Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/113

 ITALICA. Its coins, all of the Imperial age, bear military emblems which attest the story of its orit^in, and on some of them is the title julia augitsta. The city flourished under the Goths, and, for some time, imder the Jloors, who preserved the old name, in the form Talilca or Talca ; but, in consequence of a change in the bed of the river, its inhabitants aban- doned it, and migrated to Seville. Hence, in con- tradistinction to the city which (although far more ancient, see HisrAi.is) became thus its virtual successor, Italica received the name of Old Seville (Sevilla la Vieja^, under which name its ruins still exist near the wretched village of Santi Ponce, while the surrounding country retains the ancient name, los campns de Talca. The chief object in the ruins is the amphitheatre, which was in good preservation till 1774, " wlien it was used by the corporation of Seville for river dikes, and for making the road to Badajoz." (Ford.) Jlr. Ford also states, that '' on Dec. 12, 1799, a fine mosaic pavement was dis- covered, which a poor monk, named Jose Woscoso, to his honour, enclosed with a wall, in order to save it from the usual fate in Spain. Didot, in 1802, published for Laborde a .splendid folio, with en- gravings and description Now, this work is all that remains, for the soldiers of Soult converted the enclosure into a goat-pen." The only other portion of the ruins of Itahca to be seen above- ground consists of some vaulted brick tanks, called La Casa de los Bmios, which were the reservoirs of the aiineduct brought by Adrian from Tejada, 7 leagues distant. (Caes. B. C. ii. 20; Bell. Alex. 53 ; Gell. Noct. Alt. XV. 13 ; Oros. v. 23 ; Geog. Eav. ; Florez, Esp. S. o. ■sm. pp.227, foil.; Coins, ap. Florez, Med. de E.tp. vol. ii. p. 477; Mionnet, vol. i. p. 17, Suppl. vol. i. p. 31; Scstini, p. 61; Eckhel, vol. i. p. 23 ; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 372 ; Ford, JJimdbook of Spain, pp. 63, 64.) [P. S.] ITA'LICA. [CoRKiNiiM.] ITANUiM PR. [Itanus.] ITANUS ("iTar/os, Ptol. iii. 17. § 4; Steph. B.: Eth. 'iTcti'ios), a town on the E. coast of Crete, near the [iromontory which bore the name of Itanum. (Plin. iv. 12.) In Coronelli's map there is a place called Itafjnia, with a Paleoha.'stron in the neigh- bourhood, which is probably the site of Itanus; the position of the headland must be looked for near Xacro fiume (Hock, Kreta, vol. i. p. 426), unless it be placed further N. at Capo Salomon, in which case the Gi'dndes islands would correspond with the Onlslv and Lkuce of Pliny (J. c. ; conip. Mits. Class. Antiq. vol. ii. p. 303). According to Herodotus (iv. 151), the Theraeans, when founding Cyrene, were indebted for theii- knowledge of the Libyan coast to Corobius, a seller of purple at Itanus. Some of the coins of this city present the type of a woman terminating in the tail of a fish. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 314.) This type, recalling the figure of the Syrian goddess, coupled with the trade in purple, suggests a Phoe- nician origin. [E. B. J.] ITAPvGUS. VOL. U. coin of itanus [Ilakgus-J ITHACA. 97 ITHACA ('WaKTj: Eth. 'WaKvaios and 'WaKds: Ithacensis and Ithacus: Tliidki, ©id/crj, vulgarly; but this is merely an alteration, by a simple meta- thesis of the two first letters, from 'IQclkt], which is known to be the coiTect orthography by the Ithacans themselves, and is the name used by all educated Greeks. Leake, Northern Greece, chap, xxii.) This island, so celebrated as the scene of a large portion of the Homeric poems, lies off the coast of Acar- nania, and is separated from Cephallenia by a channel about 3 or 4 miles wide. Its name is said by Eustathius (ad II. ii. 632) to have been derived from the eponymous hero Ithacus, mentioned in Od. xviii. 207. Strabo (x. 2) reckons the circumfe- rence of Ithaca at only 80 stadia: but this measure- ment is very short of the truth; its extreme length from north to south being about 17 miles, its great- est breadth about 4 miles, and its area nearly 45 sq. miles. Tlie island m.ay be described as a ridge of limestone rock, divided by the deep and wide Gulf of Molo into two nearly equal parts, coimectcd by a narrow isthmus not more than half-a-mile across, and on which stands the Paleocastro of Actos ('AeT(is), traditionally known as the "Castle of Ulysses." Ithaca everywhere rises into rugged hills, of which the chief is the mountain of Ano(je {'Avuiy7j : ]t<d. Anoi), in the northern division, which is identified with the Nkiutos of Virgil (Aen. iii. 271) and the 'Nvptrov ilvoai(pvKKov of Homer (Od. ix. 21). Its forests have now disappeared; and this is, doubtless, the reason why rain and dew are not so common here in the present as in Homer's age, an<l why the island no longer abounds in hogs fattened on acorns like those guarded by Eumaeus. In all other points, the poet's descriptions (Od. iv. 603, seq., xiii. 242, seq., ix. 27, seq.) exhibit a perfect picture of the island as it now appears, the general aspect being one of ruggedness and sterility, rendered striking by the bold and broken outline of the mountains and clitfs, indented by numerous harbours and creeks (Ai/xeVes Trdvopfioi, Od. xiii. 193). The chmate is healthy (ayad)} Kovporpocpos, Od. ix. 27). It may here be obsei-ved, that the expressions applied to Ithaca, in Od. ix. 25, 26, have puzzled all the com- mentators ancient and modern : — avTj] Se x^'^M"^^ Travvireprarri elv d?Ci K^irai TTphs ^o'ov, al 5h &vevde irphs r)co t' rjiKiov -re. (Cf. Nitzsch, ad loc; also Od. x. 196.) Strabo (x. 2) gives perhaps the most satisfactory explanation : he supposes that by the epithet x^cyuaXT? the poet intended to express how Ithaca lies wider, as it were, the neighbouring mountains of Acarnauia; while by that of ■KavvKepTa.Ti] he meant to denote its position at the extremity of the group of islands formed by Zacynthus, Cephallenia, and the Echinades. For another explanation, see Wordsworth, Greece, Pic- torial, cf'C, pp. 355, seq. Ithaca is now divided into four districts (Badv, 'AerJs, 'Aj'co7f), 'E|a)7^, i. e. Deep Bay, Eagles Cliff, Highland, Onilaml); and, as natural causes are likely to produce in all ages similar effects, Leake (I. c.) thinks it probable, from the peculiar conformation ot the island, that the fom- divisions of the present day neariy con*espond with those noticed by Heracleon, an author cited by Stephanus B. (s. v. KpoKvXfiov). The name of one of these districts is lost by a defect in the text; the others were named Neium, Crocy- leium, and Aegireus. The Aegilips of Homer (//. ii. 633) is probably the same with Aegireus, and is placed by Leake at the modem village of Anoge ;