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of Hadjar-selseleh. The more magnificent of the two stands upon the top of a sandy hill, and appears to have been a species of Pantheon, since, according to extant inscriptions, it was dedicated to Aroeres (Apollo) and the other deities of the Ombite nome by the soldiers quartered there. The smaller temple to the NW. was sacred to Isis. Both, indeed, are of an imposing architecture, and still retain the brilliant colours with which their builders adorned them. They are, however, of the Ptolemaic age, with the exception of a doorway of sandstone, built into a wall of brick. This was part of a temple built by Thothmes III. in honour of the crocodileheaded god Sevak. The monarch is represented on the door-jambs, holding the measuring reed and chisel, the emblems of construction, and in the act of dedicating the temple. The Ptolemaic portions of the larger temple present an exception to an almost universal rule in Aegyptian architecture. It has no propylon or dromos in front of it, and the portico has an uneven number of columns, in all fifteen, arranged in a triple row. Of these columns thirteen are still erect. As there are two principal entrances, the temple would seem to be two united in one, strengthening the supposition that it was the Pantheon of the Ombite nome. On a cornice above the doorway of one of the adyta is a Greek inscription, recording the erection, or perhaps the restoration of the sekos by Ptolemy Philometor and his sister-wife Cleopatra, B. c. 180-145. The hill on which the Ombite temples stand has been considerably excavated at its base by the river, which here strongly inclines to the Arabian bank.

The crocodile was held in especial honour by the people of Ombi; and in the adjacent catacombs are occasionally found mummies of the sacred animal. Juvenal, in his 15th satire, has given a lively description of a fight, of which he was an eye-witness, between the Ombitae and the inhabitants of Tentyra, who were hunters of the crocodile. On this occasion the men of Ombi had the worst of it; and one of their number, having stumbled in his flight, was caught and eaten by the Tentyrites. The satirist, however, has represented Ombi as nearer to Tentyra than it actually is, these towns, in fact, being nearly 100 miles from each other. The Roman coins of the Ombite nome exhibit the crocodile and the effigy of the crocodile-headed god Sevak.

The modern hamlet of Koum-Ombos, or the hill of Ombos, covers part of the site of the ancient Ombi. The ruins have excited the attention of many distinguished modern travellers. Descriptions of them will be found in the following works:Pococke, Travels, vol. iv. p. 186; Hamilton, Aegyptiaca, p. 34; Champollion, Egypte, vol. i. p. 167; Denon, Description de l'Egypte, vol. i. ch. 4, p. 1, foll.; Burckhardt, Nubia, 4to. p. 106; Belzoni, Travels, vol. ii. p. 314. On the opposite side of the Nile was a suburb of Ombi, called Contra-Ombos. [W.B.D.]

OMBRIOS INS. [FORTUNATAE INS.] OMBRO'NES ("Ou6pwves, Ptol. iii. 5. § 21), a people of European Sarmatia, whose seat appears to have been on the flanks of the Carpathians, about the sources of the Vistula. Schafarik (Slav. Alt. vol. i. pp. 389-391, 407) considers them to be a Celtic people, grounding his arguments mainly upon the identity of their name with that of the Celtic as he considers them to be-Umbrians, or the most ancient inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. Recent inquiry has thrown considerable doubt upon the derivation of the Umbrians from a Gaulish |

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stock. [ITALIA, Vol. II. p. 86, b.] This is one proof, among others, of the futility of the use of names of nations in historical investigations; but, as there can be no doubt that there were Gallic settlements beyond the Carpathians, names of these foreign hordes might still linger in the countries they had once occupied long after their return westward in consequence of the movement of nations from the East. [E. B. J.]

OMENO'GARA (Oμevóyapa), a town in the district of Ariaca, in the division of India intra Gangem. There is no reason to doubt that it is the present Ahmed-nagar, celebrated for its rock fortress. (Ptol. vii. 1. § 82; comp. Pott. Etym. Forsch. p. 78.) [V.]

OMIRAS. [EUPHRATES.]

OMPHA'LIUM ('Oupáλiov), a plain in Crete, so named from the legend of the birth of the babe Zeus from Rhea. The scene of the incident is laid near Thenae, Cnossus, and the river Triton. (Callim. Hymn. ad Jov. 45; Diod. v. 70; Schol. ad Nicand. Alexipharm. 7; Steph. B. s. v.; Höck, Kreta, vol. i. pp. 11, 404; Pashley, Trav. vol. i. p. 224.) [E. B. J.]

