Aenus, a flourishing Greek city, originally an Aeolic foundation (Hdt. 7. 58. 3), just east of the river Hebrus (Alc. fr. 29 Lobel) on the coast of *Thrace. The modern Enez is on the site of the ancient city. Like Abdera, Aenus owed its wealth to its geographical situation. Not only did it command the trade that descended the Hebrus valley, but also it provided a route alternative to the Bosporus (1) and the Dardanelles for trade that wished to reach the Aegean from the Black Sea; merchandise could be disembarked at Odessus, sent overland to the Hebrus valley and then down to Aenus. Thus Aenus lay at the entrance to the natural route to the rich cornlands, ranches, forests, and fruit-producing regions of eastern and central Thrace. It also derived considerable revenue from its fisheries. As a tributary state, it paid a large sum, twelve talents, to the *Delian League, in 454 bce.
Article
D. W. R. Ridgway
Aeoliae insulae, the volcanic Aeolian islands, 40 km. (25 mi.) north-east of Sicily, had a flourishing neolithic culture based on the obsidian industry and well represented in the Diana plain and Castello (Lipari), a natural fortress with a succession of neolithic, bronze age, Greek, and Roman settlements. The islands took full commercial advantage of their position between east and west in the early bronze age, when the local Capo Graziano culture has been equated with the Aeolians of Greek legend and imported Mycenaean pottery provides the first absolute dates in the prehistory of western Europe. Aegean contact continued in the middle bronze age (Milazzese culture): contact with the peninsular *Apennine culture recalls the Liparus legend (Diod. Sic. 5. 7) and gave rise to the late bronze age–early iron age *Ausonian culture, with its parallels at Milazzo for the proto-*Villanovan urnfields of the mainland. The Cnidian–Rhodian colony of Lipara was founded in 580–576 bce, and conquered in 252 by Rome; Lipari in particular provides much valuable information about provincial life and death in Greek and Roman times.
Article
Donald Ernest Wilson Wormell and Stephen Mitchell
Aeolis, the territory of the northernmost group of Greek immigrants to the western coast of Asia Minor, covering the coastal strip from the entrance of the Hellespont to the mouth of the Hermus—a linguistic and ethnographic, not a geographical unit. Near the end of the second millennium bce the Aeolians, deriving from *Boeotia and *Thessaly, planted their first settlements in *Lesbos, and thence expanded northwards to Tenedos, and along the mainland coast to the east and the south. There must have been considerable racial fusion with the local *barbarian inhabitants, but the Aeolians brought with them their own dialect (see dialects, greek) and created a distinctive style of architectural decoration. Most of the Aeolian cities derived their livelihood from agriculture, commerce being of minor importance in Lesbos. The settlements in the south may have formed a league, whose religious centre was the temple of *Apollo at Gryneum.
Article
T. W. Potter
Aesernia (mod. Isernia), a strong site near the upper Volturnus river, controlling NW *Samnium. Originally a Samnite town, a Latin colony (see ius latii) established here after the Samnite Wars (263 bce) was staunchly pro-Roman until *Social War (3) insurgents captured it (90 bce) and made it their capital.
Article
Paola Marone
Aethicus Ister is the unknown author of the Cosmographia, a fictional world travelogue that probably belongs to the 7th to 8th centuries. This work, written in an abstruse Latin, makes use of a whole range of antique (the Bible, the Isidore’s Etymologies, the Pseudo-Augustine’s De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, etc.) and medieval texts (the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, the Liber historiae Francorum, some Latin translations of the Alexander Romance, etc.). It is one of the most difficult and puzzling early medieval texts, and it has been the object of intense study since its earliest editions. According to a recent theory espoused by Herren, it could have been written c. 675–725 by a Frank with connexions to Ireland and, possibly, England.Aethicus Ister (c. 7th–8th century ce), otherwise known as Aethicus of Istria or the philosopher of Istria, is the supposed author of the Cosmographia, a description of the world that claims to have been written originally in Greek and subsequently translated into Latin by an ecclesiastical called Jerome (not Saint .
Article
Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead and R. J. A. Wilson
Aetna (1), Europe's highest active volcano (3,326 m. (10,912 ft.) in 1966), lying between *Tauromenium and *Catana in eastern Sicily. The lower slopes are remarkably fertile, principally today in vines, olives, lemons, and oranges, and are thickly populated; woods and scrub cover the middle slopes; the upper are desolate. Eruptions were attributed to a giant (*Typhon or Enceladus) beneath the mountain. The Sicans traditionally transferred westwards because of them. Few ancient eruptions are recorded, those of 475, 396, and 122 bce. being the most notable; Etna has apparently been more active in modern times. The mountain is the subject of an anonymous poem, *Aetna, probably late Augustan. Ancient tourists known to have climbed the mountain include the emperors *Gaius (1) and *Hadrian. Etna basalt was widely used, in Sicily and further afield, for corn *mills (Strabo 6. 2. 3; cf. Aetna, 400–1).
