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.

    96/1140 (page 74)
    under which Ptolemy includes the whole interior of Africa S. of the Equator; which he regards as be- longing to Aethiopia (i. 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, iv. 8, vii. 5). ^ [P. S.] A'GORA (^Ayopd), a town situated about the middle of the narrow neck of the Thracian Cherso- nesus, and not far from Cardia. Xerxes, when in- vading Greece, passed through it. (Herod, vii. 58; Scylax, p. 28; Steph. B. s. v.) [L. S.] AGRA (''Aypa ’ApaSias, Ptol. vi. 7. § 5 ; Steph. B. s. vv. Td0pnr7ra,’'E7pa), a small district of Arabia Felix, situated at the foot of Mount Hippus, on the eastern coast of the Red Sea, in lat. 29 .j N. (^Akra). lathrippa or Lathrippa seems to have been its prin- cipal town. [W. B. D.] AGRAE. [Attica.] AGRAEI Aypa7oi, Thuc. iii. 106; Strab. p. 449: ’A7poe?s, Pol. xvii. 5: Steph. Byz. s. v.), a lM?ople in the NW. of Aetolia, bounded on the W. by Acamania, from which it was separated by Mount Thyamus (^Spartovuni); on the NW. by the territory of Argos Ampliilochicum; and on the N. by Dolopia. Their territory was called Agrais, or Agraea Ay pais, -Idas, Thuc. iii. Ill; ' Ay paia, Strab. p. 338), and the river Achelous flowed through the centre of it. The Agraei were a non- Hellenic people, and at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war were governed by a native king, called Salynthius, who is mentioned as an ally of the Ainbraciots, when the latter were defeated by the Acarnanians and Demosthenes in B. c. 426. Two years afterwards (424) Demosthenes marched against Salynthius and the Agraei, and compelled them to join the Athenian alliance. Subsequently they be- came subject to the Aetolians, and are called an Actolian people by Strabo. (Thuc. ii. 102, iii. 106, 114, iv. 77; Strab. p. 449; Pol. xvii. 5; Liv. xxxii. 34.) This people is mentioned by Cicero •(irt Pison. 37), under the name of Agrinae, which is perhaps a comipt form. Strabo (p. 338) mentions a village called Ephyra in their coimtry; and Agri- uium would also appear from its name to have been ■one of their towns. [Ephyra ; Agrinium.] The Aperanti were perhaps a tribe of the Agraei. [ Aperantia.] The Agraei were a different people from the Agrianes, who lived on the borders of jMacedonia. [Agrianes.] AGRAEI (’A7paioi, Ptol. v. 19. § 2; Eratosth. op. Strab. p. 767), a tribe of Arabs situated near the main road which led from the head of the Red Sea to the Euphrates. They bordered on the Naba- thaean Arabs, if they were not indeed a portion of that race. According to Hieronymus {Quaest. in Gen. 25), the Agraei inhabited, the distiict which the Hebrews designated as Midian. Pliny (v. Jl. s. 12) places the Agraei much further westward in the vicinity of the Laenitae and the eastern shore of the Red Sea. [W.B.D.] AGRAULE or AGRYLE. [Attica.] AGRI DECUMA'TES or DECUMA'NI (from decuma, tithe), tithe lands, a name given by the Romans to the country E. of the Rhine and N. of the Danube, which they took possession of on the withdrawal of the Germans to the E., and which they gave to the immigrating Gauls and subject Germans, and subsequently to their own veterans, on the pay- ment of a tenth of the produce. Towards the end of the first or the beginning of the second centuiy after Christ, the country became part of the adjoining Roman province of Rhaetia, and was thus incorporated with the empire. (Tacit. Germ. 29.) Its boundary towards the free part of Germany was protected partly by a wall (from Eatisbon to Lorch), and partly by a mound (from Lorch to the Rhine, in the neighbom- hood of Cologne) and Roman garrisons. The pro- tection of those districts against the ever renewed attacks of the Germans required a considerable mili- tary force, and this gave rise to a number of towns and military roads, of which many traces still exist. But still the Romans were unable to maintain them- selves, and the part which was lost first seems to have been the country about the river Maine and Mount Taunus. The southern portion was probably lost soon after the death of the emperor Probus (a.d 283), when the Alemanni took possession of it. The latest of the Roman inscriptions found in that country belongs to the reign of Gallienus (a. d. 260 —268). (Comp. Leichtlen, Schwaben unter den Romern, Freiburg, 1825, 8vo.) The towns in the Decumates Agri were Ambiatinus views, Alisum, Divitia, Gesonia, Victoria, Bibenia, Aquae Mattiacae, Munimentum Trajani, Artaunum, Triburium, Bra- godurum or Bragodunum, Budoris, Carithni, and others. Comp. Rhaetia. [L. S.] AGRIA'NES Aypidwps: Ergind), a small river in Thrace, and one of the tributaries of the Hebrus. (Herod, iv. 89.) It flows from Mount Hieron in a NW. direction, till it joins the Hebnis. Some have supposed it to be the same as the Erigon, which, however, is impossible, the lattbr being a tributary of the Axius. [L. S.] AGRIA'NES Ayplares'), a Paeonian people, dwelling near the sources of the Strymon. They formed excellent light-armed troops, and are fre- quently mentioned in the campaigns of Alexander the Great. (Strab. p. 331; Herod, v. 16; Thuc. ii. 96; An’ian, Anab. i. 1. § 11, i. 5. § 1, et alib.) AGRIGENTUM (^AKpdyas*: Eth. and Arf;. 'AKpayavTiros, Agrigentinus: Girgenti), one of the most pow'erful and celebrated of the Greek cities in Sicily, was situated on the SW. coast of the island, about midway between Sehnus and Gela. It stood on a hill between two and three miles from the sea, the foot of which was washed on the E. and S. by a river named the Acragas, from whence the city itself derived its appellation, on the W. and SW. by another stream named the Hypsas, which unites its waters with those of the Acragas just below the city, and about a mile from its mouth. The fonner is now called the Fiume di S. Biagio, the latter the Drago, while their united stream is commonly knowm as the Fiume di Girgenti (Polyb. ix. 27; ^ieiert, Akragas u.sein Gebiet, p. 20—22). We leani from Thucydides that Agrigentum was founded by a colony from Gela, 108 years after the establishment of the parent city, or b. c. 582. The leaders of the colony were Aristonous and Pystilus, and it received the Dorian institutions of the mother country, including the sacred rites and obseiwances which had been derived by Gela itself from Rhodes. . On this account it is sometimes called a Rhodian i colony. (Thuc. vi. 4; Scymn. Ch. 292; Strab. vi. p. 272, where Kramer justly reads TeXcpwv for ’’Icavwv, j Polyb. ix. 27. Concerning the date of its founda- , tion see Schol. ad Pind. 01. ii. 66; and Clinton, F. II. ' vol. ii. p. 265.) We have very little information i concerning its early history, but it appears to have j very rapidly risen to great prosperity and power: j * The foiTu Acragas or Agragas in Latin is 1 found only in the Roman poets. (Virg. Aen. iii i 703; Sil. Ital. xiv. 210.)