Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/199

 LIGER. peri," for the ablative also occur in Caesar's text. The form Aiyeip occurs in Ptolemy (ii. 7. § 2), and in Stephanas Byz. (s. v. Be'xfip), who has also Aiyvpos (o'. V. Alyvpes), with a remark that the Ligures, who borJer on the Tyrrheni, derive their name from the river Ligyrus. Dion Cassius (xxxix. 40, xliv. 42 ; and the notes of Reiniarus), has the shorter form Aiypos. Lucan (i. 438) is generally cited as authority for the Koman quantity of the word : " In nebulis Jleduana tuis marcere perosus Andus jam placida Ligeris recreatur ab unda." But these verses are spurious. (See the Notes in Oudendorp's edition.) According to Strabo, the Loire rises in the Cevennes (rk Ke'/x^ei-a), and flows into the ocean. But he is mistaken as to the course of the Loire, for he makes both the Garumna and the Liger flow parallel to the Pyrenees ; and he was further mistaken in supposing the axis of the Pyrenees to be south and north. [Gallia Tkaxs- ALPINA, vol. i. p. 949.] He estimates the navigable part of each river at 2000 stadia ; but the Loire is a much longer river than the Garonne. He says that the Loire flows past Genabum (^Orleans), and that Genabum is situated about half way between the commencement of the navigable part of the river and its outlet, which lies between the territory of the Pictones on the south, and the territory of the Namnetes on the north ; all which is correct enough. (Strab. iv. pp. 189, 190, 191.) He adds that there was a trading place (^i/xnopuov'), named Corbilo fCoKBiLo], on the river, which Polybius speaks of. It appears that Strabo did not distinguish the Elaver . (^Allier) from the Loire, for he says : " the Arverni are situated on the Liger, and their chief city is Nemossus, which lies on the inver ; and this river, flowing past Genabum, the trading town of the Car- nutes, which is situated about the middle of the navigable part, discharges itself into the ocean" (p. 191). But Nemossus is near the AUier. Caesar was acquainted both with the Elaver (vii. 34, 35) and the river properly called the Loire. He crossed the Elaver on his march to Gergovia. [Gehgovia.] He remarks that the AUier was not generally fordable before the autumn ; and in another place (5. G. vii. 5.5) he describes his passage over the Loire at a season when it was swollen by the melted snow. When Caesar was preparing for his naval warfare with the Veneti, he had ships built on the Loire. {B. G. iii. 9.) He does not tell us where he built them, but it may have been in the countiy of the Andes or Andeca'i, which he held at that time. Of the four passages which were made in Strabo's time from Gallia to Britannia, one was from the mouth of the Loire ; and this river was one line of commercial communication between the Provincia and Britannia. Goods were taken by land from the Provincia to the Loire, and then carried down the Loire. (Strab. iv. p. 189.) Pliny (iv. 18) calls the Loire " flumen clarum," which Forbiger explains by the words "clear stream;" but this does not seem to be what Pliny means. TibuUus (i. 7, 11) says, " Testis Arar Pihodanusque celer magnusque Ga- rumna, Carnutl et flavi caerula lympha Liger." This seems to be all that the ancient geographers have said of the Loire. The Elaver (Allier) rises in Mons Lesura (^Mont Lozere), not very far from LIGURIA. 183 the source of the Loire, and on the north-west side of the Ctvennes. It flows north through the fertile Limagne (TAuvergne, and after a course of about 200 miles joins the Loir-e at Noviodunum or Ne- virnum (Xevers). The Loire rises in Mont Mezene, and flows north to its junction with the AUier in a valley between the valley of the Allier and the basin of the Rhone. From Nevers the course of the Loire is north-west to Genabum {Orleaiis) ; and from Orleans it has a general west course to the ocean, which it enters below Nantes. The whole length of the river is above 500 miles. Several large rivers flow into it on the left side below Orleans; and the Mayenne on the right side below Tours. The area of this river-basin is 50,000 square miles, or as much as the area of England. The drainage from this large surface passes through one channel into the sea, and when the volume of water is increased by great rains it causes inundations, and does great damage [G. L.] LI'GURES. [Ltgukl.] Ll'GUKES BAEBIA'NI ET CORNELIA'NI [HlHPIXI.] LIGU'RIA (^Aiyovpia, Ptol.; but in earlier Greek writers always t) AiyocTTiKT) : the people were called by the Greeks Aiyves, but by later writers Atyvcrrluoi: by the Romans Ligures; but the ad- jective form is Ligustinus), one of the provinces or regions of Northern Italy, extending along the N. coast of the Tyrrhenian sea, from the frontiers of Gaul to those of Etruria, In the more precise and definite sense in which the name was employed from the time of Augustus, and in which it is u.-ed by the geographers (Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, &c.), Liguria was bounded by the river Varus on the W., and by the Macra on the E., while towards the N. it extended across the chain of the Maritime Alps and Apennines as far as the river Padus. The Trebia, one of the confluents of the Padus on its right bank, appears to have formed the limit which separated Liguria from Gallia Cispadana. In this sense, Liguria constituted the ninth region of Italy, according to the division of Augustus, and its boundaries were fixed by that monarch. (Phn. iii. 5. s. 7; Strab. v. p. 2 1 8 ; Mel. ii, 4. § 9; Ptol. iii. 1. § 3.) But Liguria, in its original sense, as " the land of the Ligurians," comprised a much more exten- sive tract. All the earliest authors are agreed in representing the tribes that occupied the western slopes of the Maritime Alps and the region which extends from thence to the sea at Massilia, and as far as the mouths of the Rhone, as of Ligurian^ and not Gaulish origin. Thus Aeschylus repre- sents Hercules as contending with the Ligtirians on the stony plains near the mouths of the Rhone, Herodotus speaks of Ligurians inhabiting the country- above Massilia, and Hecataeus distinctly calls Mas- silia itself a city of Liguria, while he terms Nurbo a city of Gaul. Scylax also assigns to the Ligurians- the coast of the Mediterranean sea as far as the- mouths of the Rhone; while from that river to Emporium in Spain, he tells us that the Ligurians and Iberians w-ere intermingled. The Heli.syci, who, according to Avienus, were the earliest inhabitants of the country around Narbo, were, according to Hecataeus, a Ligurian tribe. (Aeschyl. ap. Strab. iv. p. 183; Hecat. Fr. 19, 20, 22, ed. Klausen; Herod, v. 9; Scyl. p. 2. §§ 3, 4; Avien. Or. Marit. 584; Strab. iv. p. 203.) Thucydides also speaks of the Ligurians having expelled the Sicanians, an Iberian tribe from the banks of the riv-er Sicanus, m N 4