Article
Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead and R. J. A. Wilson
Aetna (2), the name given to *Catana when *Hieron (1) I settled a colony there. In 461
Article
W. M. Murray
Aetolia, a region in west-central Greece roughly shaped like a triangle with its base on the Corinthian Gulf, its apex at Mt. Tymphrestus, and its sides along the lower and middle *Acheloüs river-valley on the west, and a series of mountains from Mt. Oxya to Mt. Gkiona on the east. The topography of the region is rugged, a factor that played a significant role in Aetolia's history, serving as a natural deterrent to invading armies, and contributing to the widespread practice of *brigandage. Along the region's southern coast there are few harbours, although the area was settled from early times. Towns like *Pleuron, Olenus, Pylene, Calydon, and Chalcis are all known to Homer (Il. 2. 638–44).Politically and economically Aetolia remained backward into the 5th cent. bce. *Thucydides (2) mentions settlements at Poti-dania, Crocylium, Tichium, Aegitium, and Proschium, but he describes them as small unfortified villages. During this period, Aetolia was organized as an ethnos (see ethnicity), consisting of at least three major territorial groups: the Ophioneis, the Apodoti, and the Eurytanes.
Article
Stephen Mitchell
Was the most important city of northern *Phrygia in Roman times. The well-preserved ruins of the site are dominated by the peripteral (colonnaded) Ionic temple of *Zeus, dedicated under Domitian in ce 92. According to local legend Zeus was born in the Steunos cave which overlooked the river Pencalas near the city (the site has been identified and excavated). There were extensive sacred lands around the city, which were used to settle military colonists from the Attalid and Bithynian kingdoms. A long dispute over the revenues from this land was settled by Roman proconsuls of Asia in the 120s, and this appears to have unleashed a period of great prosperity in the 2nd cent. ce. During this time Aezani was transformed from a modest agricultural town (there are traces of late Hellenistic buildings and it may have been the minting centre for the people of Phrygia Epictetus) into an imperial architectural show-piece, with a theatre, a stadium, a large bath-house, several bridges across the river Pencalas which flowed through the city, and cemeteries full of elaborately decorated tombs. Aezani was an enthusiastic member of the *Panhellenion at Athens, where its best-known citizen and civic benefactor, M.
Article
William Nassau Weech, Brian Herbert Warmington, and R. J. A. Wilson
The *Punic Wars made Rome heir to the Carthaginian empire. In 146 bce she left most territory in the hands of *Masinissa's descendants, but formed a new province (Africa) in the most fertile part. This covered about 13,000 sq. km. (5,000 sq. mi.) of north and central Tunisia, north-east of a boundary line (the fossa regia, ‘the royal ditch’) from Thabraca to *Hadrumetum; it was governed by a praetor from Utica. Except for *Utica and six other towns of Phoenician origin which had supported Rome rather than Carthage in the Punic Wars, most of the land became *ager publicus. Although the attempt by Gaius C. *Sempronius Gracchus to found a colonia at Carthage failed, Roman and Italian traders and farmers settled in the province in large numbers, and many of C. *Marius (1)'s veterans settled west of the fossa regia. After the battle of Thapsus in 46 bce*Caesar added to the existing province (thenceforth called Africa Vetus, ‘Old Africa’) the Numidian territory of Juba I (Africa Nova, ‘New Africa’).
Article
Kenneth S. Sacks
Who lived most of his adult life in *Alexandria (1), eventually leaving, perhaps in flight to Athens after 145. He was not, as previously believed, regent to *Ptolemy (1) IX but was in the service of *Heraclides (3) Lembus. His major works, for which there are fragmentary remains, include: Asian Affairs (Τὰ κατὰ τὴν Ἀσίαν), probably a universal history that extended to the *Diadochi; European Affairs (Τὰ κατὰ τὴν Εὐρώπην), perhaps to his own time; and On the Red Sea (Περὶ τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς θαλάσσης) in five books (some preserved by Diodorus, bk. 3, and Photius). These large-scale histories, interlaced with *anthropology and *geography, provided a model for *Posidonius (2). He attacked the Asianic prose style, and *Photius calls him a worthy disciple of *Thucydides (2) in expression. He may have voiced hostility toward the Ptolemies, from whom he may have fled.
