Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/306

 290 MASSIANI. MASSIA'NI (Uaaaiai'oi, Strab. xv. p. 690), a people who dwelt in the NE. part of India, beyond the Punjab, between the Cophes and the Indus. They are mentioned by Strabo in connection with the Abtaceni and Aspasii, and must therefore have dwelt along the mountain range to the N. of the Kabul river. [V.] MA'SSICUS MONS {Monte Massico), a moun- tain, or rather range of hills, in Campania, which formed the limit between Campania properly so called and the portion of Latium, south of the Liris, to which the name of Latium Novum or Adjectum was sometimes given. (Plin. iii. 5. s. 9.) The Massican Hills form a range of inconsiderable elevation, which extends from the foot of the mountain group near Suessa (the Mte. di Sta. Croce), in a SW. direction, to within 2 miles of the sea, where it ends in the hill of Mondragone, just above the ancient Sinuessa. The Massican range is not, like the more lofty group of the Mte. di Sta. Croce or Rocca Monfina, of volcanic origin, but is composed of the ordinary limestiine of the Apennines (Daubeny On Volcanoes, p. 175). But, from its immediate proximity to the volcanic formations of Campania, the soil which covers it is in great part composed of such products, and hence probably the excellence of its wine, which was one of the most celebrated in Italy, and vied with the still more noted Falernian. (Virg. Georg. ii. 14.3, Aen. vii. 724; Hor. Carm. i. 1. 19, iii. 21. .') : Sil. Ital. vii. 20 ; Martial, i. 27. 8, xiii. Ill; Phn. xiv. 6. s. 8; Culumell. iii. 8.) Yet the whole of this celebrated range of hills does not exceed 9 miles in length by about 2 in breadth. [E. H. B.] iMASSICYTES, MASSYCITES, or MASSICY- TUS (Mao-criKUTOs), a mountain range traversing western Lycia from north to south, issuing in the north, near Ny.sa, from Mount Taurus, and running almost parallel to the river Xanthus, though in the south it turns a little to the east. (Ptol. v. 3. § 1 ; Plin. V. 28; Quint. Smyrn. iii. 232.) [L. S.] COIN OF MASSICYTES. MASSIE'XA, a town, mentioned only by Avienus {Or. Mark. 450, seq.), situated on the south coast of Hispania Tarraconensis, from which the Sinus Massienus derived its name. It is the bay S. of Cartagena between C. Palos and C. Gata. MASSI'LIA (HaacraXia : Etli. MaaaaXiwrris, Macro-aAn'/TTjs, MaarcraXievs. in the feminine, Moit- (ToMcoTts ; Massiliensis : the modern name, Mar- seille, is from the corrupted Latin, Marsilia, which in the Provencal became Marsillo). Massalia, which the Romans wrote !Massilia, is a town of Gallia Narbonensis, on the coast, east of the Rhone. Its position is represented by the French city of Marseille, in the department of Bouches-du- Rhone. Ptolemy (ii. 10. § 8) calls Massalia a city of the Commoni, whose territory he extends along the coast from Massalia to Forum Julii {Frejtis). He places Massalia in 43° 5' N. lat. ; and he makes the length of the longest day 15 hours, 15 minutes ; which does not differ many minutes from the length of the longest day as deduced from the true latitude of Marseille, which is about 43° 18' N. lat. MASSILIA. The territory of Marseille, though poor, pro- duced some good wine and oil, and the sea abounded in fish. The natives of the country were probably a mixed race of Celtae and Ligures ; or the Ligu- rian population may have extended west as far as the Rhone. Stephanus {s.v. MacrffaXia), whose au- tliority is nothing, except we may understand him as con-ectly citing Hecataeus, describes Massalia as a city of Ligystice in Celtice. And Strabo (iv. p. 203) observes, " that as far west as Massalia, and a little further, the Salyes inhabit the Alps that lie above the coast and some parts of the coast itself, mingled with the Hellenes." This is doubtless the meaning of Strabo's text, as Groskurd remarks ( Transl. Strab. vol. i. p. 350). Strabo adds, " and the old Greeks give to the Salyes the name of Ligyes, and to the country which the Massaliots possess the name of Ligystice ; but the later Greeks name them Celto- ligyes, and assign to them the plain country as f:ir as the Rhodanus and the Druentia." Massalia, then, appears to have been built on a coast which was occupied by a Ligurian people. The inhabitants of the Ionian town of Phocaea in Asia, one of the most enterprising maritime states of antiquity, showed their countrymen the way to the Adriatic, to Tyrrhenia, Iberia, and to Tartessus. (Herod, i. 163). Herodotus says nothing of their visiting Celtice or the country of the Celtae. The story of the origin of Massalia is preserved by Aristotle (ap. Athen. xiii. p. 576) in his history of the polity of the JIassilienses. Euxenus, a Phocaean, was a friend of Nannus, who was the chief of this part of the coast. Nannus, being about to marry his daughter, invited to the feast Euxenus, who happened to have arri'ed in the country. Now the marriage was after the following fashion. The young woman was to enter after the feast, and to give a cup of wine and water to the suitor whom she preferred ; and the man to whom she gave it was to be her husband. The maid coming in gave the cup, either by chance or for some reason, to Euxenus. Her name was Petta. The father, who considered the giving of the cup to be according to the will of the deity, consented that Euxenus should have Petta to wife ; and Eu- xenus gave her the Greek name Aristoxena. It is added, that there was a family in Massalia, up to Aristotle's time, named Protiadae, for Protis was a son of Euxenus and Aristoxena. Justin (xliii. 3, &e.), the epitomiser of Trogus Pompeius, who was either of Gallic or Ligurian origin, for his ancestors were Vocontii, tells the story in a somewhat different way. He fixes the time of the Phocaeans coming to Gallia in the reign of Tar- quinius, who is Tarquinius Priscus. The Phocaeans first entered the Tiber, and, making a treatywith the Roman king, continued their voyage to the furthest bays of Gallia and the mouths of the Rhone. They were pleased with the country, and returning to Phocaea, induced a greater number of Phocaeans to go with them to Gallia. The commanders of the fleet were Simos and Protis. Plutarch also (Solon, c. 2.) names Protos the founder of JIassalia. Simos and Protis introduced themselves to Nannus, king of the Segobrii or Segobrigii, in whose ten-itories they wished to build a city. Nannus was busy at this time with preparing for the marriage of his daughter Cyptis, and the strangers were politely invited to the marriage feast. The choice of the young woman for her husband fell on Protis ; but the cup which she offered him contained only water. From this fact, insignificant in itself, a modern writer deduces the