits as Strabo, the common usage of historians and other writers under the Roman Empire is in conformity with that of Ptolemy. Thus we find them almost uniformly speaking of the Ionian Gulf for the lower part of the modem Adri- atic : while the name of the latter had so completely superseded the original appellation of the Ionian Sea for that which bathes the western shores of Greece, that Philostratus speaks of the isthmus of Corinth as separating the Aegaean Sea from the Adriatic. And at a still later period we find Procopius and Orosius still further extending the appellation as far as Crete on the one side, and Malta on the other. (Ptol. iii. 1. §§ 1, 10. 14, 17, 26, 4. §§ 1, 8; Dionys. Per. 92—94, 380, 481; Agathemer. i. 3, ii. 14; Appian, Syr. 63, B. C. ii. 39, iii. 9, v. 65; Dion Cass. xli. 44, xiv. 3; Herodian. viii. 1; Phi- lostr. Imagg. ii. 16; Pausan. v. 25. § 3, viii. 54. § 3; Hieronym. Ep. 86; Procop. B. G. i. 15, iii. 40, iv. 6, B. V. i. 13, 14, 23; Oros. i. 2.) Concerning the various fluctuations and changes in the applica- tion and signification of the name, see Lurcher’s Notes on Herodotus (vol. i. p. 157, Eng. transl.), and Letronne(i^ec/iercAes sur Dicuil. p. 170—218), who has, however, cairied to an extreme extent the distinctions he attempts to establish. The general form of the Adriatic Sea was well known to the an- cients, at least in the time of Strabo, who correctly describes it as long and narrow, extending towards the N\V., and corresponding in its general dimen- sions with the part of Italy to which it is parallel, from the lapygian promontory to the mouths of the Padus. He also gives its greatest breadth pretty coiTectly at about 1200 stadia, but much ovei'states its length at 6000 stadia. Agathemerus, on the contrary, while he agrees with Strabo as to the breadth, assigns it only 3000 stadia in length, wliicli is as much below the tmth, as Strabo exceeds it. (Strab. ii. p. 123, v. p. 211; Agathemer. 14.) The Greeks appear to have at first regarded the neigh- bourhood of Adria and the mouths of the Padus as the head or inmost recess of the gulf, but Strabo and Ptolemy more justly place its extremity at the gulf near Aquileia and the mouth of the Tilavemptus {Tagliamento). (Strab. ii. p. 123, iv. p. 206; Ptol. iii. 1. §§ 1, 26.) The na^’igation of the Adriatic was much dreaded on account of the frequent and sudden storms to which it was subject : its evil character on this ac- count is repeatedly alluded to by Horace. {Carm. i. 3. 15, 33. 15, ii. 14. 14, iii. 9. 23, &c.) There is no doubt that the name of the Adriatic was derived from the Etruscan city of Adiia or Atria, near the mouths of the Padus. Livy, Pliny, and Strabo, all concur in this statement, as well as in extolling the ancient power and commercial in- fluence of that city [Adria, No. 1], and it is pro- bably only by a confusion between the two cities of the same name, that some later writers have derived the appellation of the sea from Adria in Picenum, which was situated at some distance from the coast and is not known to have been a place of any im- portance in early times. [E. H. B.J ADRUME'TUM. [Hadrumetum.j ADRUS {Albaragena).! a river of Hispania Lusi- tanica, flowing from the N. into the Anas (^Gnadi- and) opposite to Badajoz {Itin. Ant. p. 418; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1, pp. 289—392). [P. S.] ADUA'TICA or ADUA'TUCA, a castellum or fortified place mentioned by Caesar (B. G. vi. 32) as situated about the centre of the country of the Eburones, the greater part of which country lay between the Mosa (A/aas) and the Rhenus. There is no further indication of its position in Caesar. Q. Cicero, who was posted here with a legion in B. c. 53, sustained and repelled a sudden attack of the Sigambri (£. G. vi. 35, &c.), in the same camp in which Titurius and Aurunculeius had wintered in B. c. 54 (J5. G. V. 26). If it be the same place as the Aduaca Tungrorum of the Antonine Itinerary, it is the modern Tongern, in the Belgian province of Limburg, where there axe remains of old walls, and many antiquities. Though only a castellum or temporary fort in Caesar’s time, the place is hkely enough to have been the site of a larger town at a later date. [G. L.] ADUA'TICI QAtovotikoI^ Dion Cass.), a peo- ple of Belgic Gaul, the neighbours of the Eburones and Nervii. They were the descendants of 6000 Cimbri and Teutones, who were left behind by the rest of these barbarians on their march to Italy, for the purpose of looking after the baggage which their comrades could not conveniently take with them. After the defeat of the Cimbri and Teutones, near Aix by C. Marius (b. c. 102), and again in the north of Italy, these 6000 men maintained them- selves in the country. (Caes. B. G. ii. 29.) Their head quarters were a strong natural position on a steep elevation, to which there was only one ap- proach. Caesar does not give the place a name, and no indication of its site. D’Anville supposes that it is Falais on the Mehaigne. The tract occupied by the Aduatici appears to be in South Brabant. When their strong position was taken by Caesar, 4000 of the Aduatici perished, and 53,000 were sold for slaves. (^B. G. ii. 33.) [G. L.] ADU'LA MONS (o 'AbovKas), the name given to a particular group of the Alps, in which, accord- ing to the repeated statement of Strabo, both the Rhine and the Addua take their rise, the one flowing northwards, the other southward into the Larian Lake. This view is not however correct, the real source of the Addua being in the glaciers of the Rhaetian Alps, at the head of the Valtelline, while both branches of the Rhine rise much farther .to the W. It is probable that Strabo considered the river which descends from the Splugen to the head of the lake of Como (and which flows from N. to S.) as the true Addua, overlooking the greatly supeiior magnitude of that which comes down from the VaU telline. The sources of this river are in fact not far from those of the branch of the Rhine now called the Hinter Rhein, and which, having the more direct course from S. to N., was probably regarded by the ancients as the true origin of the river. Mt. Adula would thus signify the lofty mountain group about the passes of the Splugen and S. Bernardino, and at the head of the valley of the Hinter Rhein, rather than the Mt. St. Gothard, as supjtosed by most