Article
John Frederick Drinkwater
Agri Decumates, a territory comprising the Black Forest, the basin of the Neckar, and the Swabian Alp, annexed by the Flavian emperors to shorten communications between the Rhine and the Danube, and attached to Upper Germany. It may earlier have been settled by the landless poor of Gaul. Though the imperial authorities' prime concern was the *limes, they took pains to establish several artificial civilian communities on the Gallic model, e.g. the civitas Ulpia Sueborum, administered from Ladenburg. The meaning of ‘Agri Decumates’ has been much disputed; today it is generally translated as ‘Ten Cantons’. The area was lost c.
Article
William Moir Calder and Susan Mary Sherwin-White
Alabanda, a city in northern *Caria, on the Marsyas, a tributary of the *Maeander, at the point where the road from *Tralles branches westward to *Halicarnassus and south to the coast opposite *Rhodes. Its site (now Arabhisar) between two hills is likened by Strabo to a pack-saddle. In the province of Asia it was a civitas libera (*free city).
Article
Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter
Alba Longa, on the *Albanus mons, near modern Castel Gandolfo, traditionally founded c.1152 bce by *Ascanius (Aen. 3. 390 f.), and supposed founder of other Latin cities. There are rich cemeteries of the Latian culture, extending back to the 10th cent. bce. Apparently it once headed a league (of Prisci Latini? see Festus 253 Lindsay), the nature and members of which cannot be exactly determined: lists in Diodorus Siculus (7. 5), Dionysius (Ant. Rom. 4. Rom. 92, 5. 61), and Pliny (HN 3. 69), like surviving lists of Alban kings, are untrustworthy. Alba lost its primacy in Latium perhaps in the 7th cent. bce, allegedly through its destruction by Rome: some families are said to have migrated to Rome (Iulii, Tullii, etc. : Livy 1. 29 f.; Tac. Ann. 11. 24), while others joined neighbouring *Bovillae and preserved Alban cults and memorials until late times (Albani Longani Bovillenses: ILS 6188 f.
Article
David C. Braund
Albania (Transcaucasian), the land between *Iberia and the *Caspian, to the north of *Media Atropatene: it now lies largely within northern Azerbaijan and Daghestan. Albania comprises an extensive and quite dry plain, with the eastern spur of the main Caucasus to the north: pastoralism was widespread, though archaeology indicates agriculture and significant settlements (so too notably *Ptolemy (4)). Through Albania, past Derbend, lay the easiest and most-frequented route south across the Caucasus. In extant manuscripts of classical texts the Albani are often confused inextricably with the *Alans across the mountains to the north. The Albani are first mentioned in the context of Alexander III's campaigns. Pompey brought them within the Roman sphere in 65
Article
Edward Togo Salmon and D. W. R. Ridgway
Albanus mons, the Alban hills and more specifically their dominating peak (Monte Cavo, 950m. (3, 115 ft)), 21km. (13 mi.) south-east of Rome. Until c.1150
Article
Eric Herbert Warmington and Antony Spawforth
Albion, ancient (Celtic or pre-Celtic) name for the largest of the British Isles, first recorded in the 1st cent. ce, by when it had been superseded (among Romans) by ‘Britannia’: ps.-Arist.Mund. 393b12 (50 bce–ce 100?); Pliny, HN 4. 102. A reference to Albiones, an island-people two days' coasting from the tin-isles of the Oestrymnides in the Sea Coast of *Avianus (4th cent.
Article
Stephen J. Harrison
Albunea, sulphurous spring and stream near *Tibur with a famous waterfall, and its homonymous nymph (cf. Hor. Carm. 1. 7. 12), classed as a *Sibyl by *Varro (Lactant. Div. Inst. 1. 6. 12) and fancifully identified by etymology with the sea-goddess *Ino-Leucothea (Servius on Verg. Aen.
Article
John Frederick Drinkwater
Alesia, a hill-fort of the Mandubii, modern Alise-Ste Reine, where, in 52
Article
Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter
Aletrium (mod. Alatri), town of the *Hernici 70 km. (43 mi.) south-east of Rome. Always loyal to Rome after 358 bce, Aletrium became a prosperous *municipium (Cic. Clu.46) and remained such (reject Lib. colon.23). Its massive polygonal walls have survived almost intact, those surrounding the citadel being particularly remarkable. There is also an early *aqueduct of c.
