Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/147

 LATHKIPrA. of the localities. Thus the laborious, l)ut often most inaccurate, compiler Forbiger, while taking on himself to correct Strabo's exact account, tells us that " the river and hike (Strabo's harbour) have now entirely vanished ;" and yet, a few lines down, he refers to a passage of Beechey's work within a very few pages of the place where the river itself is actually de- scribed ! (Forbiger, Ilandbuch der alien GeograpMe, vol. ii. p. 828, note.) The researches made in Beechey's expedition give the following results : — East of the headland on which stands the ruins of Hesperides or Berenice (now Beiiffazi) is a small lake, which communicates with the harbour of the city, and has its water of course salt. The water of the lake varies greatly in quan- tity, according to the season of the year ; and is nearly dried up in summer. There are strong grounds to believe that its waters were more abundant, and its communication with the harbour more perfect, in ancient times than at present. On the margin of the lake is a spot of rising ground, nearly insulated in winter, on which are the remains of ancient buildings. East of this lake again, and only a few yards from its margin, there gushes forth an abundant spring of fresh water, which empties itfelf into the lake, " run- ning along a channel of inconsiderable breadth, bor- dered with reeds and rushes," and " might be mistaken by a common observer for an inroad of the lake into the sandy soil which bounds it." Jloreover, this is the only stream which empties itself into the lake ; and indeed the only one found on that part of the coast of Cyrenaica. Now, even without searching furthei', it is evident how well all this answers to the description of Strabo (xvii. p. 836) : — " There is a promontory called Pscudopenias, on which Berenice is situated, beside a certain Lake of Tritonis (jrapa ifj.vriv Ttva TpiTcovidoa), in which there is generally (jUaAifTTa) a little island, and a temple of Aphrodite upon it: but there is (or it is) also the Harbour of Ilesperidcs, and the river 'Lathon falls into it." It is now evident how mucli the sense of the descrip- tion would be impaired by reading Aiixptj for Aifiyiv in the last clause ; and it matters but little whether .Strabo speaks of the river as falling into the harbour because it fell into the lake which commur.icated with the harbour, or whether he means that the lake, which he calls that of Tritonis, was actually the har- bour (that is, an inner harbour) of the city. But the little stream which falls into the lake is not the only representative of the river Lathon. Further to the east, in one of the subterranean caves which abound in the neighbourhood of Bewjazi, Beechy found a large body of fresh water, losing itself in the bowels of the earth ; and the Bey of Bengazi affirmed that he had tracked its subterraneous course till he doubted the safety of proceeding further, and that he had found it as much as 30 feet deep. That the stream thns lost in the earth is the same which reappears in the spring on the margin of the lake, is extremely probable ; but whether it be so in fact, or not, we can hardly doubt that the ancient Greeks would imagine the connection to exist. (Beechey, Proceed- ings, cj-c. pp. 326, foil. ; Barth, Wanderungen, (^-c. p. 387. [P. S.] LATHRIPPA (Aadpi-mra), an inland town of Arabia Felix, mentioned by Ptolemy (vi. 7. § 31), which there is no difficulty in identifying with the ancient name of the renowned El-Medineh, " ihe cifg" as it is called by emphasis among the disciples of the false prophet. Its ancient name, Yathrib, still exists in the native geographies and local tra- LATimi. 131 ditions, which, with tho definite article el prefixed, is as accurately represented by Lithrippa as the Greek alphabet would admit. "■ Medineh is situated on the edge of the great Arabian desert, close to the chain of mountains which traverses that country from north to south, and is a continuation of Libanon. The great plain of Arabia in which it lies is con- siderably elevated above the level of the sea. It is ten or eleven days distant from Mekka, and has been always considered the principal fortress of the Uedjaz, being surrounded with a stone wall. It is one of the best-built towns in the East, ranking in this respect next to Aleppo, though ruined houses and walls in all parts of the town indicate how far it has fallen from its ancient splendour. It is sur- rounded on three sides with gardens and plantations, which, on the east and south, extend to the distance of six or eight miles. Its population amounts to 16,000 or 20,000—10,000 or 12,000 in the town, the remainder in the suburbs." (Burckhardt, Arabia, 321 — 400 ; Ititter, Erdkunde, vol. i. p. 15, ii. pp. 149, &c.) [G.W.] LATIUJI {ri AaTivt): Eth. and Adj. Latinus), was the name given by the L'omans to a district or region of Central Italy, situated on the Tyrrhenian sea, between Etruria and Campania. I. Name. There can be little doubt that Latium meant originally the land of the Latini, and that in this, as in almost all other cases in ancient histoiy, the name of the people preceded, instead of being derived from, that of the country. But the ancient Eoman writers, with their usual infelicity in all matters of etymology, derived the name of the Latini from a king of the name of Latinus, while they sought for another origin for the name of Latium. The com- mon etymology (to which they were obviously led by the quantity of the first syllable) was that which derived it from " lateo;" and the usual explanation was, that it was so called because Saturn had there lain hid from the pursuit of Jupiter. (Virg. Aen. viii. 322; Ovid, /VwC. i. 238.) The more learned derivations proposed by Saufeius and Varro, from the inhabitants having lived hidden in caves (Saufeius, ap. Serv. ad Aen. i. 6), or because Latium itself was as it were hidden by the Apennines (Varr. ap. Serv. ad Aen. viii. 322), are certainly not more sa- tisfactory. The form of the name of Latium would at first lead to the supposition that the ethnic La- tini was derived from it; but the same remark ap- plies to the case of Samnium and the Samnites, where we know that the people, being a race of foreign settlers, must have given their name to the country, and not the converse. Probably Latini is only a lengthened form of the name, which was originally Latii or Latvi; for the connection which has been generally recognised between Latini and Lavinium, Latinus and Lavinus. seems to point to the existence of an old form, Latvinus. (Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 6 ; Niebuhr, V.u. L.Kunde, p. 3.52.) Varro himself seems to regard the name of Latium as derived from that of Latinus {LL. v. § 32) ; and that it was generally regarded as equivalent to " the land of the Latins" is sufficiently proved by the fact that the Greeks always rendered it by 17 AaTivT], or ^ Aarivuv frj. The name of A6,twv is foimd only in Greek writers of a late period, who bor- rowed it directly from the Romans. (Appian, B. C. ii. 26; Herodian, i. 16.) F'rom the same cause it must have proceeded that when the Latini ceased to