OMPHA'LIUM COμpáλiov), one of the inland cities of the Chaones in Epeirus. (Ptol. iii. 14. § 7.) Stephanus B. (s. v.) erroneously calls it a city of Thessaly. Leake places it at Premedi, in the valley of the Viósa (the Aous). (Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 120.)

ON. [HELIOPOLIS.] ONCAE. [THEBAE.]

ONCEIUM (*Оукeιov), a place in Arcadia upon the river Ladon, near Thelpusa, and containing a temple of Demeter Erinnys. (Paus. viii. 25. § 4; Steph. B. s. r.) The Ladon, after leaving this temple, passed that of Apollo Oncaeates on the left, and that of the boy Asclepius on the right. (Paus. viii. 25. § 11.) The name is derived by Pausanias from Oncus, a son of Apollo, who reigned at this place. Leake supposes that Tumbiki, the only remarkable site on the right bank of the Ladon between Thelpusa and the Tuthoa, is the site of the temple of Asclepius. (Morea, vol. ii. p. 103.) Other writers mention a small town ONCAE ("Оукαi) in Arcadia, which is probably the same as Onceium. (Tzetzes, ad Lycophr. 1225; Etym. M. p. 613; Phavorin. s. v.)

ONCHESMUS (Oуêпσμоs), a port-town of Chaonia in Epeirus, opposite the north-western point of Corcyra, and the next port upon the coast to the south of Panormus. (Strab. vii. p. 324; Ptol. iii. 14. § 2.) It seems to have been a place of importance in the time of Cicero, and one of the ordinary points of departure from Epeirus to Italy, as Cicero calls the wind favourable for making that passage an Onchesmites. (Cic. ad Att. vii. 2.) According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. i. 51) the real name of the place was the Port of Anchises ('Ayxiσov Xiuhv), named after Anchises, the father of Aeneas; and it was probably owing to this tradition that the name Onchesmus assumed the form of Anchiasmus under the Byzantine emperors. Its site is that of the place now called the Forty Saints. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 11.)

ONCHESTUS. 1. (Ογχηστός: Eth. Ογχησ TIOs), an ancient town of Boeotia in the territory of Haliartus, said to have been founded by Onchestus, a son of Poseidon. (Paus. ix. 26. § 5; Steph. B. 8. v.) It possessed a celebrated temple and grove of Poseidon, which is mentioned by Homer ('Oyχηστόν θ', ἱερὸν Ποσιδήϊον, ἀγλαὸν ἄλσος, Ι.

ii. 506), and subsequent poets. (Pind. Isthm. i. 44, | D'Anville (Notice, fc.) ingeniously supposes that iv. 32; Lycophr. 645.) Here an Amphictyonic Onobrisates ought to be Onobusates, which is the council of the Boeotians used to assemble. (Strab. least possible correction; and he thinks that he disix. p. 412.) Pausanias (1. c.) says that Onchestus covers the old name in the modern Nébousan, the was 15 stadia from the mountain of the Sphinx, name of a canton on the left side of the Neste tothe modern Fagá; and its position is still more ac- wards the lower part of its course. The Neste is curately defined by Strabo (l. c.). The latter one of the branches of the Garonne, and rises in writer, who censures Alcaeus for placing Onchestus the Pyrenees. [G. L.] at the foot of Mt. Helicon, says that it was in the ONOCHO'NUS. [ONCHESTUS, No. 2.] Haliartia, on a naked hill near the Teneric plain and ONUGNATHUS (Ovov yvábos), "the jaw of an the Copaic lake. He further maintains that the ass," the name of a peninsula and promontory in the grove of Poseidon existed only in the imagination of south of Laconia, distant 200 stadia south of Asothe poets; but Pausanias, who visited the place, pus. It is now entirely surrounded with water, and mentions the grove as still existing. The site of is called Elafonisi; but it is in reality a peninsula, Onchestus is probably marked by the Hellenic re- for the isthmus, by which it is connected with the mains situated upon the low ridge which separates mainland, is only barely covered with water. It the two great Boeotian basins, those of lake Copais contains a harbour, which Strabo mentions; and and of Thebes, and which connects Mount Fagá Pausanias saw a temple of Athena in ruins, and the with the roots of Helicon. (Leake, Northern sepulchre of Cinadus, the steersman of Menelaus. Greece, vol. ii. p. 213, seq.; Gell, Itiner. p. 125.) (Paus. iii. 22. § 10, iii. 23. § 1; Strab. viii. pp. 363, 2. A river of Thessaly, flowing near Scotussa, 364; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. ii. p. 295.) through the battle-field of Cynoscephalae into the lake Boebeis. It was probably the river at the sources of which Dederianí stands, but which bears no modern name. (Liv. xxxiii. 6; Polyb. xviii. 3; Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 473.) It is perhaps the same river as the ONOCHONUS (Ovoxwvos, Herod. vii. 129; Plin. iv. 8. s. 15), whose waters were exhausted by the army of Xerxes. It is true that Herodotus describes this river as flowing into the Peneius; but in this he was probably mistaken, as its course must have been into the lake Boebeis. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 514.)

