Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1107

 TACADAEI. fruitful, but its harl)our was bad. (Geojrr. Nub. Clim. iii. pt. ii. p. 87.) In early times it was sub- ject to B^'zacium; hut subsequently, as a Koman colony, belonged to the ller/io Tripolitana, of which it was the most westerly town. In its neif;hbour- hood were warm mineral springs called the Aquae Tacapitanae {Itin. Ant. p. 78), now El-Uammah. (Cf. Plin. V. 4. s. 3; Itin. Ant. pp. 48, 50, 59, &c., where it is called Tacapae). Now Gabs, Cubes, or Qtmbes. [T. H. D.] TACARAEI (TaKapaloi, Ptol. vii. 2. § 15), a mountain tribe of India extra Ganc^m, who lived in the e.xtreme NW. near the junction of the Iniaus and Emodus chains, adjoining the Mons Bepyrrhus. Tiiey must have occupied part of the district now called A.'^.sam. [V.] TACHOJIPSO (Taxo/x^ci, Herod, ii. 29; Ta- coinpsos, Plin. vi. 29. s. 33; Mela, i. 9. § 2), a town ill the Regio Dodecaschoenus, S. of Aegypt and the Cataracts. It stood upon an island of the Nile, and was inhabited by a mixed colony of Aegyptians and Aethiopians. The Coptic word Tachempsa signifies '■ the place of many crocodiles." Tacliompso was seated on the E. bank of the river, lat, 23° 12' N., nearly opposite the town of Pselcis. As Pselcis in- creased, Tachompso declined, so that it at last was re- garded as merely a suburb of that town, and went by thenameof Contra-Pselcis. Though supposed by some to have been near the modern village of Conzo in L'>wer Nubia, it is impossible to reconcile any known 1" ality with the ancient descriptions of this place. I I I'ren {African Nations, vol. i. pp. 346, 383) ^ Kiposes it to have been either at the island Kalabshe ( Talmis) or 20 miles further S as Ghyrshe. He- r "lotus {I. c.) describes the island on which Ta- chompso stood as a plain contiguous to a vast lake. But neither such a lake nor island now appear in this part of the Nile's course. The lake may have III i-n the result of a temporary inundation, and the i.-l:uid gradually undermined and carried away by till' periodical floods. [W. B. D.] TACO'LA (JoLKteKa, Ptol. vii. 2. § 5), a place fin the west coast of the Aurea Chersonesus, in India extra Gangem, which Ptolemy culls an em- ]'i)i-ium. There can be no doubt that it is repre- s' nted now by either Tavoy or Tenasserim. [V.] TACU'BIS (TaKoue/s, Ptol. ii. 5. § 7), a place in Lusitania. [T. H. D.] TAUER, a river on the S. coast of Hi>pania Tar- raconensis. (Plin. iii. 3. s. 4.) It is probably indi- cated by Ptolemy (ii. 6. § 14) under Tf'pe§or iro- rafjiov fKioAai. Now the Segwa. [T. H. IJ.] TADINUJI {Eth. Tadinas: Ru. near Gualdo), a town of Umbria, mentioned by Pliny among the municipal towns of that region. (Plin. iii. 14. s. 19.) It is not noticed by any other ancient author previous to the fall of the Western Empire; but its name is repeatedly found in the epistles of Gregory the Great, and it is evidently the same place called by Procopius Taginae (Tdyivai, Procop. B. G. iv. 29), near which the Gothic king Totila was de- feated by Navscs in a great battle, in which lie was himself mortally wounded, a. d. 552. The site is clearly fixed by the discovery of some ruins and other ancient monuments in 1 750 at a place about ii mile and a half from Gualdo, where there ia an old church conseciated in the middle ages to Sta ^faria di Tadino. Gualdo is about 9 miles N. of Noccra (Nuceria), dose to the line of the Flaminian Wuy: hence there is little doubt that we should substitute Tadinas for "Ptanias," a name obviously corrupt, TAENARUM, 1083 given in the Jerusalem Itinerary as a station on the Flaminian Way. {Itin. Uier. p. 614; Wesseliiig, ad he; Cramer, Italy, vol. i. p. 267.) [E. 11. B.l TADMOR. [Paljiyija.] TADU (Plin. vi. 29. s. 35; comp. Strab. xvii. p. 786), a small island of the Nile that formed the harbour of the city of Bleroe. Bruce {Travels, vol. iv. p. 618) supposes Tadu to have been the modern Civrcjo, N. of Schewly. As, however, the site of Meroe is much disputed, that of Tadu is equally uncertain (Ritter, £■/•(//;;(??//. vol. i. p. 567). [W.B.D ] TAE'NARUJI {Taivapov, Herod. Strab. et alii; 1^ Taivapia (XKpa, Ptol. iii. 16. § 9), a promontory at the extremity of Laconia, and the most southerly point of Europe, now called C. Matapdn. The name of Taenarum, however, was not confined to the extreme point bearing the name of Malapdn. It has been shown by Leake that it was the name given to the peninsula of circular form about seven miles in circumference, which is connected with the end of the great TaVgetic promontory by an isthmus about half a mile wide in a direct distance. Hence Taenarum is correctly described by Strabo as an d/CTi; iKKftnevT] (viii. p. 363). Leake conjectures with great probability that Matapiin is merely another form of MfTuiirov, which may have b'^en the name given by the ancients to the southern ex- tremity of the peninsula. {Morea, vol. i. p. 301.) On either side of the isthmus, which connects the promontoiy of Taenarum with that of Taygctus, is a bay, of which the one on the east is called Porto QucKjUo, corrupted into Kaiu, and the one on the west Marinari or Marindri. The name of Qutirjlio was given to the eastern bay by the ^'enetians, be- cause it was the last place in Europe at which the quails rested in the autumn before crossing over to Crete and Cyrene. Porto Qiiaglio is one of the best harbours in Laconia, being sheltered from the S. and SE. ; it is nearly circular, with a narrow entrance, a fine sandy bottom, and depth of water for large ships. Po7-to Marmdri is described as only a dangerous creek. In the Taenarian penin- sula there are also two ports on its eastern side, of which the northern, called Vathij, is a long narrow inlet of the sea, while the southern, called Asomuto or Kistirnes, is very small and ill sheltered. A quarter of a mile southward of the inner extremity of the last-mentioned port, a low point of rock pro- jects into the sea from the foot of the mountain, which, according to the inhabitants of the peninsula, is the real C. Matapdn. The western side of the peninsula is rocky and harbourless. The whole of the Taenarian peninsula was sacred to Poseidon, who appears to have succeeded to the place of Helios, the more ancient god nf the locality. (Iloin. Hymn, in Apoll. 411.) At the cxtrcniity of this peninsula was the temple of Poseidon, with an asylum, which enjoyed great celebrity down to a late period. It sceins to have been an ancient Achaean sanctuary before the Dorian conquest, and to have continued to be the chief sacred place ot the Perioec; and Helots. The great earthquake, which reduced Sparta to a heap of ruins in it. c. 464, was supposed to have been owing to the Lacedaemonians having torn away some suppliant Helots from this sanctuary. (Time. i. 128, 133; Paus. iii. 25. § 4; Strab. viii. p. 363; Eurip. Cyd. 292.) Near the sanctuary was a cavern, through which Hercules is said to have dragged Ccrl)crus to the upper regions. (Paus. Strab. II. cc; Pind. Pylli. iv. 77; Taetiariue fauces, Virg. Gcor'j. iv. 467;