Selinuntines by ceding without further contest the frontier district which had been the original subject of dispute. But the Selinuntines were not satisfied with this concession, and continued to press them with fresh aggressions, for protection against which they sought assistance from Carthage. This was, after some hesitation, accorded them, and a small force sent over at once, with the assistance of which the Segestans were able to defeat the Selinuntines in a battle. (Diod. xiii. 43, 44.) But not content with this, the Carthaginians in the following spring (B. c. 409) sent over a vast army amounting, according to the lowest estimate, to 100,000 men, with which Hannibal (the grandson of Hamilcar that was killed at Himera) landed at Lilybaeum, and from thence marched direct to Selinus. The Selinuntines were wholly unprepared to resist such a force; so little indeed had they expected it that the fortifications of their city were in many places out of repair, and the auxiliary force which had been promised by Syracuse as well as by Agrigentum and Gela, was not yet ready, and did not arrive in time. The Selinuntines, indeed, defended themselves with the courage of despair, and even after the walls were carried, continued the contest from house to house; but the overwhelming numbers of the enemy rendered all resistance hopeless; and after a siege of only ten days the city was taken, and the greater part of the defenders put to the sword. Of the citizens of Selinus we are told that 16,000 were slain, 5000 made prisoners, and 2600 under the command of Empedion escaped to Agrigentuin. (Diod. xiii. 54-59.) Shortly after Hannibal destroyed the walls of the city, but gave permission to the surviving inhabitants to return and occupy it, as tributaries of Carthage, an arrangement which was confirmed by the treaty subsequently concluded between Dionysius and the Carthaginians, in B. c. 405. (Id. xiii. 59, 114.) In the interval a considerable number of the survivors and fugitives had been brought together by Hermocrates, and established within its walls. (Ib. 63.) There can be no doubt that a considerable part of the citizens of Selinus availed themselves of this permission, and that the city continued to subsist under the Carthaginian dominion; but a fatal blow had been given to its prosperity, which it undoubtedly never recovered. The Selinuntines are again mentioned in B. C. 397 as declaring in favour of Dionysius during his war with Carthage (Diod. xiv. 47); but both the city and territory were again given up to the Carthaginians by the peace of 383 (Id. xv. 17); and though Dionysius recovered possession of it by arms shortly before his death (Id. xv. 73), it is probable that it soon again lapsed under the dominion of Carthage. The Halycus, which was established as the eastern boundary of the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily by the treaty of 383, seems to have generally continued to be so recognised, notwithstanding temporary interruptions; and was again fixed as their limit by the treaty with Agathocles in B. C. 314. (Id. xix. 71.) This last treaty expressly stipulated that Sefinus, as well as Heracleia and Himera, should continue subject to Carthage, as before. In B. C. 276, however, during the expedition of Pyrrhus to Sicily, the Selinuntines voluntarily submitted to that monarch, after the capture of Heracleia. (Id. xxii. 10. Exc. H. p. 498.) During the First Punic War we again find Selinus subject to Carthage, and its territory was repeatedly the theatre of military operations between the contending powers. (ld. xxiii. 1, 21; Pol. i. 39.) But before the close of the war (about B. C. 250), when the Carthaginians were beginning to contract their operations, and confine themselves to the defence of as few points as possible, they removed all the inhabitants of Selinus to Lilybaeum and destroyed the city. (Diod. xxiv. 1. Exc. H. p. 506.) It seems certain that it was never rebuilt. Pliny indeed, mentions its name ("Selinus oppidum," iii. 8. s. 14), as if it was still existing as a town in his time, but Strabo distinctly classes it with the cities which were wholly extinct; and Ptolemy, though he mentions the river Selinus, has no notice of a town of the name. (Strab. vi. p. 272; Ptol. iii. 