ONEIA. [CORINTHUS, Vol. I. p. 674.] ONEUM (Ovaîov, Ptol. ii. 16. § 4; Peut. Tab.; Geog. Rav.), a town of Dalmatia, which has been identified with Almissa, at the mouth of the Cettina. (Neigebaur, Die Sud-Slaven, p. 25.) [E. B. J.]

ONINGIS. [AURINX.]

ONI'SIA, an island near Crete, on the E. side of the promontory Itanus. (Plin. iv. 12. s. 20.)

NOBA AESTUARIA (Ονοβα Αἰστονάρια, Ptol. ii. 4. § 5), called also simply ONOBA (Strab. iii. p. 143; Mela, iii. 1. § 5). 1. A maritime town of the Turdetani in Hispania Baetica, between the rivers Anas and Baetis. It was seated on the estuary of the river Luxia, and on the road from the mouth of the Anas to Augusta Emerita. (Itin. Ant. p. 431.) It is commonly identified with Huelva, where there are still some Roman remains, especially of an aqueduct; the vestiges of which, however, are fast disappearing, owing to its being used as a quarry by the boorish agriculturists of the neighbourhood. (Murray's Handbook of Spain, p. 170.) Near it lay Herculis Insula, mentioned by Strabo (iii. p. 170), called 'Hрákλeia by Steph. B. (8. v.), now Saltes. Onoba had a mint; and many coins have been found there bearing the name of the town, with a slight alteration in the spelling,Onuba. (Florez. Med. ii. pp. 510, 649; Mionnet, i. p. 23, Suppl. p. 39; Sestini, Med. Isp. p. 75, ap. Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 340.)

2. Another town of Baetica, near Corduba. (Plin. iii. 1. s. 3.) In an inscription in Gruter (p. 1040. 5) it is called Conoba. Ukert (vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 366) places it near Villa del Carpio. [T. H.D.]

ONOBALAS. [ACESINES, No. 1.] ONOBRISATES, a people of Aquitania, as the name stands in the common texts of Pliny (iv. 19); who has "Onobrisates, Belendi, Saltus Pyrenaeus."

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ONU'PHIS (Ovovpis, Herod. ii. 166; Steph. B. s. v.; Ptol. iv. 5. § 51; Plin. v. 9. s. 9: Eth. 'Ovovpirns), was the chief town of the Nomos Onuphites, in the Aegyptian Delta. The exact position of this place is disputed by geographers. D'Anville believes it to have been on the site of the modern Banoub, on the western bank of the Sebennytic arm of the Nile. Mannert (vol. x. pt. i, p. 573) places it south of the modern Mansour. Belley (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tom. xxviii. p. 543) identifies it with the present village of Nouph, in the centre of the Delta, a little to the E. of Buto, about lat. 31° N. Champollion, however, regards the site of this nome as altogether uncertain (l'Egypte sous les Pharaohs, vol. ii. p. 227). The Onuphite nome was one of those assigned to the Calasirian division of the native Aegyptian army. Coins of Onuphis of the age of Hadrian- -obverse a laureated head of that emperor, reverse a female figure, probably Isis, with extended right hand- -are described in Rasche (Lex. R. Num. III. pars posterior, s. v.). This town is mentioned by ecclesiastical writers, e. g. by Athanasius. (Athanas. Opera, tom. i. pt. ii. p. 776, ed. Paris, 1698; Le Quien, Oriens Christian. tom. ii. p. 526, Paris, 1740; comp. Pococke, Travels in the East, fol. vol. i. p. 423.) [W.B.D.] OONAE. [OAEONES.]

OPHARUS, a small river of Sarmatia Asiatica, mentioned by Pliny (vi. 7. s. 7) as a tributary of the Lagous, which flowed into the Palus Maeotis. Herodotus mentions two streams, which he calls the Lycus and Oarus, which had the same course and direction (iv. 123, 124). It is likely that the rivers in Pliny and Herodotus are the same. It is not possible now to identify them with accuracy. [V.]

