Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1357

 XANTHUS. ■which is much too great. (Comp. Steph. B. s. r. ; Ptol. V. 3. § 5 ; Mela, i. 15 ; Polyb. xsvi. 7.) This famous city was twice destroyed, ou eacli of which occasions its inliabitaiits defended themselves with undaunted valour. The first catastrophe befell the city in the reign of Cyrus, when Harpagus besieged it with a Persian army. On that occasion the Xan- thians buried themselves, with all they possessed, under the ruins of their city. (Herod, i. 176.) After this event the city must have been rebuilt ; for during the Roman civil wars consequent upon the murder of Caesar, Xnnthus was invested by the army of Brutus, as its inhabitants refused to open their gates to him. Brutus, after a desperate strug- gle, took the city by assault. The Xanthians con- tinued the fight in the streets, and perished with their wives and children in the flames, rather than submit to the Romans. (Dion Cass, xlvii. 34 ; Appian, B. C. iv. 18, foil.) After this catastrophe, the city never recovered. The chief buildings at Xanthus were temples of Sarpedon (Appian, I. c), and of the Lycian Apollo. (Diod. v. 77.) At a distance of 60 stadia down the river and 10 stadia from its mouth, there was a sanctuary of Leto on the bank of the Xanthus. (Strab. I. c.) The site of Xanthus and its magnificent ruins were first discovered and described by Sir C. Fellows in his Excursion in Asia Minor, p. 225, foil. (comp. his Lycia, p. 164, foil.) These ruins stand near the village of Koonik, and consist of temples, tombs, triumphal arches, walls, and a theatre. The site, says ISir Charles, is extremely romantic, upon beautiful hills, soine crowned with rocks, others rising perpendicularly from the river. The city does not appear to have been very large, but its remains show that it was highly ornamented, particularly the tombs. The architecture and' sculptures of the place, of which many specimens are in an excellent state of preservation, and the inscriptions in a pecu- liar alphabet, have opened up a page in the history of Asia Jlinor previously quite unknown. The en- gravings in Fellows' works furnish a clear idea of the high perfection which the arts must have at- tained at Xanthus. (See also Spratt and Forbes, Travels in Lycia, i. p. 5, and ii., which contains an excellent plan of the site and remains of Xanthus ; E. Braun, Die Marmorwerke von Xanthos in Lykia, Khein. Mus. Neue Folge, vol. iii. p. 481, foil.) A large collection of marbles, chiefly sepulchral, discovered at Xanthus by Sir C. Fellows, and brought to England in 1842 and 1843, has been arranged in the British Museum. Of these a full account is given in the Supplement to the Penny Cyclopaedia, vol. ii. p. 713, foil. [L. S.] XANTHUS {s.a.vQos), an important river in the W. of Lycia, which is mentioned even in Homer {II. ii. 877, V. 479), and which, according to Strabo (xiv. p. 665), was anciently called Sirbes, that is in Phoenician and Arabic " reddish yellow," so that the Greek name Xanthus is only a translation of the Semitic Sirbes or Zirba. The Xanthus has its sources in Mount Taurus, on the frontiers between Lycia and Pisidia, and flows as a navigable river in a SW. direction through an extensive plain (^avdov TreSiov, Herod, i. 176), having Mount Bragus on the W. and Massicytes on the E., towards the sea, into which it discharges itself about 70 stadia S. of the city of Xanthus, and a little to the NW. of Pinara. (Herod. /. c. ; Ptol. v. 3. § 2 ; Dion. Per: 848 ; Ov. Met. ix. 645; Mela, i. 15; Phn. v. 28.) Now the Etshm or Essenide. (Fellows, Lycia, })p. 123, 278.) XIPHONIUS PORTUS. 1333 Respecting Xanthus as a name of the Trojan river Scamander, see Scamandeu. [L. S.] XANTHUS. [BuTHROTUM.] XATHRl (Ha6poi, Arrian, Anab. vi. 15), a tribe of free Indians mentioned by Arrian as dwelling along the banks of the Hydraotes {Iravdti) in the Panjub. There can be little doubt that they derive their name from the Indian caste of the Kshatriyas. [V.] XENAGORAE INSULAE {=.ivay6pov vijaoi), according to Pliny (v. 35), a group of eight small islands off the coast of Lycia, which the Stadiasmus (§ 218) states were situated 60 stadia to the east of Patara. They are commonly identified with a group of islands in the bay of Kalamaki. [L. S.] XENIPPA, a small place in the NE. part of Sogdiana, noticed by Curtius (viii. 2. § 14) ; perhaps the present Urtippa. [V.] XEROGYPSUS (Hrjprf7wi^os, Anna Comn. vii. II, p. 378, Bonn), a small river in the SE. of Thrace, which falls into the Propontis, not far from Perin- thus. In some maps it is called the Erginus, upon the authority of Mela (ii. 2). [J. R.J XERXE'NE (=,ep^r]i'-n, Strab. xi. p. 528), a dis- trict on the Euphrates, in the NW. part of Arme- nia, more properly, however, belonging to Cappa- docia. It is called Derxene by Pliny (v. 24. s. 20), and this perhaps is the more correct name. (Cf. Ritter, Erdk. x. p. 769.) [T. H. D.] XIME'NE {s.i/xrivr]), a district in the most southern part of Pontus, on the Halys, and near the frontiers of Cappadocia, was celebrated for its salt-works. (Strab. xii. p. 561.) [L. S.] XION (Hiwf, Scylax, p. 53), a river on the W. coast of Libva Interior. [T. H. D.] XIPHONIUS PORTUS (s.i(pd>veioi M/niiv, Scyl. p. 4 : Bay of Awjusta), a spacious harbour on the E. coast of Sicily, between Catana and Syra- cuse. It is remarkable that this, though one of the largest and most important natural harbours on the coasts of Sicily, is rarely mentioned by ancient au- thors. Scylax, indeed, is the only writer who h:is preserved to us its name as that of a port. Strabo speaks of the Xiphonian Promontory (rh Trjs Bi- vias aKpwTTipiov, vi. p. 267), by which he evidently means the projecting headland near its entrance, now called the Capo di Santa Croce. Diodorus also mentions that the Carthaginian fleet, in u. c. 263 touched at Xiphonia on its way to Syracuse (eis r7]V, -.Kpoaviav, xxiii. 4. p. 502). None of these authors allude to the existence of a town of this name, and it is probably a mistake of Stephanus of Byzantium, who speaks of Xiphonia as a city (s. v.). The harbour or bay of Aiajusta is a s])a- cious gulf, considerably larger than the Great Har- bour of Syracuse, and extending from the Capo di Sanca Croce to tlie low peninsula or promontory of BJagnid (the ancient Thapsus). But it is probable that the port designated by Scylax was a much smaller one, close to the mo<lcrn city of Atiyusta, which (/ccupics a low peninsular point or timgue of land that projects from near the N. extremity of the bay, and strongly resembles the position of the island of Ortygia, at Syracuse, except that it is not quite separated from the mainland. It is very sin- gular that so remarkable and advantageous a situa- tion should not have been taken advantage of by the Greek colonists in Sicily ; but we have no trace of any ancient town on the .spot, unless it were file site of the ancient Megara. [Mkgaha.J The modern town oi Auyusia, ov Agos(a,VAS founded in the 13th century by Frederic II. [E- H. B.J 4q 3