4. § 5.) The THERMAE SELINUNTIAE, which derived their name from the ancient city, and seem to have been much frequented in the time of the Romans, were situated at a considerable distance from Selinus, being undoubtedly the same as those now existing at Sciacca: they are sulphureous springs, still much valued for their medical properties, and dedicated, like most thermal waters in Sicily, to St. Calogero. At a later period they were called the Aquae Labodes or Larodes, under which name they appear in the Itineraries. (Itin. Ant. p. 89; Tab. Peut.) They are there placed 40 miles W. of Agrigentum, and 46 from Lilybaeum; distances which agree well with the position of Sciacca. This is distant about 20 miles to the E. of the ruins of Selinus. The site of the ancient city is now wholly desolate, with the exception of a solitary guardhouse, and the ground is for the most part thickly overgrown with shrubs and low brushwood; but the remains of the walls can be distinctly traced throughout a great part of their circuit. They occupied the summit of a low hill, directly abutting on the sea, and bounded on the W. by the marshy valley through which flows the river Madiuni, the ancient Selinus; on the E. by a smaller valley or depression, also traversed by a small marshy stream, which separates it from a hill of similar character, where the remains of the principal temples are still visible. The space enclosed by the existing walls is of small extent, so that it is probable the city in the days of its greatness must have covered a considerable area without them: and it has been supposed by some writers that the present line of walls is that erected by Hermocrates when he restored the city after its destruction by the Carthaginians. (Diod. xiii. 63.) No trace is, however, found of a more extensive circuit, though the remains of two lines of wall, evidently connected with the port, are found in the small valley E. of the city. Within the area surrounded by the walls are the remains of three temples, all of the Doric order, and of an ancient style; none of them are standing, but the foundations of them all reinain, together with numerous portions of columns and other architectural fragments, sufficient to enable us to restore the plan and design of all three without difficuity. The largest of them (marked C. on the plan) is 230 feet long by 85 feet broad, and has 6 columns in front and 18 in length, a very unusual proportion. All these are hexastyle and peripteral. Besides these three temples there is a small temple or Aedicula (marked B.), of a different plan, but also of the Doric order. No other remains of buildings, beyond mere fragments and foundations, can be traced within the walls; but the outlines of two large edifices, built | NW. angles of the city, though we have no clue to of squared stones and in a massive style, are dis- their nature or purpose. tinctly traceable outside the walls, near the NE. and PLAN OF SELINUS. AC D. Temples within the city. B. Small temple or aedicula in the city. EFG. Great temples without the city. Selinus are those of three temples on the hill to the E., which do not appear to have been included in the city, but, as was often the case, were built on this neighbouring eminence, so as to front the city itself. All these temples are considerably larger than any of the three above described; and the most northerly of them is one of the largest of which we have any remains. It had 8 columus in front and 17 in the sides, and was of the kind called pseudo-dipteral. Its length was 359 feet, and its breadth 162, so that it was actually longer than the great temple of Jupiter Olympius at Agrigentum, though not equal to it in breadth. From the columns being only partially fluted, as well as from other signs, it is clear that it never was completed; but all the more important parts of the structure were finished, and it must have certainly been one of the most imposing fabrics in antiquity. Only three of the columns are now standing, and these imperfect; but the whole area is filled up with a heap of fallen masses, portions of columns, capitals, &c., and other huge architectural fragments, all of the most massive character, and forming, as observed by Swinburne, "one of the most