OPHEL. [JERUSALEM, p. 20, b.]

OPHIO'DES ('Opions, Strab. xvi. p. 770; Diod. iii. 39; Agatharch, ap. Hudson, Geog Graec. Min. p. 54), or Serpent-isle, was an island in the Red Sea, in Foul Bay, nearly opposite the mouth of the harbour of Berenice; lat 24° N. The topazes produced in this island were greatly prized both in the Arabian and Aegyptian markets; and it seems from Pliny (v. 29. s. 34) to have been by some denominated Topaz-isle (Topazos). The cause of its more usual name is doubtful; but there has always been a tradition in the East that serpents and precious stones are found near one another. The island of Agathon, i. e. the good genius ('Ayálwvos

voos, Ptol. iv. 5. § 77) was probably the same with Ophiodes, and answers to the present Zamargat. The isle of Karnaka, opposite the headland of Ras-el-Anf, is, indeed, by some geographers supposed to be the true Ophiodes Insula. (Castro, Hist. Gen. des Voyages, vol. i. p. 205.) [W.B.D.] OPHIONENSES or OPHIENSES. [AETOLIA, p. 65, a.]

Sophara, which is used in the Septuagint with
several other forms for the Ophir of Solomon's and
Hiram's fleet Ptolemy, it has been seen, has a
Saphara in Arabia and a Soupara in India. The
significant Sanscrit names of the mother-country
had been repeated or reflected on neighbouring or
opposite coasts, as in the present day occurs in many
instances in the English and Spanish Americas.
The range of the trade to Ophir might thus be
extended over a wide space, just as a Phoenician
voyage to Tartessus might include touching at Cy-
rene and Carthage, Gadeira and Cerne. (Humboldt,
Cosmos, vol. ii. pp. 132, 133, notes 179-182,
trans.)
[E.B J.]

OPHIE (Οὐφέρ; Οὐφείρ; Σουφίρ; Σουφείρ; Σωφίρ ; Σωφερά ; Σωφαρά ; Σωφηρά ; Σαπφείρ; 'Orpeip; 'peip, LXX.; Joseph. Ant. viii. 6. § 4), a district, the name of which first occurs in the ethnographic table of Genesis, x. 29. Solomon caused a fleet to be built in the Edomite ports of the Red Sea, and Hiram supplied him with Phoe- OPHIS ("Opis), a river of Pontus, the mouth of nician mariners well acquainted with navigation, which was 90 stadia to the east of port Hyssus, and and also Tyrian vessels, "ships of Tarshish." which separated Colchis from the country of the (1 Kings, ix. 28; 2 Chron. viii. 18.) The articles Thianni. (Arrian, Peripl. Pont. Eux. p. 6; Anoof merchandise which were brought back once innym. Peripl. p. 14, where it is called 'Opious.) three years from Ophir were gold, silver, red sandalwood ("almuggim,” 1 Kings, x. 11; "algummim," 2 Chron. ix. 10), precious stones, ivory, apes, ("kophim"), and peacocks (" thŭkyim," 1 Kings, x. 22; "thukyim," 1 Chron. ix. 21). The gold of Ophir was considered to be of the most precious quality. (Job, xx. 11, 24, xxviii. 16; Ps. xlv. 9; Isa. xiii. 12; Eccles. vii. 18). In Jer. x. 9, "the gold from Uphaz," and in Dan. x. 5, “ the fine gold of Uphaz," is, by a slight change of pronunciation, the same as that of Ophir.

