Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1322

 1298 VIA EGNATIA a mere conjecture, which cannot be supported by any authority. We may, however, make some approxi- mation towards ascertaining the date of its con- struction, or, at all events, that of a portion of it. Strabo, in the passage cited at the head of this article, says that Polybius estimated the length of the via, between the coast of the Adriatic and the city of Thessalonica, at 267 Roman miles; whence it appears that this portion of it at least was extant in the time of Polybius. Consequently, as that historian flourished in the first half of the 2nd century li. c, we may infer with tolerable certainty that the road must have been commenced shortly after the reduc- tion of Macedonia by the Romans in B.C. 168. Whether the eastern portion of the road, namely, that between Thessalonica and Cypsela, a town 10 miles beyond the left, or E., bank of the Hebrus, was also completed in the time of Polybius, is a point which cannot be so satisfactorily ascertained. For although Strabo, in the same passage, after men- tioning the length of the road, from its commence- ment to its termination at Cypsela, proceeds to say that, if we follow Polybius, we must add 178 stadia to make up the number of Roman miles, because that writer computed 8 stadia and 2 plethra, or 8^ stadia, to the Roman mile, instead of the usual com- putation of exactly 8 ; yet Strabo may then be speaking only of the historian's general practice, without any reference to this particular road. And, on the whole, it may perhaps be the more probable conclusion that the eastern portion of the road was not constructed till some time after the Romans had been in possession of Macedonia. According to the same geographer, who is the chief authority with regard to this via, its whole length was 535 Roman miles, or 4280 stadia; and although the first portion of it had two branches, namely, one from Epidamnus or Dyrrachium and another from Apollonia, yet, from whichever of those towns the traveller might start, the length of the road was the same. Into the accuracy of this state- ment we shall inquire further on. Strabo also men- tions that the first part of the road was called in Candavium (eVi KavSaovias), and this name fre- quently occurs in the Roman writers. Thus Cicero (^ad Alt. iii. 7) speaks of travelling "per Canda- viam," and Caesar {B. C. iii. 79) mentions it as the direct route into Macedonia. It does not, however, very clearly appear to how much of the road this name was applicable. Tafel, who has written a work on the Via Egnatia, is of opinion that the appellation of Candavia may be considered to extend from the commencement of the via, including the two branches from Dyrrachium and Apollonia, to the town of Lychnidus. {De Via mil. Rom. Egnatia, Proleg. p. xcix. Tulting. 1842.) But this limitation is entirely arbitrary, and unsupported by any au- thority ; and it would perhaps be a juster inference from the words of Strabo to assume that the name " Candavia " was applicable to the road as far as Thessalonica, as Col. Leake appears to have done. (^Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 311.) The point to be determined is, what does Strabo mean by " the first part ? " The road in its whole extent he says is called "Via Egnatia," and the first part "in Candaviam " ('H jxlv oiiv iruffa. '^yvarla KaXihat. H Se irpuTT] iirl KavSaov'ias dyeTai, K.r. A.); and from what follows it is evident that he contemplated the division of the parts at Thessalonica, since he gives the separate measurement as far as that town, which is j ust half the whole length of the road. VIA EGNATIA We will consider the road as far as Thessalonica, or the Via Candavia, first, and then proceed to the remainder of the Egnatian Way. Strabo (l. c. and p. 326) lays down the general direction of the road as follows : After passing Mount Candavia, it ran to the towns of Lychnidus and Pylon ; which last, as its name implies, was the border iovra between lUyria and Slacedonia. Hence it proceeded by Bar- nus to Heracleia, and on through the territory of the Lyncestae and Eordaei through Edessa and Pella to Thessalonica. The whole extent of this line, as we have already seen, was 267 Roman miles; and this computation will be found to agree pretty accurately with the distance between Dyrrachium and Thessa- lonica as laid down in the Antonine Itinerary. Ac- cording to that work, as edited by Parthey and Pinder (Berlin, 1848), who have paid great atten- tion to the numbers, the stations and distances between those two places, starting from Dyrrachium, were as follow (p. 151): — Clodiana - - - Scampa - - - Tres Tabernae - Lignidus (Lychnidus) - Nicias - - _ Heraclea - - - Celiac Edessa - - _ Pella Thessalonica 269 ., The difference of 2 miles probably arises from some variation in the MSS. of the Itinerary. It should be observed, liowever, that, according to Wesseling's edition (p. 318, seq.), the distance is 11 miles more, or 280 miles, owing to variations in the text. According to the Tab. Pent, the whole dis- tance was 279 miles, or 10 more than that given in the Itinerary; but there are great discrepancies in the distances between the places. The last-named work gives 307 miles as the sum of the distances between Apollonia and Thessalonica; or 38 miles more than the route between Dyrrachium and the latter town. Both these routes united, ac- cording to the Itinerary, at Clodiana; and the dis- tance from Apollonia to Clodiana was 49 miles, while that from Dyrrachium to the same place was only 33. This accounts for 16 miles of the differ- ence, and the remainder, therefore, must be sought in that part of the road which lay between Clodiana and Thessalonica. Here the stations are the same as those given in the route from Dyrrachium, with the exception of the portion between Lychnidus and Heracleia; where, instead of the single station of Nicias, we have two, viz., Scirtiana, 27 miles from Lychnidus, and Castra, 15 miles from Scirtiana. And as the distance between Castra and Heracleia is stated at 12 miles, it follows that it was 11 miles farther from Lychnidus to Heracleia by this route than by that through Nicias. This, added to the 16 miles extra length to Clodiana, accounts for 27 miles of the difference; but there still remain 11 miles to make up the discrepancy of 38 ; and, as the stations are the same, this difference arises in all probability from variations in the JISS. According to the Itin. Hierosol. (p. 285, seq., Berlin ed.), which names all the places where the horses were changed, as well as the chief towns, the total distance between Apollonia and Thessalonica was 300 miles ; which difi'ers very slightly from that