gigantic and sublime ruins imaginable." The two other temples are also prostrate, but the ruins have fallen with such regularity that the portions of almost every column lie on the ground as they have fallen; and it is not only easy to restore the plan and design of the two edifices, but it appears as if they could be rebuilt with little difficulty. These temples, though greatly inferior to their gigantic neighbour, were still larger than that at Segesta, and even exceed the great temple of Neptune at Paestum; so that the three, when standing, must have presented a spectacle unrivalled in antiquity. All these buildings may be safely referred to a period anterior to H M. Remains of edifices outside the walls. the Carthaginian conquest (B. c. 409), though the three temples last described appear to have been all of them of later date than those within the walls of the city. This is proved, among other circumstances, by the sculptured metopes, several of which have been discovered and extricated from among the fallen fragments. Of these sculptures, those which belonged to the temples within the walls, present a very peculiar and archaic style of art, and are universally recognised as among the earliest extant specimens of Greek sculpture. (They are figured by Müller, Denkmäler, pl. 4, 5, as well as in many other works, and casts of them are in the British Museum.) Those, on the contrary, which have been found among the ruins of the temple marked E. on the opposite hill, are of a later and more advanced style, though still retaining considerable remains of the stiffness of the earliest art. Besides the interest attached to these Selinuntine metopes from their important bearing on the history of Greek sculpture, the remains of these temples are of value as affording the most unequivocal testimony to the use of painting, both for the architectural decoration of the temples, and as applied to the sculptures with which they were adorned. A very full and detailed account of the ruins at Selinus is given in the Duke of Serra di Falco's Antichità Siciliane, vol. ii., from which the preceding plan is derived. A more general description of them will be found in Swinburne's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 242-245; Smyth's Sicily, pp. 219221; and other works on Sicily in general. The coins of Selinus are numerous and various. The earliest, as already mentioned, bear merely the figure of a parsley-leaf on the obverse. Those of somewhat later date (including the one figured below) represent a figure sacrificing on an altar, which is consecrated to Aesculapius, as indicated by the cock which stands below it. The subject of this type evidently refers to a story related by Diogenes Laertius (viii. 2. § 11) that the Selinuntines were afflicted with a pestilence from the marshy character of the lands adjoining the neighbouring river, but that this was cured by works of drainage, suggested by Empedocles. The figure standing on the coin is the river-god Selinus, which was thus made conducive to the salubrity of the city. [E. H. B.] COIN OF SELINUS SELI'NUS (Avous: Eth. ZeλivoÚVTIOS or ZeAvovoios: Selenti), a port-town on the west coast of Cilicia, at the mouth of a small river of the same name, which is now called Selenti. (Scylax, p. 40; Liv. xxxiii. 20; Strab. xiv. p. 682; Ptol. v. 8. § 2, viii. 17. § 42; Plin. v. 22.) This town is memorable in history as the place where, in A. D. 117, the emperor Trajan is said by some authors to have died (Dion Cass. lxviii. 33). After this event the place for a time bore the name of Trajanopolis; but its bishops afterwards are called bishops of Selinus. (Hierocl. p. 709.) Basil of Seleucia (Vita S. Theclae, ii. 17) describes the place as reduced to a state of insignificance in his time, though it had once been a great commercial town. (Comp. Stadiasm. Mar. Mag. §§ 203, 204; Lucan, viii. 260; Chron. Paschale, p. 253.) Selinus was situated on a precipitous rock, surrounded on almost every side by the sea, by which position it was rendered almost impregnable. The whole of the rock, however, was not included in the ancient line of fortifications; inside the walls there still are many traces of houses, but on the outside, and between the foot of the hill and the river, the