Many elaborate treatises have been written upon the details of these voyages. The researches of Gesenius (Thesaur. Linguae Hebr. vol. i. p. 141; and in Ersch und Grüber's Encycl. art. Ophir), Benfey (Indien, pp. 30-32) and Lassen (Ind. Alt. vol. i. pp. 537-539) have made it extremely probable that the W. shores of the Indian peninsula were visited by the Phoenicians, who, by their colonies in the Persian Gulf, and by their intercourse with the Gerrhaei, were early acquainted with the periodically blowing monsoons. In favour of this Indian hypothesis is the remarkable circumstance that the names by which the articles of merchandise are designated are not Hebrew but Sanscrit. The peacock, too, is an exclusively Indian bird; although from their gradual extension to the W. they were often called by the Greeks "Median and Persian birds;" the Samians even supposed them to have originally belonged to Samos, as the bird was reared at first in the sanctuary dedicated to Hera in that island. Silks, also, which are first mentioned in Proverbs, xxxi. 22, could alone have been brought from India. Quatremère (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inser. vol. xv. pt. ii. 1845, pp. 349-402) agrees with Heeren (Researches, vol. ii. pp. 73, 74, trans.), who places Ophir on the E. coast of Africa, and explains "thukyim" to mean not peacocks, but parrots or guinea-fowls. Ptolemy (vi. 7. § 41) speaks of a SAPHARA (Zárpapa) as a metropolis of Arabia, and again of a SOUPARA (Zovnáρa, vii. 1. § 6) in India, on the Barygazenus Sinus, or Gulf of Cambay, a name which in Sanscrit signifies "fair-shore." (Lassen, Dissert. de Taprobane Ins. p. 18; comp. Ind. Alt. vol. i. p. 537.) Sofala, on the E. coast of Africa, opposite to the island of Madagascar (London Geog. Journ. vol. iii. p. 207), is described by Edrisi (ed. Jaubert, vol. i. p. 67) as a country rich in gold, and subsequently by the Portuguese, after Gama's voyage of discovery. The letters and so frequently interchanged make the name of the African Sofala equivalent for that of

[L. S.]

This river still bears the name of Of.
OPHIS. [MANTINEIA.]
OPHIUSA INS. [PITYUSAE.]
OPHIUSA, OPHIÚSSA. 1. [TYRAS.]

2. An island off the coast of Crete (Plin. iv. 20), which is probably represented by Gavdapoulo or Anti-Gozzo, unless it be the same as the OXEIA INS. ('Oceîa, Stadiasm. 321), which the anonymous Coast-describer places near Leben. [E. B. J.]

OPHIUSSA ('Opioûσσa), a small island in the Propontis, off the coast of Mysia, is mentioned only by Pliny (iv. 44) and Stephanus B. (s. v. Béσbikos, where it is called 'Opióeσσa); it still bears its ancient name under the corrupt form of Afzia. (Pococke, Travels, iii. p. 167.) [L. S.]

OPHLIMUS ("Opλuos), a branch of Mount Paryadres in the north-west of Pontus, enclosing with Mount Lithrus, the extensive and fertile district called Phanaroea. (Strab. xii. p. 556.) According to Hamilton (Researches, i. p. 439), it now bears the name of Kemer Dagh and Oktax Dagh. [L. S.]

OPHRADUS, a river mentioned by Pliny (vi. 25. s. 23) as belonging to the province of Drangiana. Forbiger conjectures that it may be a tributary of the Erymandrus (Ilmend), now called the Khash Rúd. [V.]

OPHRAH, a city of Benjamin, written 'Eppalà by the LXX. (Joshua, xviii. 23) and Topepà (1 Sam. xiii. 17). It is placed by Eusebius and S. Jerome v. M. P. east of Bethel. (Onomast. s. v. Aphra.) Dr. Robinson says that this accords well with the position of Et-Taiyibeh, a village of Greek Christians, on a conical hill on a high ridge of land, which would probably not have been left unoccupied in ancient times. (Bib. Res. vol. ii. pp. 123-125.)

2. Ophrah of the Abiezrites ('Epрalà Taтрds Toû 'Eodpí, LXX.; Judges, vi. 11, 24, viii. 27; in ver. 32. 'A6l 'Eodpí), a town in the half-tribe of Manasseh, west of Jordan, the native place of Gideon, where also he was buried. [G. W.]

OPHRY'NIUM ('Oppúveiov), a small town in the north of Troas, near lake Pteleos, and between Dardanus and Rhoeteum, with a grave sacred to Ajax. (Herod. vii. 43; Xenoph. Anab. vii. 8. § 5, where it is called 'Oppúviov; Strab. xiii. p. 595.) It is probably the modern Fren-Kevi. (Comp. Rasche, Lexic. Rei Num. iii. 2. p. 136.) [L. S.]

OPICI. [OSCI.]

