Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1051

 SPAKTARIUS CAMFUS. corruption of Heptagoniae; but it is more probable that the Heptagoniae lay further west in the direc- tion of Mistrd, as it was evidently the object of Flaniininus to attack the city in diflerent quarters. The small stream which encloses Sparta on the south, now called the Trypiotiko or river of J/a^rii/n, is probably the ancient Tiasa (Tiatro), upon which stood the sanctuary of Phaena and Cleta, and across which was the road to Amyclae. (Pans. iii. 1 8. § 6.) Leake, however, gives the name of Tiasa to the Pandelcimona, the next torrent southwards fallinsr into the Eurotas. With respect to the gates of Sparta, the mast im- portant was the one opposite the bridge of the Eu- rotas: it was probably called the gate to Tlierapne. Livy mentions two others, one leading to the jIes- senian town of Pharae, and the other to Jlimnt Bar- bostlienes (xxsv. 30). The former must have been upon the western side of the city, near the village of Mogula. Of the southern gates the most im- portant was the one leading to Amyclae. In this article it has not been attempted to give any account of the political history of Sparta, which forms a prominent part of Grecian history, and cannot be narrated in this work at sufficient length to be of any value to the student. A few remarks upon the subject are given under Laconia. The modern authority chiefly followed in draw- ing up the preceding account of the topography of Sparta is Curtius, Peloponnesos, o.i. p. 219, ^I'q. Valuable information has also been derived irom Leake, Morea, vol. i. p. 1.50, seq., Pelopvnne- siaca, p. 129, seq. See also Mure, Tour in Greece, vol. ii. p. 220, seq.; Ross, Wanderungen in Gine- chenland, vol. ii. p. 1 1, seq. ; Expedition scientijique de Moree, vol. ii. p. 61, seq.; Boblaye, Recherclies, (jc, p. 78, seq. ; Beule, E'tudes sur le Peloponese, p. 49, seq. SPARTA'RIUS CAJIPUS {S.-r^apT^piov ireSiov, Strab. iii. p. 160), a district near Carthago Nova in Ilispania Tarraconensis, 100 miles long and 30 broad, which produced the peculiar kind of grass called spnrlum, used for making ropes, mats, &c. (Pliit. six. 2. s. 8 ) It is the stipa tenacissima of Linnaeus ; and the Spaniards, by whom it is called esparto, still manufacture it for the same purposes as those de- scribed by Pliny. It is a thin wiry rush, which is cut and dried like hay, and then soaked in water and plaited. It is very strong and lasting, and the manufacture still employs a large number of women and children. It was no doubt the material of which the Iberian whips mentioned by Horace {Epod.lv. 3) weie composed. (See Ford, Ilandb. of Spain, p. 168.) From this district Carthago Nova itself ob- tained the surname of " Spartaria." [T. H. D.] SPARTO'LUS (27ra^.TwA.os, Thuc. ii. 79, v. 18; Steph. B.), a town of the Chalcidic peninsula, at no great distance from Olynthus (Isaeus, de JJicaeof/cn. Haered. p. 5.5), under the walls of which the Athenian forces were routed, b. c. 249. It belonged to the Bottiaeans, and was perhaps their capital, and was of sufficient importance to be men- tioned in the treaty between Sparta and Athens in the tenth year of the Peloponnesian War. [E.B.J. ] SPAUTA (SirauTo), a lake in Media Atropatene, which is intensely salt, so as to cause the itch on the bodies of persons who have unwittingly bathed in it, with injury also to their clothes (Strab. xi. p. 523). Its present name is the Sea ofUrumudi. Its earliest Armenian name is said to have been Kaputan, or Koputan Chow, whence the Greek form would seem SPEOS ARTEMIDOS. 1031 to have been modified. (L. Ingigi, Archaeol. Ar- men. i. p. ] 60; St. JIartin, Memoires, i. p. 59.) It is probably the same as the Mapriof?) Xiixyri of Ptolemy (vi. 2. § 17). Many travellers have visited it in modem tiines. (Tavemier, i. ch. 4; Morier, Sec. Vol/. i. f. 179.) [V.] SPELAEU.M, a place in Macedonia which Livy says was near Pella (xlv. 33). SPELUNCA (JSperhnga), a place on the coast of Latium (in the more extended sense of that name), situated between Tarracina and Caieta. The em- peror Tiberius had a villa there, which derived its name from a natural cave or grotto, in which the emperor used to dine, and where he on one occasion very nearly lost his life, by the falling in of the roof of the cavern (Tac. Ann. iv. 59 ; Suet. Tib. 39). The villa is not again mentioned, but it would appear that a village had grown up around it, as Plinj' mentions it in describing the coast (" locus, Spe- luncae," Plin. iii. 5. s. 9), and its memory is still preserved by a village named Sperlonga, on a rockv point about 8 miles W. of Gaita. Some Roman remains are still visible there, and the cave belonging to the Imperial villa may be identified by some remains of architectural decoration .still attached to it (Craven's Ahruzzi. vol. i. p. 73). [E. H. B.] SPEOS ARTE'.MIDOS, the present grottoes of Beni-kassan, was situated N. of Antinoe, in Middle Aegypt, on the eastern bank of the Nile, in lat. 27° 40' N. The name is variously written : Peos in the Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 167, Wesj.eling); Pois in the Notitia Imperii ; but Speos is probably the true form, implying an excavation ((TTreos) in the rocks. Speos Arteinidos was rediscovered by the French and Tuscan expedition into Aegypt early in the present century. It was constructed by some of the Pharaohs of the 18th dynasty in a desert-valley running into the chain of Arabian hills. The stiiicturo as a whole consists of a temple, and of between thirty and forty catacombs. The temple is dedicated to Pasht, Bubastis, the Artemis of the Greeks. (Herod ii. 58.) The catacombs appear to have served as the general necropolis of the Hermopolite nome. For although Hermopolis and its district lay on the western bank of the Nile, yet as the eastern hills at this spot approach very closely to the stream, while the western hills recede from it, it was more con- venient to ferry the dead over the river than to transport them across the sands. Some of these catacombs were appropriated to the mummies of animals, cats especially, which were worshipped by the Hermopolitans. In the general cemetery two of the.se catacombs merit particular attention : (1) the tomb of Neoopth, a military chief in the reign of Sesortasen I. and of his wife Rotei; (2) that of Amenheme, of nearly the same age, and of very similar construction. The tomb of Neoopth, or, as it is more usually denominated, of Rotei. has in front an architrave excavated from the rock, and sup- ported by two columns, each 23 feet high, with sis- teen fluted facelets. The columns have neitiier base nor capital; but between the architrave and the head of the column a sqnare abacus is inserted. A denteled cornice rims over the architrave. The efl'ect of the structure, although it is liardly de- tached from the rock, is light and graceful. The chamber or crypt is 30 feet square, and its roof is divided into three vaults by two architraves, each of which was originally supported by a single column, now vanished. The walls are painted in com- partments of the most brilliant colours, and the 3 u 4