Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/262

 215 MAGDOLUM. on Palestine, Travels, vol. ii. p. 71.; How tin's last assertion is to be proved does not appear. The authority of Josephus has been quoted for a Maj;- dala near Gamala, and consequently on the east of the sea {Vita, § 24); but the reading is corrupt. (Robinson, I. c. p. 279, note.) [G. W.] IIAG'DOLUM (yidyooXof, Herod, ii. 159; but Ma7Sa>Aoi' in LXX.; the 3Iigdol of the Old Testa- ment {Exod. xiv. 2; Numb, xxxiii. 7; 2 Kings, xxiii. 29; Jerem. xliv. 1, xlvi. 14; Ezek. xxix. 10, XXX. C; It. Anton, p. 171), a town of Lower Aegypt which stood about 12 miles S. of Pelusium, on the coast-road between Aegypt and Syro-Phoe- nicia. Here, according to Herodotus, {I. c.) Pha- raoh-Necho defeated the Syrians, about 608 b. c. P^usebius {Praepar. Evang. ix. 18), apparently re- ferring to the same event, calls the defeated army " Syrians of Judah." That the Syrians should have advanced so near the frontiers of Egypt as the Del- taic Magdolum, with an arid desert on their flanks and rear (com p. Herod, iii. 5) seems extraordinary; neither is the suspicious aspect of the Battle of Jlag- dolus diminished by the conquest of Cadytis, a con- siderable city of Palestine, being represented as its result. The Syrians might indeed have pushed rapidly along the coast-road to Aegypt, if they had previously secured the aid of the desert tribes of Arabs, as Cambyses did before his invasion of Aegypt (comp. Herod, iii. 7). Calmet's Diet, of the, Bible, s. V. Megiddo ; Winer, Bibl. Realworterbnch, vol. ii. p. 93, note 2; ChampoUion, UEgypte, vol. ii. p. 79. [W.'B.D.] ilAGELLI, a Ligurian tribe, mentioned only by Pliny (iii. ^. s. 7). They have been supposed to have occupied the Val di Mugello, in the Apennines, N. of Florence ; but though it is certain that the Ligurians at one time extended as f;ir to the E as this, it is very improbable that Pliny should have included such a tribe in his description of Roman Liguria. The name of the Mugello is found in Procopius (jB. G. iii. 5) where he speaks of a place (jl^upiov') called Mucella (MowcsAAa), situated a day's journey to the N. of Florence. [E. H. B.] MAGETO'BRIA or ADMAGETO'BRIA, in Gallia. Probably the true name ended in -hrioa or • briga. Ariovistus, the German, defeated the forces of tiie Gain in a fight at this place. (Caes. B. G. i. 31.) The site of Jlagetobria is imknown. The resemblance of name induced D'Anville {Notice, §-c.) to fix it at Moigte de Broie, near the confluence of the Ognon and the Saone, a little above Pontarlkr. There is a story of a broken urn, with the inscrip- tion MAGETOB., having been found in the Saone in 1802. But this story is of doubtful credit, and the urn cannot be found now. Walckenaer supposes Amage on the Brenchin, which is west of Faucogney and east of Luxeuil, to correspond best to the indi- cations in Caesar's text. But Caesar does not give us the least indication of the position of ]Mage- tobria. [G. L ] MAGI. [Media.] MAGIOVINTUM or JIAGIOVINIUM, in Bri- tain, a station placed in three of the itinera of Antoninus at the distance of 24 miles to the N. of Verulamium. Its site is generally supposed to be at Fenny Stratford. [C. R. S.] MAGNA (It. Ant. p.484 : Geogr. Ravenn.). 1. A town or station in Britain, the site of which is now occupied by Kenchester, in Herefordshire. In both of the above works the word is in the plural form, Magnis, most probably for Magnis Castris. Indeed, MAGNA GRAECIA. the extraordinary extent of the place, as ascertained by its remains, renders this suggestion more than probable. The walls, now almost entirely destroyed, enclosed an area of from 20 to 30 acres. Leland, speaking of Kenchester, says: — " Ther hath ben fbwnd ' nostra memoria lateres Britannici ; et ex eis- dem canales, aquae ductus, tesselata pavimente, fragmentum catenulae aureae, calcar ex argento,' byside other strawng things." The tesselated pavements, mentioned by Leland, have, of late years, been partially laid open. The only lapidary inscrip- tion which appears on record, as discovered at Ken- chester, is a fragment with the name of the emperor Numerian ; but coins and miscellaneous antiquities are still, from time to time, ploughed up. 2. A station in Britain, on the line of the Roman Wall, mentioned in the Notitia ; it also occurs in Geog. Ravenn. ; and probably on the Rudge Cup, as Maiss. Its site is that of Carvoran, a little to the S. of the Wall, on a high and commanding position near the village of Greenhead. There seems but little doubt of Carvoran being the site of this Magna ; although, unlike many of the Notitia stations on the Wall, its position has not been identified by inscriptions. The Notitia places at Magna the second cohort of the Dalmatians. At least two inscriptions found here mention the Hamii, but none name the Dalmatians. The Hamii do not appear to be recorded in any other inscriptions, and they are not mentioned by that name in the Notitia. Hodgson {Roman Wall and South Tindale, p. 205) considers that these auxiliary troops were from Apamenia in Syria, at the confluence of the Orontes and Marsyas, 62 miles from Aleppo, which is still a large place, and called Hamah, and, in ancient times, Hama. This conjecture seems feasible, as the Notitia mentions the Cohors Prima Apamenorum as quartered in Egypt ; and also as some altars dedi- cated to the Syrian goddess have been discovered at Carvoran. [C. R. S.] MAGNA GRAE'CIA {v ixfydXrj 'EAAas), was the name given in ancient times by the Greeks themselves to the assemblage of Greek colonies which encircled the shores of Southern Italy. The name is not found in any extant author earlier than Polybius : but the latter, in speaking of the cities of Magna Graecia in the time of Pythagoras, uses the expression, " the country that was then called Magna Graecia" (Pol. ii. 39) ; and it appears cer- tain that the name must have arisen at an early period, while the Greek colonies in Italy were at the height of their power and prosperity, and be- fore the states of Greece proper had attained to their fullest gi-eatness. But the omission of the name in Herodotus and Thucydides, even in pas- sages where it would have been convenient as a geographical designation, seems to show that it was not in their time generally recognised as a distinc- tive appellation, and was probably first adopted as such by the historians and geographers of Later times, though its origin must have been derived from a much earlier age. It is perhaps still more significant, that the name is not found in Scylax, though that author attaches particular importance to the enumeration of the Greek cities in Italy as distinguished from those of the barbarians. Nor is the use of the term, even at a later period, veiy fixed or definite. Strabo seems to imply that the Greek cities of Sicily were included under the appellation; but this is certainly opposed to the more general usage, which confined the term to the colo^