OPIS COris, Herod. i. 189), a city of Babylonia, mentioned first by Herodotus, who simply states that

of Pontus, probably on or near the mouth of the river Ophis. (Ptol. v. 6. § 6; Tab. Peuting.) It is placed 120 stadia west of the river Rhizius, although its name seems to indicate that it was situated further west, near the river Ophis. [L. S.]

the river Tigris flowed by it. Xenophon, in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, speaks of it as a large city situated upon the Physcus (now Adhem), and apparently at some distance from its junction with the Tigris. Arrian, describing the return of Alexander from the East, states that he sailed up the Tigris to ΟΡΟΝΕ (Οπώνη; Οπώνη ἐμπόριον, Ptol. iv. 7. Opis, destroying on his way the dams which (it was § 11; Peripl. Mar. Erythr. p. 9), the modern Hasaid) the Persians had placed across the river to foon or Afun, was a town situated upon the eastern prevent any naval force ascending the stream. At coast of Africa, immediately N. of the region called Opis he is said to have held a great assembly of all Azania (Khazúyin), lat. 9° N. The author of the his troops, and to have sent home those who were Periplus, in his account of this coast, says that no longer fit to serve. (Anab. vii. 7.) Strabo speaks Opone stood at the commencement of the highland of it as in his time a small village, but places it, like called by the ancients Mount Elephas. Herodotus and Arrian, upon the Tigris (ii. p. 80, further defines its position by adding that since xi. p. 529, xvi. p. 739). Captain Lynch, in his there was only an open roadstead at the Aromatum account of the Tigris between Baghdad and Sámar- Emporium-the cape Guardafui or Jerdaffoon of rah, considers that some extensive ruins he met with modern charts-ships in bad weather ran down to near the angle formed by the Adhem and Tigris, Tabae for shelter,-the promontory now known as and the remains of the Nahr-awán canal, mark Ras Bannah, where stood the town called by Ptolemy the site of Opis. But the change in the course of (i. 17. § 8, iv. 7. § 11) Пavŵv kúμŋ, the Bannah the Tigris there observable has led to the de- of the Arabians. From thence a voyage of 400 struction of great part of the ancient city. (Lynch, stadia round a sharply projecting peninsula termiGeogr. Journ. ix. p. 472; comp. Rawlinson, Geogr. nated at the emporium of Opone. Here ended to Journ. x. p. 95.) S. the Regio Aromata of the ancients.

[V.]

OPITE'RGIUM ('Oriтépylov: Eth. Opiterginus: Oderzo), a city of Venetia, situated about 24 miles from the sea, midway between the rivers Plavis (Piave) and Liquentia (Livenza), on a small stream (now called the Fratta) flowing into the latter. No mention of it is found before the Roman conquest of Venetia ; but it appears to have under their rule become a considerable municipal town, and is mentioned by Strabo as a flourishing place, though not a city of the first class. (Strab. v. p. 214.) In the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey a body of troops furnished by the Opitergini is mentioned as displaying the most heroic valour, and offering a memorable example of self-devotion, in a naval combat between the fleets of the two parties. (Liv. Ep. cx.; Flor. iv. 2. § 33; Lucan, iv. 462-571.) Tacitus also notices it as one of the more considerable towns in this part of Italy which were occupied by the generals of Vespasian, Primus, and Varus. (Tac. Hist. iii. 6.) It is mentioned by all the geographers, as well as in the Itineraries; and though Ammianus tells us it was taken and destroyed by an irruption of the Quadi and Marcomanni in A. D. 372, it certainly recovered this blow, and was still a considerable town under the Lombards. (Plin. iii. 19. s. 23; Ptol. iii. 1. § 30; Itin. Ant. p. 280; Tab. Peut.; Ammian. xxix. 6. § 1; P. Diac. iv. 40.) In an inscription of the reign of Alexander Severus, Opitergium bears the title of a Colonia; as it is not termed such either by Pliny or Tacitus, it probably obtained that rank under Trajan. (Orell. Inscr. 72; Zumpt, de Colon. p. 402.) It was destroyed by the Lombard king Rotharis in A. D. 641, and again, in less than 30 years afterwards, by Griinoaldus (P. Diac. iv. 47, v. 28); but seems to have risen again from its ruins in the middle ages, and is still a considerable town and an episcopal see.

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Opitergium itself stood quite in the plain; but its territory, which must have been extensive, comprised a considerable range of the adjoining Alps, as Pliny speaks of the river Liquentia as rising montibus Opiterginis " (Plin. iii. 18. s. 22). The Itinerary gives a line of cross-road which proceeded from Opitergium by Feltria (Feltre) and the Val Sugana to Tridentum (Trent). (Itin. Ant. p. 280.) [E. H. B.] O'PIUS ('Orious), a small port-town on the coast