remains of some large buildings are yet standing, which appear to be a mausoleum, an agora, a theatre, an aqueduct, and some tombs (Beaufort, Karamania, p. 186, foll.) Krevatá is a small plain, the only one in the valley of the Oenus, about ten minutes in width and a quarter of an hour in length, at the end of which the rocks again approach so close as barely to leave room for the passage of the river. The mountain, which bounds this plain on the east, is Olympus, a continuation of the mountain of Vresthéna: it rises very steep on the left bank of the Oenus. The mountain on the western side is Evas, now Turlaes, which, though not so steep, is still inaccessible to cavalry. Towards the north the plain is shut in by a mountain, over which the road leads to Tegea, and towards the south by a still higher mountain. The Oenus, which flows near the eastern edge of the plain, can be crossed at any point without difficulty. It receives on its right side a small brook, the Gorgylus, which descends from a ravine on the northern side of Mt. Evas. On the summit of the hill, more than 2800 feet above the sea, which shuts in the plain on the south, and over which the road leads to Sparta, are the ruins of Sellasia, described below. The battle of Sellasia, of which Polybius gives a detailed account, requires a few words of explanation. In B. C. 221, Cleomenes, the Spartan king, expecting that Antigonus, the Macedonian king, and the Achaeans, would invade Laconia, fortified the other passes which led into the country, and took up his own position with the main body of his forces in the plain of Sellasia, since the roads to Sparta from Argos and Tegea united at this point. His army amounted to 20,000 men, and consisted of Lacedaemonians, Perioeci, allies, and mercenaries. His left wing, containing the Perioeci and allies, was stationed on Mt. Evas under the command of his brother Eucleidas; his right wing, consisting of the Lacedaemonians and mercenaries, encamped upon Mt. Olympus under his own command; while his cavalry and a part of the mercenaries occupied the small plain between the hills. The whole line was protected by a ditch and a palisade. Antigonus marched into Laconia from Argos with an army of 30,000 men, but found Cleomenes so strongly intrenched in this position, that he did not venture to attack him, but encamped behind the small stream Gorgylus. At length, after several days' hesitation, both sides determined to join battle. Antigonus placed 5000 Macedonian peltasts, with the greater part of his auxiliary troops, on his right wing to oppose Eucleidas; his cavalry with 1000 Achaeans and the same number of Megalopolitans in the small plain; while he himself with the Macedonian phalanx and 3000 mercenaries occupied the left wing, in order to attack Cleomenes and the Lacedaemonians on Mt. Olympus. The battle began on the side of Mt. Evas. Eucleidas committed the error of awaiting the attack of the enemy upon the brow of the hill, instead of availing himself of his superior position to charge down upon them; but while they were climbing the hill they were attacked upon the rear by some light troops of Cleomenes, who were stationed in the centre with the Lacedaemonian cavalry. At this critical moment, Philopoemen, who was in the centre with the Megalopolitan horse, diverted the attack of the light infantry by charging without orders the Lacedaemonian centre. The right wing of the Macedonians then renewed their attack, defeated the left wing of the Lacedaemonians, and drove them over the steep precipices on the opposite side of Mt. Evas. Cleomenes, perceiving that the Respecting the small river Selinus, flowing by Pergamum, see PERGAMUM, p. 575. [L. S.] SELLA'SIA (Zeλλaría, Xen. Polyb. Diod.; ZeAaría, Steph. B., Hesych. s. v.; the latter is perhaps the correct form, and may come from σéλas; the name is connected by Hesychius with Artemis Selasia: Eth. ZeMaσieús, Zeλaσievs), a town of Laconia, situated in the valley of the Oenus, on the road leading from Tegea and Argos, and one of the bulwarks of Sparta against an invading army. Its distance from Sparta is nowhere mentioned; but from the description which Polybius gives of the celebrated battle fought in its neighLourhood between Antigonus and Cleomenes, it