Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1113

 TANAITAE. (cf. Griife, 3fem. de TAc. des So. a St. Petersh. vi. Ser. vi. p. 24 ; Stempowsky, Nouv. Jour. Asiat. i. p. 55; Bockh. Jnscr. ii. p." 1008). [T. H. D.] TANAI'TAE (TavaTrai, Ptol. iii. 5. § 24), a peo- ple of European Sannatia, dwelling NE. of the Koxq- lani, and lietween them and the Tanais. [T. H. D.] TANARUS (Tanaro), a river of Liguria, the ipost important of all the southern tributaries of the Padus. It rises in the JIaritime Alps above Ceva (Ceba), flows at first due N., receives near Cherasco the waters of the Stura, a stream as con- siderable as itself, then turns to the NE., passes within a few miles of Pollentia (^PoUema), flows under the walls of Alba Pompeia and Asta (^Asti), and discharges its waters into the Po about 15 miles below Valema (Forum Fulvii). It receives mai:y considerable tributaries besides the Stura already mentioned, of which the most important is the Burmida, the ancient name of which has not been preserved to us ; but the Orla, a minor stream which fiills into it a few miles above its junction with the Tanaro, is evidently the river Urbs, men- tioned by Claudian {B. Get. 555), the name of which had given rise to an ambiguous prophecy, that had misled the Gothic king Alaric. The Belbo, which falls into the Tanaro a few miles above the Borinida, has been identified with the Fevus of the Tabula; but the names of rivers given in that do- cument in this part of Italy are so corrupt, and their positions so strangely misplaced, that it is idle to attempt their determination. Though the Tanarus is one of the most important rivers of Northern Italy, its name is not mentioned by any of the geographers except Pliny ; nor does it occur in history until long after the fall of the Western Empire. (Plin. iii. 16. s. 20 ; P. Diac. Hist. Lang. vi. 58.) [E. H. B.] TANATIS, according to Solinus (c. 12), an island in the neighbourhood of Britain. It is un- doubtedly the same which Beda (Uist. Eccl. i. 25) calls Tanatos, and which still bears the name of Thanet. [T. H. D.] TANATIS. [Talia.] TANAUS. [Argos, Vol. I. p. 201, a.] TANE'TUM or TANNE'TUM (Taj/TiToi-, Ptol. : I'Jh. Tanetanus, Plin. : S. Ilario), a small town of (uillia Cispadana, on the Via Aemilia, between Ki'L'ium Lepidum and Parma, and distant 10 miles IVom the former and 8 from the latter city. (/im. Aut. p. 287 ; Jtm. liter, p. 616 ; Tab. Peut.) It is ]nentioned in history before the Koman conquest I'l this part of Italy, as a Gaulish village, to which the praetor L. Manlius retired after his defeat by the Boii in b. c. 218, and where he was surrounded
 * iid besieged by that people. (Pol. iii. 40; Liv. xxi.

L'.j.) Its name is not again noticed in history, but it is mentioned both by Pliny and Ptolemy as a municijxil town of Gallia Cispadana, though it ap- pears to have never risen to be a place of importance. (Phn. iii. 15. s. 20; Ptol. iii. 1. §46; Phlegon, Macrob. 1.) Livy calls the Gaulish town " vicus Pado propincjuus," an expression which would lead to an erroneous idea of its position ; for we learn from the Itineraries that it certainly stood on the Via Aemilia, at a distance of more than 1 miles from the Padus. The site is still occupied by a large village, which is now called, from the name of its principal church, Sunt' Ilario ; but a handet or village about half a mile to the N. still retains the name of Tanelo. It is distant about 2 miles from the river Enza, the Nicia of Pliny (iii. 16. s. 20), VOL. II. TANIS. 10S9 which flows into the Po, about 12 miles from the point where it crosses the Aemilian Way. [E. II. B.] TANIS (Tawr, Herod, ii. 166;'Strab. xvii. p. 802 ; Ptol. iv. 5. § 52 ; the Zoan of the Hebrews, Numb. xiii. 2.3; the Coptic Tani or Atiiennks, and the modern Sail), was a city of Lower Aegypt, situated, in lat. 30° 59', on the Tanitic arm of the Nile. [NiLUS, Ostium Taniticum.] It was the ca- pital of the Tanitic Nome. Although the name of Tanis does not appear in Aegyptian annals earlier than the xxi-st dynasty, which consisted of 21 Tanite kings, it had long previously been among the most im- portant cities of the Delta. The branch of the Nile on which it stood was, with the exception of the Pe- lusiac, the most easterly, and the nearest to Palestine and Arabia. It is described in the Book of Numbers (/. c.) as founded only seven years later than He- bron; and Hebron, being extant in the time of Abra- ham, was one of the oldest towns in Palestine. Taiiis owed its importance partly to its vicinity to the sea, and partly to its situation among the Deltaic marshes. It probably was never occupied by the Hyksos, but, during their usurpation, aftbrded refuge to the exiled kings and nobles of Memphis. It was a place of strength during the wars of the early kings of the New Monarchy — the xviiith dynasty — with the shepherds; and when the Aegyptians, in their turn, invaded Western Asia, the position of Tanis became of the more value to them. For after Aegypt became a maritime power, in its wars with Cyprus and Phoenicia, a city at no great dis- tance from the coast would be indispensable for its naval armaments. To these purposes Tanis was better adapted than the more exposed and easterly Pelusium. The eastern arms of the Nile were the first that silted up, and the Pelusiac mouth of the river was at a very early period too shallow for ships of war. The greatness of Tanis is attested in many passages of the Hebrew writers. In the 78th Psalm the wonders that attended the departure of the Israelites from Aegypt are said to have been " wrought in the plain of Zoan." This Psalm, indeed, is somewhat later than David (u.c. 1055 — 10 1 5) ; but it proves the tradition that Tanis was the capital of that Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrew people. In the age of Isaiah (xix. 1 1, foil.), about 258 years later, Tanis was still reckoned the capital of the Delta, since the prophet speaks of the princes of Zoan and the princes of Noph (Memphis) as equivalent to the nobles of Aegypt. Again, Isaiah (xxx. 4) describes the ambassadors who were sent to Aegypt to form an alliance with its king as repairing to Zoan and Hanes, or Heracleo- polis; and the desolation cf Zoan is threatened by Ezekiel as the consequence of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion. Tanis probably declined as Sais and Memphis rose into importance; yet twenty years before the Christian era it was still a large town (Strab. xvii. p. 802); nor did it shrink into insigni- ficance until nearly 80 a.d. (Joseph. B. Jud. iv. 11, § 4.) Its linen manufacture probably long sus- tained it. The marshy grounds in its environs were well suited to the cultivation of flax; and Pliny (ix. 1) speaks of the Tanitic linen as among the finest in Aegypt. No city in the Delta presents so many monu- ments of interest as Tanis. The extensive j)lain of San is indeed thinly inhabited, and no village exists in the immediate vicinity of the buried city. A canal passes through, without being able to fertilise, the field of Zoan, and wild beasts 4 ▲