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Opone was evidently a place of some commercial importance. The region in which it stood was from remotest ages the seat of the spice trade of Libya. Throughout the range of Mount Elephas the valleys that slope seawards produce frankincense, while inland the cassia or cinnamon of the ancients attained perfection. But the Greeks, until a comparatively late period, were unacquainted with this coast, and derived from the Arabians its distinctive local appellations. Opone, which doubtless occupied the site, probably, therefore, represents also the Arabic name of a town called Afun or Hafoon, i. e. Afaon, fragrant gums and spices; which, again, is nearly equivalent to the Greek designation of the spice-land of Eastern Libya - Aromata. And this derivation is rendered the more probable, when taken in connection with the neighbouring bluff or headland of Guardafui or Jerdaffoon, since Afun enters into the composition of both names, and Jerd or Guard resembles the Punic word Kartha, a headland. Thus Jerd-Affoon is the promontory of Opone. Ptolemy (iv. 7. § 11) places Opone too far S. of cape Jerdaffoon. The author of the Periplus more correctly sets it a degree further N., six days' voyage from a river which runs at the southern base of Wady Halfa, or Mount Elephas. The characteristics of the entire tract, of which Opone formed one extremity, are those of an elevated ridge lying between two seas,—the Red Sea and the ocean,-and which, from its elevation and exposure to the NE. monsoon, is humid and fertile,affording a marked contrast to the generally sterile and arid shore above and below the highland of Elephas. S. of Opone there is no trace of ancient commerce. The articles of export from this emporium were, according to the author of the Periplus, cinnamon, distinguished as "native," aroma, fragrant gums generally, motò, or cinnamon of inferior quality; slaves of a superior kind (Aovλika кpeloσova), principally for the Aegyptian market; and tortoise-shell of a superior quality and in great abundance. (See Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, vol. ii. p. 152-157.) [W. B. D.]

OPPIDUM NOVUM (Οππιδον Νέον, Ptol. iv. 2. § 25), a town of Mauretania, colonised in the reign of the emperor Claudius, by the veterans (Plin. v. 1), which Ptolemy (l. c.) places 10' to the E. of

Manliana, and the Antonine Itinerary 18 M. P. to the W.; Ptolemy's position agrees with the Sinaab of Shaw (Trav. p. 58), where that traveller found ruins on the W. bank of the Chinalaph. The town of the Itinerary corresponds with El Khádarah, the "Chadra" of Edrisi (Geog. Nub. p. 81), situated on a rising ground, on the brink of the same river, where there are also ruins. [E. B. J.] OPPIDUM NOVUM, of Aquitania in Gallia, is placed by the Antonine Itin. on the road from Aquae Tarbellicae (Dax) to Tolosa (Toulouse), and between Beneharmum and Aquae Convenarum. [BENEHARNUM; AQUAE CONVENARUM.] D'Anville has fixed Oppidum Novum at Naye, the chief reason for which is some resemblance of name. [G. L.]

OPSICELLA, a town mentioned only by Strabo (iii. p. 157), and said to have been founded by one of the companions of Antenor, in the territory of the Cantabri. [T. H. D.] OPTATIANA. [DACIA, Vol. I. p. 744, b.] OPU'NTIUS SINUS. [OPUS.] OPUS ('Orous, contr. of 'Oπóeis, Пl. ii. 531; Eth. 'OnоÚTIOs), the chief town of a tribe of the Locri, who were called from this place the Locri Opuntii. It stood at the head of the Opuntian gulf (¿ 'OroúvTIOS KÓλTOS, Strab. ix. p. 425; Opuntius Sinus, Plin. iv. 7. s. 12; Mela, ii. 3. § 6), a little inland, being 15 stadia from the shore according to Strabo (1. c.), or only a mile according to Livy (xxviii. 6). Opus was believed to be one of the most ancient towns in Greece. It was said to have been founded by Opus, a son of Locrus and Protogeneia; and in its neighbourhood Deucalion and Pyrrha were reported to have resided. (Pind. Ol. ix. 62, 87; Schol. ad loc.) It was the native city of Patroclus. (Hom. Il. xviii. 326), and it is mentioned in the Homeric catalogue as one of the Locrian towns subject to Ajax, son of Oileus (П. ii. 531). During the flourishing period of Grecian history, it was regarded as the chief city of the eastern Locrians, for the distinction between the Opuntii and Epicnemidii is not made either by Herodotus, Thucydides, or Polybius. Even Strabo, from whom the distinction is chiefly derived, in one place describes Opus as the capital of the Epicnemidii (ix. p. 416); and the same is confirmed by Pliny (iv. 7. s. 12) and Stephanus (s. v. 'Omóeis; from Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 181.) The Opuntii joined Leonidas with all their forces at Thermopylae, and sent seven ships to the Grecian fleet at Artemisium. (Herod. vii. 203, viii 1.) Subsequently they belonged to the anti-Athenian party in Greece. Accordingly, after the conquest of Boeotia by the Athenians, which followed the battle of Oenophyta, B. C. 456, the Athenians carried off 100 of the richest Opuntians as hostages. (Thuc. i. 108.) In the Peloponnesian War the Opuntian privateers annoyed the Athenian trade, and it was in order to check them that the Athenians fortified the small island of Atalanta off the Opuntian coast. (Thuc. ii. 32.) In the war between Antigonus and Cassander, Opus espoused the cause of the latter, and was therefore besieged by Ptolemy, the general of Antigonus. (Diod. xix. 78.)

