Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/222

 206 LOTUM. saffron colour and sweetish taste (Herodotus likens its taste to that of the date). It must not be con- founded With the celebrated Egyptian lotus, or water-lily of the Nile, which was also used for food. (There were, in fact, several plants of the name, which are carefully distinguished by Liddell and and Scott, Gr. Lex. s. v.) The ancient geographers differ as to the extent of coast which they assign to the Lotophagi. Their chief seat was around the Lesser Syrtis, and east- ward indefinitely towards the Great Syrtis ; but Mela carries them into Cyrenaica. They are also placed in the large island of Meninx or Lotophagitis, E. of the Lesser Syrtis. (Horn. Herod. II. cc; Xen. Anab. iii. 2. •§ 2.5; Scylax. p. 47; Mela, i. 7. § 5; Plin. V. 4. s. 4: Sil. iii. 310; Hygin. Fab. 125; Shaw; Delia Cella; Barth; Heeren, Tdeen, vol. ii. p^ 1. p. 54; Ritter, Erdhmde, vol i. p. 989.) [P.S.] LOTUM, in Gallia, is placed by the Antonine Itin. on a road from Juliobona {LiUehonne) to liotomagus {Rouen). It is vi. leagues from Julio- bona to Lotum, and xiii. from Lotum to Eutomagus. The actual distances seem to fix Lotum at or near Caudebec, which is on the north bank of the Seine between LilkhorMe and Rouen. [G. L.] LOXA, in Britain, mentioned by Ptolemy (ii. 3) as a river on the western coast of Scotland, north of the Vara (Ovdpa) aestiiary, i. e. the Murray Firth. Identified in the Monumenta Britannica with the Loth in Sutherland ; the Lossie, and Croviarty Firth. [R. G. L.] LUANCI. [Gallaecia.] LUBAENL [Gallaecia.] LUCA (AoCwa, Strab., Ptol. : Eth. Lucensis : Lucca'), a city of Etruria, situated in a plain at the foot of the Apennines, near the left bank of the Ausar (Serchio) about 12 miles from the sea, and 10 NE. of Pisae. Though Luca was included within the limits of Etruria, as these were established in the time of Augustus (Plin. iii. 5. s. 8 ; Ptol. iii. 1. § 47), it is very doubtful whether it was ever an Etruscan town. No mention of it is found as such, and no Etruscan remains have been discovered in its Keighbourhood. But it is probable that the Etrus- cans at one time extended their power over the level country at the foot of the Apennines, from the A'.nus to the Macra, leaving the Ligurians in pos- session only of the mountains, — and at this period, therefore, Luca was probably subject to them. At a later period, however, it had certainly fallen into the hands of the Ligurians, and being retaken from them by the Romans, seems to have been commonly considered (until the reign of Augustus) a Ligurian town. For this reason we find it comprised within the province assigned to Caesar, which included Liguria as well as Cisalpine Gaul. (Suet. Caes. 24.) The first mention of Luca in history is in b. c. 218, when Livy tells us that the consul Sempronius retired there after his unsuccessful contest with Hannibal. (Liv. xxi. 59.) It was, therefore, at this period certainly in the hands of the Romans, though it would seem to have subsequently fallen again into those of the Ligurians; but it is strange that during the long protracted wars of the Romans with that people, we meet with no mention of Luca, though it nmst have been of importance as a frontier town, especially in their wars with the Apuani. The nest notice of it is that of the establishment there of a Roman colony in B.C. 177. (Veil. Pat. i. 15 ; Liv. xli. 13.) There is, indeed, some difficulty with regard to this ; the BISS. and editions of Livy vary LUCANIA. between Luca and Luna ; but there is no such dis- crepancy in those of Velleius, and there seems at least no reason to doubt the settlement of a Latin colony at Luca ; while that mentioned in Livy being a " colonia civium," may, perhaps, with more pro- bability, be referred to Luna. (Madvig, de Colon. p. 287 ; Zumpt, de Colon, p. 349 ) that at Luca became, in common with the other Latin colonies, a municipal town by virtue of the Lex Julia (b.c.49), and hence is termed by Cicero " municipium Lu- cense." (Cic. ad Fam. xiii. 13.) It appears to have been at this time a considerable town, as we find it repeatedly selected by Caesar during his adminis- tration of Gaul as the frontier town of his province, to which he repaired in order to consult with his friends, or with the leaders of political parties at Rome. (Suet. Caes. 24 ; Pint. Caes. 21, Crass. 14, Pomp. 51 ; Cic. ad Fam. i. 9. § 9). On one of these occasions (in b. c. 56) there are said to have been more than 200 senators assembled at Luca, including Pompey and Crassus, as well as Caesar himself. (Plut. Z. c. ; Appian, B.C.n. 17.) Luca would seem to have received a fresh colony before the time of Pliny, probably under Augustus. (Plin. iii. 5. s. 8 ; Zumpt, de Colon, p. 349.) We hear little of it under the Roman Empire; but it seems to have continued to be a provincial town of some consideration : it was the point where the Via Clodia, proceeding from Rome by Arretium, FIo- rcntia, and Pistoria, was met by other roads from Parma and Pisae. (Plin. /. c. ; Ptol. iii. 1. §47; Itin. Ant. pp. 283, 284, 289 ; Tab. Pent.) During the Gothic wars of Narses, Luca figures as an im- portant city and a strong fortress (Agath. B. G. i. 15), but it was not till after the fall of the Lombard monarchy that it attained to the degree of prosperity and importance that we find it enjoying during the middle ages. Lucca is still a flou- rishing city, with 25,000 inhabitants : the only relics of antiquity visible there are those of an am- phitheatre, considerable part of which may still be traced, now converted into a market-place called tne Piazza del Jfercato, and some small remains of a theatre near the church of Sia. Maria di Corie Landini. [E. H. B.] LUCA'NUS, a river of Bruttium. [Brutth, p. 450, b.] LUCA'NIA (XfVKavia, Strab. The name of the people is written AivKavoi by Strabo and Polybius, but Ptolemy has Aoukoi/oI, and this is found also on coins), a province or distiict of Southern Italy, ex- tending across from the Tyrrhenian sea to the gulf of Tarentum, and bounded by the Bruttians on the S., by Samnium and Apulia on the N., and by Cam- pania, or the district of the Picentini, on the NW. Its more precise limits, which are fixed with un- usual unanimity by the geographers, were, the river Silarus on the NW.; the Bradanus, which flows into the gulf of Tarentum, just beyond Metapontum, on the NE. ; while the mouths of the Laiis and the Crathis marked its frontiers towards the Bruttians on the two sides of the peninsula. (Strab. vi pp. 252, 253,255; Plin. iii. 5. s. 10, 11. s. 15; Ptol. iii. 1. §§ 8, 9.) Its northern frontier, from the sources of the Silarus to those of the Bradanus, must have been an arbitrary line ; but nearly fol- lowing the main ridge of the Apennines in this jiart of its course. It thus comprised the modern jiro- vince of the Basilicata, together with the greater part of the Principato Citeriore and the extreme northern portion of Calabria.