Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/286

 270 MARATHUS. seized what they considered a favourable opportunity for the destruction of the people of Marathus, sent privately to Ammonius, prime minister of Alexander Balas, the king of Syria, and bribed him with the offer of 300 talents to deliver up Marathus to them. The unfortunate inhabitants of the devoted city attempted in vain to appease their enemies. The Aradians violated the common laws of suppliants, broke the very ancient images of the local deities, — which the Slaratheni had brought to add solemnity to their embassy, — stoned the ambassadors, and cast them into prison: according to another account, they murdered some, and forged letters in their names, which they sealed with their seals, promising suc- cour to Marathus, with a view of introducing their troops into the city under this pretence. But dis- covering that the citizens of JIarathus were informed of their design, they desisted fi-om the attempt. The facts of its final subjugation to Aradus are not preserved. Pliny (v. 20) places Marathus opposite to the island of Aradus, which he says was 200 passus (= 1000 Koman feet) from the coast. Dio- dorus (/. c.) states the distance between Aradus and Marathus to be 8 stadia; which need not be incon- sistent with the statement of Phny, as the latter may be supposed to measure to the point on the mainland nearest to Aradus, the former the distance between that island and the town of ilarathus. The fact, however, is, that even the statement of Diodorus is too short for the nearest point on the coast; for this island is, according to Maundrell (March 7, p. 19), "about a league distant from the shore." And Poeocke, who crossed the strait, says " it is reckoned to be about two miles from the continent. {Observations on Syria, p. 201.) The 20 stadia of Strabo is therefore much more correct than either of the other authorities. He says that the island lay off an exposed coast (pax'<^5oys koI aXifievov'), between its port(Caranus lege Carnos) and Marathus : and what was the respective situation of these towns he intimates in another passage, where, reckoning from the north, he enumerates Balanaea, Carnos, Enydra, ]Iarathus. Poeocke takes Tortosa to be " without doubt Caranus (Carnos) the port of Aradus on the continent;" and as this is two miles north of Aradus, he properly looks for Marathus to the south, — identifying Enydra with Eiii-el-IIye (the Serpent's Fountaiii), " directly opposite to Aradus (p. 203), and suggesting that some ruins which he observed on a raised ground, at the northern extremity of a plain, about 7 miles south of Tortosa, " might possibly be Marathus" (p. 204). These conjectures may be admitted with some slight modifications. Thus, e. g., instead of iden- tifying Tortosa with Carnos, this naval arsenal of the Arvadites must be placed about 2^ miles north of Tortosa, where a late traveller has discovered " ex- tensive ruins, called by the Arab peasants Carnoon, — the site, doubtless, of the Carnos or Caranus of the ancients. The people from Arvad still quarry stones from these ruins; and below it, on the north, is a small harbour, which appears to have been forti- fied like that of Tortosa." (Thompson, in Bihliotheca Slicra, vol. v. p. 254.) A fresh-water spring in the sea, is mentioned by Strabo ; and a mile to the south, between Carnoos and Tortosa, " a few rods from the shore, an immense fountain, called 'A in Ibrahim (^Abrahanis fotintain), boils up from the bottom." Tortosa, then, will be, as many me- diaeval writers maintained, Antaradus, which "Arabic geographers write Antm-tus and Antarsiis ; whence MAECIANOPOLIS. the common Arabic name Tartus, in Italian Tortosa" (I.e. p.247, n. 1). ' Ain-el-IIujeh, written by Poeocke Ein-el-IIye, is certainly the Enydra of Strabo ; the geographer, or his informant, having in this, as in so many other instances, retained the first half of the native name, and translated the latter half, — En being the usual Greek and Latin equivalent for the Semetic ^ Ayn= fountain, and the hydra a sufficiently close representative of the Semetic Hiyeh = serpent. South of this fountain are very extensive quarries, five or six miles to the south of Tortosa. " This neigh- bourhood is called by the Arabs Amreed or Maabed Amreet ' the fane of Amreet.' This name the Greeks probably changed into Slarathus, and the old vaults, foundations, sarcophagi, &c., near 'Ain- el-Hiyeh (Serpent's Fountaiii), may mark the precise locality of ancient Marathus." (Thompson, I. c. p. 250.) Poeocke describes here a rock-hewn temple, and monolithic house and chambers ; besides a kind of semicircle, which he thinks " might serve for some sports to divert the people of Aradus and Antaradus, or of the ancient Marathus, if that was near. It was probably a circus " (p. 203). It was the more necessary to identify these sites, as D'Anville placed the ancient Marathus at the modern Marakiah, which is, doubtless, the repre- sentative of " Mutatio ^laraccas " of the JerusalerR Itinerary, on the confines of Syria and Phoenice, 13 M. P. south of Balaneas (now Baneas'), and 10 M. P. north of Antaradus : and this error is per- petuated in Arrowsmith s map. [G. W.] MARATHUS (mdpaQos). 1. A small town in Phocis, near Anticyra, mentioned only by Strabo (ix. p. 423). Perhaps represented by the remains at Sidhiro-hafkhio. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 549.) 2. A town of Acarnania, of tmknown site, men- tioned only by Steplianus B. (s. v.) MARATHUSA, an inland city of Crete, mentioned by Pliny (iv. 12; comp. Tzschucke, ad Pomp. Mel. ii. 7. § 13; Hock, Kreta, vol. i. p. 434.) [E.B.J.] MARATHUSSA (Uapaeouaaa), a small island of the Aegaean sea, off the coast of Ionia, near Clazomenae. (Thuc. viii. 31 ; Phn. v. 31. s. 38.) MARCI, a place mentioned in the Not. Imp. as on the Saxon shore, and as a station of some Dalmatian cavalry under the command of the general of Belgica Secunda. D'Anville supposes, with De Valois, that it may be Mark between Calais and Gravelines : but the site is uncertain. [G. L.] MARCIAE. [Gallaecia, p. 934, b.] MARCIA'NA SILVA, a mountain forest in the south-west of Germany, probably the whole or a portion of what is now called the Black Forest (Amm. Marc. xxi. 8; Tab. Feuting.) The origin of the name is not known, Cluver regarding Marciana as a corruption of schwarz, and others connecting it with marsh and march, which is still used in the Black Forest as a name for a moor. [L. S.] MARCIANO'POLIS (^apKiavov-noXis, Procop. de Aed. iv. 7), a city of Moesia, 18 M. P. from Odessus ( Fa?-wa) (Itin. Anton.;Peut.Tab.; Hierocl.), which derived its name from Marciana, sister of Trajan. (Amm. Marc, xxvii. 6. § 12; Jornand. de Reb. Get. 16.) Claudius II. signally defeated the Goths in several battles near this town. (Trebell. Poll. Claud. 9 ; Zozim. i. 42.) Gibbon (c. xsvi. ; comp. Lo Beau, Bas Empire, vol. iv. p. 106; Greenwood, History of the Germans, London, 1836, p. 329; Art de Ver. les Dates, vol. i. p. 358) has told the story of the accidental quarrel between the Visigoth