is probable that the plain of Krevatá was the site of the battle. We learn from Polybius that this battle took place in a narrow opening of the vale of the Oenus, between two hills named Evas and Olympus, and that the river Gorgylus flowed across of the Macedonians opposed to him, led his men out, few horsemen to Sparta, and from thence proceeded of the intrenchments and charged the Macedonian phalanx. The Lacedaemonians fought with great bravery; but after many vain attempts to break through the impenetrable mass of the phalanx, they were entirely defeated, and of 6000 men only 200 are said to have escaped from the field of battle. Cleomenes, perceiving all was lost, escaped with a to Gythium, where he embarked for Aegypt. Antigonus, thus master of the passes, marched directly to Sellasia, which he plundered and destroyed, and then to Sparta, which submitted to him after a slight resistance. (Polyb. ii. 65-70; Plut. Cleom. 27, 28, Philop. 6; Paus. ii. 9. § 2, iii. 10. § 7, iv. 29. § 9, vii. 7. § 4, viii. 49. § 5.) situated on the high road from Sparta to Teges and Argos, which must have led through the plain of Krevatá. (raτà Thy λewpopov, Paus. iii. 10. §7; Plut. Cleom. 23; Xen. Hell. vi. 5. § 27; Diod. xv. 64; Liv. xxxiv. 28.) On leaving the plain of Krevatá, the road southwards ascends the mountain, and at the distance of a quarter of an hour leaves a small ruin on the left, called by the peasants Palaeogúla ( Пaλαшyoûλa). The remains of the walls are Hellenic, but they are In the preceding account of the battle we have | followed the excellent description of Ross. (Reisen im Peloponnes, p. 181.) The French Commission had previously supposed the plain of Krevatá to be the site of the battle of Sellasia (Boblaye, Recherches, fc. p. 73); and the same opinion has been adopted by Curtius. (Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p, 260.) Leake, however, places Sellasia to the SE., near the monastery of the Forty Saints ("Ayio Zapávтa), and supposes the battle to have been fought in the pass to the eastward of the monastery. The ruins of very small extent, and the place was probably near the Khan of Krevatá he maintains to be those of Caryae. (Leake, Morea, vol. ii. p. 529, Peloponnesiaca, p. 341, seq.) But Ross informs us that in the narrow pass NE. of the monastery of the Forty Saints there is barely room for a loaded mule to pass; and we know moreover that Sellasia was either a dependency of Sellasia or one to which the inhabitants of the latter fled for refuge at one of the periods when their city was destroyed. The ruins of Sellasia lie 1 miles beyond Palaeogúla upon the summit of the mountain. The city was about 1 miles in circumference, as appears from the foundations of the walls. The latter were from 10 to 11 feet thick, and consist of irregular but very small stones. The northern and smaller half of the city was separated by a wall from the southern half, which was on lower ground. From its position Sellasia was always exposed to the attacks of an invading army. On the first invasion of Laconia by the Thebans in B. c. 369, Sellasia was plundered and burnt (Xen. Hell. vi. 5. § 27); and because the inhabitants at that time, together with several others of the Perioeci, went over to the enemy, the town was again taken and destroyed four years later by the Lacedaemonians themselves, assisted by some auxiliaries sent by the younger Dionysius. (Xen. Hell. vii. 4. § 12.) It suffered the same fate a third time after the defeat of Cleomenes, as has been already related. It appears to have been never rebuilt, and was in ruins in the time of Pausanias (iii. 10. § 7). SELLETS (Σελλήεις). 1. A river in Elis, mentioned by Homer, upon which Ephyra stood. [EPHYRA, NO. 2.] 2. A river in Sicyonia, upon which Strabo also places a town Ephyra. [EPHYRA, No. 3.] SELLETAE (Plin. iv. 11. s. 18, init.), a people of Thrace, whose country was called SELLETICA (ZEλANTIKŃ, Ptol. iii. 11. § 8). It was north of the Haemus, between that range of mountains and the Panysus. [J. R.] SELLE TICA. [SELLETAE.] SELLI or HELLI, an ancient tribe in Epeirus, in whose country, called Hellopia, the oracle of Dodona was situated. [DODONA, p. 782, a.] SEʼLLIUM (Zéλtov, Ptol. ii. 5. § 7), a place in Lusitania, lying N. of Scalabis (Itin. Ant. p. 421). Identified with Ceice or Seijo. [T. H.D.] SELLUS, according to Avienus (Ora Marit. 