Volume 1
A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith.
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A dictionary of Greek and Roman geography / by various writers ; edited by William Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
53/1140 (page 31)
![AEGAE. stood, but it probably stood on the left bank, since the right is low and often inundated. (Horn. II. viii. 203; Herod, i. 145; Strab. pp. 386—387; Pans, vii. 25. § 12; Leake, Morea, vol. iii. p. 394; Cur- tins, Peloponnesos, vol. i. p. 472.) 2. A town in Emathia in Macedonia, and the burial-place of the Macedonian kings, is probably the same as Edessa, though some writers make them two different towns. [Edessa.] 3. A town in Euboea on the western coast N. of Chalcis, and a little S. of Orobiae. Strabo says that it was 120 stadia from Anthedon in Boeotia. It is mentioned by Homer, but had disappeared in the time of Strabo. It was celebrated for its wor- ship of Poseidon from the earliest times; and its temple of this god still continued to exist when Strabo wrote, being situated upon a lofty mountain. The latter writer derives the name of the Aegaean Sea from this town. Leake supposes it to have stood near Limni. (Horn. II. xiii. 21; Strab. pp. 386, 405; Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 275.) AEGAE in A^ia, 1. (^klyai, Alycuai, Myeai: Eth. Alya7os, Alyedrrjs; Ayas Kala, or Kalassy), a town on the coast of Cilicia, on the north side of the bay of Issus. It is now separated from the outlet of the Pyramus (Jyhoon') by a long narrow aestuary called Ayas Bay. In Strabo’s time (p. 676) it was a small city with a port. (Comp. Lucan, iii. 227.) Aegae was a Greek town, but the oiigin of it is unknown. A Greek inscription of the Eoman period has been discovered there (Beaufort, Karamania, p. 299); and under the Eoman dominion it was a place of some importance. Tacitus calls it Aegeae (^Ann. xiii. 8.) 2. (Alyac: Eth. Alya?os,Aiyaiev5), an Aeolian city (Herod, i. 149), a little distance from the coast of Mysia, and in the neighbomkood of Cume and Temnus. It is mentioned by Xenophon {Hellen. iv. 8. § 5) under the name Alyels, which Schneider has altered into Aiyai. It suffered from the great earthquake, which in the time of Tiberius (a. d. 17) desolated 12 of the cities of Asia. (Tacit. Ann. ii. 47.) [G. L.] AEGAEAE. [Aegiab.] AEGAEUM MAEE (jh Alyaiov TreXayos, Herod, iv. 85; Aesch. Agam. 659; Strab. passim; or simply rb Alyaiov, Herod, vii. 55 ; o Alyaios tt4- Xayos, Herod, ii. 97), the part of the Mediterranean now called the Archipelago, and by the Turks the White Sea, to distinguish it from the Black Sea. It was bounded on the N. by Macedonia and Thrace, on the W. by Greece and on the E. by Asia Minor. At its NE. comer it was connected with the Pro- pontis by the Hellespont. [Hellespontus.] Its extent was differently estimated by the ancient writers; but the name was generally applied to the whole sea as far S. as the islands of Crete and Rhodes. Its name was variously derived by the an- cient grammarians, either from the town of Aegae in Euboea; or from Aegeus, the father of Theseus, who thi-ew himself into it; or from Aegaea, the queen of the Amazons, who perished there; or from Aegaeon, who was represented as a marine god living in the sea; or, lastly, from alyls, a squall, on account of its storms. Its real etymology is uncertain. Its navigation was dangerous to ancient navigators on account of its numerous islands and rocks, which occasion eddies of wind and a confused sea, and also on account of the Etesian or northerly winds, which blow with great fury, especially about the eqmnoxes. AEGATES. 31 To the storms of the Aegaean the poets frequently allude. Thus Horace {Carm. ii. 16): Otium diooa rogatin patentiprensus Aegaeo; and Virgil (Ae». xii. 365): Ac velut Edoni Boreae cum spiritus alto insonat Aegaeo. The Aegaean contained numerous islands. Of these the most numerous were in the southern part of the sea; they were divided into two principal groups, the Cyclades, lying off the coasts of Attica and Peloponnesus, and the Sporades, lying along the coasts of Caria aud Ionia. [Cy- clades ; Sporades.] In the northern part of the sea were the larger islands of Euboea, Thasos and Samothrace, and off the coast of Asia those of Samos, Chios and Lesbos. The Aegaean sea was divided into: 1. Mare Thracium (o SpiriKios ttSvtos, Horn. 77. xxiii. 230; rb (dprjiKLov ireKayos, Herod, vii. 176; comp. Soph. Oed. R. 197), the northern part of the Aegaean, washing the shores of Thrace and Macedonia, and extending as far S. as the northern coast of the island of Euboea. 2. Mare Myrtoum (Hor. Carm. i. 1. 14; rb MvpTwov ireXayos'), the part of the Aegaean S. of Euboea, Attica and Argolis, which derived its name from the small island Myrtus, though others suppose it to come from Myrtilus, whom Pelops threw into this sea, or from the maiden Myrto. Pliny (iv. 11. s. 18) makes the Myrtoan sea a part of the Aegaean; but Strabo (pp. 124, 323) distinguishes between the two, representing the Aegaean as terminating at the promontory Sunium in Attica. 3. ]\Iare Icarium (Hor. Carm. i. 1. 15; ’J/edpios ttSvtos, Horn. II. ii. 145; 'iKdpiov TreAayos, Herod, vi. 95), the SE. part of the Aegaean along the coasts of Caria and Ionia, which derived its name from the island of Icaria, though according to tradition it was so called from Icarus, the son of Daedalus, having fallen into it. 4. Mare Creticum (t2> Kpr]TiKbv weAayoy, Thuc.iv. 53), the most southerly part of the Aegaean, N. of the island of Crete. Strabo (7. c.), however, makes this sea, as well as the Myrtoan and Icarian, distinct from the Aegaean. AEGA'LEOS (^AlydXeus, Herod, viii. 90 ; rb AlydXecav opos, Thuc. ii. 19: Skarmangai), a range of mountains in Attica, lying between the plains of Athens andEleusis, from which Xerxes witnessed the battle of Salamis. (Herod. 1. c.) It ended in a promon- tory, called Amphi ALE (’A/i(/)idA?7),opposite Salamis, from which it was distant only two stadia according to Strabo (p. 395). The southern part of this range near the coast was called Corydalus or Cory- DALLUS (KopvbaXSs, KopuSaAAos) from a demus of this name (Strab. 7. c.), and another part, through which there is a pass from the plain of Athens into that of Eleusis, was named Poecilum (UoikIAov, Pans. i. 37. § 7.) (Leake, Demi of Attica, p. 2, seq.) AEGA'TES I'NSULAE, the name given to a group of three small islands, lying off the western extremity of Sicily, nearly opposite to Drepanum and Lilybaeum. The name is supposed to be derived from the Greek Alydb^s, the “ Goat islands;” but this form is not found in any Greek author, and the Latin writers have universally Aegates. Silius Ita- licus also (i. 61) makes the second syllable long. 1. The westernmost of the three, which is distant about 22 G. miles from the coast of Sicily, was called HierA (Tepd vrjaos, Ptol. Polyh. Diod.); but at a later period obtained the name of Maritima, from its lying so far out to sea (Itin. Marit. p. 492), and](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24872441_0001_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
