Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1242

 1218 TRACHIS. tins hero's deatli. (Soph. Track, passim.) It be- came a place of liistorical importance in consequence of the colony founded here by the Lacedaemonians in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian War. b. c. 426. The Trachinians and the neighbouring Dorians, who suffered much from the predatory incursions of the Oetaean mountaineers, solicited aid from the Spar- tans, who eagerly availed themselves of this oppor- tunity to plant a strong colony in this commanding situation. They issued an invitation to the other states of Greece to join in the colony ; and as many as 10,000 colonists, under three Spartan oecists, built and fortilied a new town, to which the name of Hehacleia was given, from the great hero, whose name w"as so closely associated with the surrounding district. (Thuc iii. 92; Diod. xii. 59.) It was usually called the Trachinian Heracleia, to distin- guisii it from other places of the same natne, and by later writers Heracleia in Phthidtis, as this district was .subsequently included in the Thessalian Phthio- tis. ('HpawAeia r] iv Tpaxi-via, Xen. Hell. i. 2. § 18: Diod. xii. 77, xv. 57; 'HpaKAeirat ot iv Tpaxivi, Thuc. V. 51 ; 'H. ^ Tpaxii' /caAoUiUeVr; ■Kp6r€pov, Strab. ix. p. 428: Heraclea Trachin dicta, Pliii. iv. 7. s. 14 ; H. ^didTiSos, Ptol. iii. 1.3. § 46.) The new colonists also built a port with docks near Tiiermopylae. It was generally expected that this city, under the protection of Sparta, would become a formiiiable power in Northern Greece, but it was at- tacked from the beginning by the Thessalians, who re^rarded its establishment as an invasion of their territory; and the Spartans, who rarely succeeded in the government of dependencies, displayed haughti- ness and corruption in its administration. Hence the city rapidly dwin<)led down ; and in b. c. 420 the Heracleots were defeated with great loss by the neighbouring The.>,s:ilian tribes, and Xenares, the Lacedaemonian governor, was slain in the battle. Sparta was unable at the time to send assistance to their colony: and in the following year the Boeotians, fearing lest the place should fall into the hands of the Athenians, took possession of it, and dismissed the Lacedaeiiionian governor, on the ground of mis- conduct. (Thuc. v. 51, 52.) The Lacedaemonians, liowever, regained possession of the place; and in the winter of b. c. 409 — 408, they experienced here another disaster, 700 of the Heracleots being slain in battle, together with the Lacedaemonian harmost. (Xen. Hell. i. 3. § 18.) But, after the Peloponne- sian War, Heracleia again rose into importance, and became the head-quarters of the Sp:u-tan power in Northern Greece. In b. c. 399 Heiippidas, the La- cedaemonian, was sent thither to repress some fac- tious movements in Heracleia; and he not only put to death all the opponents of the Lacedaemonians in the town, but expelled the neighbouring Oetaeans and Trachinians from their abodes. (Diod. xiv. 38; Polyaen. ii. 21.) In e. c. 395 the Thebans, under the command of Ismenias, wrested this important place from the Spartans, killed the Lacedaemonian garrison, and gave the city to the old Trachinian and Oetaean inhabitants. (Diod. xiv. 82.) The walls of Heracleia were destroyed by Jason, lest any state should seize this place and prevent him from inarching into Greece. (Xen. Ildl. vi. 4. § 27.) At a later time Heracleia came into the hands of the Aetolians, and was one of the main sources of their power in Northern Greece. After the defeat of An- tiochus at Thermopylae, b. c. 191, Heracleia was besieged by the Roman consul Acilius Glabrio, who divided his army into four bodies, and directed his TRACHONITIS. attacks upon four points at once ; one body being stationed on the river Asopus, where was the gym- nasium ; the second near the citadel outside of the walls (extra muros), which was almost more thickly inhabited tlian the city itself; the third towards the Maliac gulf ; and the fourth on the river Melas, op- posite the temple of Diana. The country around was marshy, and abounded in lofty trees. After a siege of twenty-four days the Romans succeeded in taking the town, and the Aetolians retired to the citadel. On the following day the consul seized a rocky summit, equal to the citadel in height, and separated from it only by a chasm so narrow that the two summits were within reach of a missile. Thereupon the Aeto- lians surrendered the citadel. (Liv. xxxvi. 24.) Leake remarks that it seems quite clear from this account of Livy that the city occupied the low ground between the rivers Karvwiaria (Asopus) and Mavra-Neria (Melas), extending from the one to the other, as well as a considerable distance into the plain in a south-eastern direction. There are still some vestiges of the citadel upon a lofty rock above ; and upon its perpendicular sides there are many catacombs excavated. " The distance of the citadel above the town justifies the words extra muros, which Livy applies to it, and may explain also the asser- tion of Strabo (/. c), that Heracleia was six stadia distant from the ancient Trachis ; for, although the town of Heracleia seems to have occupied the same position as the Trachis of Herodotus, the citadel, which, according to Livy, was better inhabited in the Aetolian War than the city, may very possibly have been the only inhabited part of Heracleia two cen- turies later." (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. pp. 26—29.) 2. Surnamed PnociCA (^ iKiK-r), a small city of Phocis, situated upon the confines of Boeotia, and on the road to Lebadeia. (Strab. ix. p. 423 ; Pans. X. 3. § 2.) Tl.'ACHONI'TIS {Tpaxccv'tTis, Lulce, iii. 1 ; Joseph. Ant. xvi. 9, B. J. iii. 3; Plin. v. 18. s. 16; Tpdxojv, Joseph. A nt. xiii. 1 6), according to Josephus, a portion of Palestine which extended in a NE. direction from the neighbourhood of the sea of Galilee in the direction of Damascus, having the Syrian desert and Auranitis on its eastern frontier, Ituraea on the S., and Gaulanitis on theW. It was considered as the northern portion of Peraea (Tlepaia, i. e. Tlepav rod 'lopSavov, Judith, i. 9; Mattk. iv. 25.) According to Strabo, it lay between Damascus and the Arabian mountains (xvi. p. 765); and from other authorities we may gather that it adjoined the province of Batanaea (Josepli. B. J. i. 20. § 4), and extended between the Regio Decapolitana (Plin. v. 15) as far S. as Bostra (Euseb. Onomast. s. v. Ituraea.') It derived its name from the rough nature of the country (rpax'iiv, i. e. rpaxvs Koi wfTpciSris tSttos); and Strabo mentions two rpaxSives (xvi. p. 755, 756), which Burckhardt considers to be the summits of two mountain ranges on the road from Mekka to Damascus, near the village of Al-Kessue. {Travels, p. 115.) The inhabitants of Trachonitis are called by Ptolemy, ol Tpaxi'vna.i "ApaSfi (v. 15. § 26), and they seemed to have maintained their character for remarkable skill in sliooting with the bow and plundering (Josepli. B. J. ii. 4. § 2), for which tiie rocky nature of the country they in- habited, full as it was of clefts, and holes and secret fastnesses, was peculiarly well suited (Joseph. Ant. XV. 10. § 1.) Trachonitis belonged originally to the tetrarchy of Philippus, the son of Herod tho