507) a high mountain in Hispania Tarraconensis, on which the city of Lebedontia once stood. Ukert (ii. pt. i. p. 484) identifies it with C.Salon. [T.H. D.] SELY'MBRIA (Σnλvɛpín, Herod. vi. 33; Enλu6pía, Xen. Anab. vii. 2. § 15, &c.; Strab. vii. p.319; Ptol. iii. 11. § 6; Enλvuspía, Dem. de Rhod. lib. p. 198, Reiske), a Thracian town on the Propontis, 22 miles east from Perinthus, and 44 miles west from Constantinople (Itin. Hier. p. 570, where it is called Salamembria), near the southern end of the wall, built by Anastasius Dicorus for the protection of his capital. (Procop. de Aed. iv. 9; see SCYLLAE). According to Strabo (1. c.), its name signifies the town of Selys;" from which it has been inferred that Selys was the name of its founder, or of the leader of the colony from Megara, which founded it at an earlier period than the establishment of Byzantium, another colony of the same Grecian state. (Scymn. 714.) In honour of Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor Arcadius, its name was changed to Eudoxiupolis (Hierocl. p. 632), which it bore for a considerable time; but its modern name, Silivri, shows that it subsequently resumed its original designation. Respecting the history of Selymbria, only detached and fragmentary notices occur in the Greek writers. In Latin authors, it is merely named (Mela, ii. 2. § 6; Plin. iv. 11. s. 18, xxix. 1. s. 1; in the latter passage it is said to have been the birthplace of Prodicus, a disciple of Hippocrates). It was here that Xenophon met Medosades, the envoy of Seuthes (Anab. vii. 2. § 28), whose forces afterwards encamped in its neighbourhood (Ib. 5. § 15). When Alcibiades was commanding for the Athenians in SÉMACHIDAE. [ATTICA, p. 330, b.] SEMANA SILVA (Σημανὰ or Σημανούς ὕλη), one of the mountain forests of ancient Germany, on the south of Mons Melibocus (Ptol. ii. 1. § 7), is perhaps only a part of the Harz mountain or of the Thüringer Wald. (Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 8; Wilhelm, Germanien, p. 38, &c.) [L. S.] SEMANTHINI (Enuavivoí, Ptol. vii. 3. § 4), a people dwelling in the land of the Sinae E. of the Semanthini mountains, which derived their name from them. [T. H. D.] SEMANTHINI MONTES (τὸ Σημανθινὸν ὄρος, Ptol. vii. 2. § 8), a mountain chain in the country of the Sinae (China), which, according to Ptolemy, extended from the sources of the Aspithra in a NW. direction as far as those of the Serus. It is probably the chain which separates the Chinese province of Yunnan from the districts of Mien and Laotschua. [T. H. D.] SEMBRITAE (Zeuspiral, Strab. xvi. pp. 770 |—786; SEMBERRITAE, Plin. vi. 30. s. 35), a people inhabiting the district of Tenesis in Aethiopia, although they seem to have been of Aegyptian origin. The first mention of the Sembritae occurs in Eratosthenes (ap. Strab. xvii. p. 786), who says that they occupied an island above Meroë; that their name implies "immigrants;" that they descended from the Aegyptian war-caste, who, in the reign of Psammitichus (B. c. 658), abandoned their native land; and that they were governed by a queen, although they were also dependent on the sovereigns of Meroë. Artemidorus, also quoted by Strabo (xvi. p. 770), says on the contrary, that they were the ruling order in Meroë: these accounts, however, may be reconciled by the supposition that Eratosthenes and Artemidorus described them at different periods. If the Sembritae were the Aegyptian refugees, they were also the Automoloi ('Aouax) noticed by Herodotus (ii. 30). Pliny (l. c.) speaks of four islands of the Sembritae, each containing one or more towns. These were therefore not islands in the Nile, or in any of its principal tributaries, the Astapus, or Astaboras, but tracts between rivers, mesopotamian districts like Meroë itself, which in the language of Nubia are still denominated "islands." The capital of the Sembritae was, according to Pliny, Sembobis. It stood on the left bank of the river, 20 days' journey above Meroë. Pliny names also, among other of their principal towns, Sai in Arabia,—i. e. on the right bank of the Nile, for he assumes that river as the boundary between Lybia and Arabia, Esar or |