The position of Opus is a disputed point. Meletius has fallen into the error of identifying it with Pundonitza, which is in the territory of the Epicnemidii. Many modern writers place Opus at Tálanda, where are several Hellenic remains; but Leake observes that the distance of Talanda from the sea is much too great to correspond with the testimony of Strabo and Livy. Accordingly Leake places Opus

at Kardhenitza, a village situated an hour to the south-eastward of Tálanda, at a distance from the sea corresponding to the 15 stadia of Strabo, and where exist the remains of an ancient city. (Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 173, seq.)

2. A town in the mountainous district of Acroreia in Elis, taken by the Spartans, when they invaded Elis at the close of the Peloponnesian War. The Scholiast on Pindar mentions a river Opus in Elis. [ The site of the town is perhaps represented by the Hellenic ruins at Skiáda, and the river Opus may be the stream which there flows from a small lake into the Peneius. (Diod. xiv. 17; Steph. B. 8. v.; Strab. ix. p. 425; Schol. ad Pind. Ol. ix. 64; Leake, Peloponnesiaca, p. 220; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. i. p. 41.)

ORA ('Opa), a place mentioned by Ptolemy (vi. 8. § 14) in Carmania, but apparently on the confines of Gedrosia. It seems not improbable that he has confounded it with Orae, or Oraea, which was certainly in the latter province. Strabo (xv. p. 723) and Arrian (vi. 24) both apparently quoting from the same authority, speak of a place of this name in Gedrosia,-the capital, probably, of the Oritae. [V.]

ORA (τà "îpa), a town in the NW. part of India, apparently at no great distance from the Kábul river, of which Arrian describes the capture by Alexander the Great, on his march towards the Panjab (iv. c. 27). It does not appear to have been identified with any existing ruins; but it must have been situated, according to Arrian's notice, between the Guraei (Gauri) and the celebrated rock Aornos. [V.]

ORAE pai, Arrian, vi. 22, 28), the chief town, in all probability, of the people who are generaliy called Oritae, though their name is written in different ways. It was situated in Gedrosia, and is most likely the same as is called in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, the Emporium Oraea (c. 37, ed. Müller). The neighbouring country was rich in corn, wine, barley, and dates. [V.]

ORATHA COpała), a city described by Stephanus B. (s. v.), as in the district of Mesene, on the Tigris. As he does not state in which Mesene he supposes it to have been, is impossible now to identify it. Some commentators have supposed that it is the same as "Ur of the Chaldees." It is, however, more likely that it is "Ur castellum Persarum" (Amm. Marc. xxv. 8), now believed to be represented by the ruins of Al-Hathrr; or, perhaps, the Ura of Pliny (v. 24. s. 21). [V.]

ORB'ELUS (Op¤ŋλos, Herod. v. 16; Strab. vii. p. 329; Diodor. xx. 19; Arrian, Anab. i. 1. § 5; Ptol. iii. 9. § 1, iii. 11. § 1; Pomp. Mela, ii. 2. § 2; Plin iv. 17), the great mountain on the frontiers of Thrace and Macedonia, which, beginning at the Strymonic plain and lake, extends towards the sources of the Strymon, where it unites with the summit called Scomius, in which the river had its origin. The amphibious inhabitants of lake Prasias procured their planks and piles, on which they constructed their dwellings, from this mountain. (Herod. . c.) Cassander, after having assisted Audoleon, king of Paeonia, against the Illyrian Autariatae, and having conquered them, transported 20,000 men, women, and children to Mt. Orbelus. (Diodor. l. c.) The epitomiser of Strabo (l. c.), who lived not long before the commencement of the 11th century, applies this name to the ridge of Haemus and Rhodope; Gatterer (Comment. Soc. Got, vol. iv. p. 99, vol. vi.

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