Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/321

 5IEDI0LANUM. tenth Itin. it forms the terminus of a route from Glanoventa. [C. R. S.] MEDIOLA'NUM (MeSioA-aVior, Ptol. ii. 1 1. § 28). a town in the north-west of Germany, mentioned only by Ptolemy ; its site must in all probability be identified with the modern Metehi, on the river Vecht. As the name Mediolanum is found only in countries inhabited by Celts, it has been supposed that Ptolemy is wrong, and that he by mistake placed this town on the right bank of the Ehine ; but there is no good reason for doubting that the country about the Vecht was at one time occupied bv a Celtic people. [L. S.] ' MEDIOilA'TKICI (MeSio.uarpuces, Ptol. ii. 9. § 12), a people of Gallia, who belong to the division of Belgica. Caesar (i?. G. is'. 10) shows their posi- tion iu a general way when he says that the Ehine flows along the territories of the Sequani, Medio- matrici, Triboci or Tribocci, and Treviri. Ptolemy plates the Medioniatrici south of the Treviri. Di- vodurum (3Iefz) was their capital. [Divodiruji.] The diocese of Metz represents their territory, which was accordingly west of the Vosr/es. But Caesar makes the MeJiomatrici extend to the Rhine, and consequently they had in his time the country between the Vvsges and the Rhine. And this agrees ■with Strabo (p. 19-3), who says that the Sequani and Jledioniatriei inhabit the Ehine, among whom are settled the Tribocci, a German nation which had crossed over from their own country. It appears then that part of the territory of the Mediomatrici had been occupied by Germans before Caesar's time; and as we know that after Caesar's time the German tribes, Nemetes, Vangiones, and Caracates occupied the Gallic side of the Rhine, north of the Triboci as fer as Mainz, and that north of Mainz was the territory of the Treviri, we may infer that all these tribes were intruders on the original territoiy of the MeJiomatrici. [G. L.] MEDION. [JIeteon.] MEDITEEEA'NEUM MARE. [Internum Make.] MEUMA or MESJIA (Me5/X7j, Steph. B.; miofia, Str.ab., Scynm. Ch. ; but M4afia on coins, a:id so Apollodorus, cited by Steph. B. ; Scylax has Me'cra, evidently a corruption for Metr/xa : Eth. MeS/jLa7os, Mia/xalos), a Greek city of Southern Italy, on the W. coast of the Bruttian peninsula, between Hip- ponium and the mouth of the Mefaurus. (Strab. vi. p. 256 ; Scyl. p. 4. § 12.) It was a colony founded by the Epizephyrian Locrians, and is said to have derived its name from an adjoining fountain. (Strab. I. c. ; Seynm. Ch. 308 ; Steph. B. s. v.) But though it is repeatedly noticed among the Greek cities iu this part of Italy, it does not appear ever to have attained to any great power or importance, and its name never figures in history. It is probable, how- ever, that the Medimnaeans (M65i|Ui'a?oi), who are noticed by Diodorus as contributing a body of co- lonists to the repeopling of Jlessana by Diouysius in B.C. 396, are no other tlian the Medmaeans, and that we should read MsS/xaToi in the passage in question. (Uiod. xiv. 78.) Though never a very conspicuous place, Medma seems to have survived the fall of many other more important cities of Magna Graecia, and it is noticed as a still existing town both by Strabo and Pliny. (Strab. I. c. ; Plin. iii. 5. s. 10.) But the name is not found in Ptolemy, and all sub- sequent trace of it disappears. It appears from Strabo that the town itself was situated a little inland, and that it had a jiort or emporitim on the VOL. II. MEDOACUS. 305 sea-shore. The exact site has not been determined, but as the name of Mesinia is still borne by a river which flows into the sea a little below Xicotera, there can be no doubt that Medma was situated somewhere in the neighbourhood of that town, and probably its port was at the mouth of the river which still bears its name. Nicotera, the name of which is already found in the Antonine Itinerarv (pp. 106, 111), probably arose after the decline of Mesma. [E. H. B.] COIN OF JIEn:MA. MEDMASA (MeS^ao-a or Me'5^ao-os), a town of Caria, situated somewhere in the peninsula between the Ceramian and lasian gulf, not far from Jlyndus. (Plin. v. 29; Steph. B. s. v.; Hecat. Fragm. 230.) It is probably the same town as the one which Stephanus elsewhere calls Ae5- fxatra; its site is unknown. [L. S.J JIEDOACUS or JIEDUACUS (MfSo'a/ros : Brentci), a river of Northern Italy, in the province of Venetia, falling into the extensive lagunes which border the coast of the Adriatic, in the neighbour- hood of the modern Venice. According to Pliny (iii. 16. s. 20), there were two rivers of the name, but no other author mentions more than one, and Livy, a native of the region, mentions the " Me- duaciis amnis " without any distinctive epithet. (Liv. X. 2.) There can be no doubt that this is the river now kno^vn as the Brenta, which is a very considerable stream, rising in the mountains of the Vol Sugana, and flowing near Padua (Pataviuni). A short distance from that city it receives the waters of the Bacchiglione. which may probably be the other branch of the Medoacus meant by Pliny. Strabo speaks of a port of the same name at its mouth (MeSdaifos Ai/u-^f, v. p. 213), which served as the port of Pataviuni. This must evidently be the same to which Pliny gives the name of Portus Edro, and which was formed by the " Jledcaci duo ac Fossa Clodia:" it is in all prob.ibility the one now called Porto di Lido, close to Venice. The changes which have taken place in the configuration of the lagunes and the channels of the rivers, which are now wholly artificial, render the identification of the ports along this coast very obscure, but Strabo's statement that the Jledoacus was navigated for a distance of 250 stadia, from the port at its mouth to Patavium, seems conclusive in favour of the Porto di Lido, rather than the more distant one of Chiuzza. At the present day the Brenta flows, as it were, round the lagunes, and enters the sea at Brmdolo, evidently the Portus Brundulus of Pliny {I. c.) ; while a canal called the Canale di Brenta, quitting the river of that name at Dvlo, holds a more direct course to the lagunes at Fusina. This canal may perhaps be the Fo-^^sa Clodia of Pliny. Livy tells us that, in B.C. 301, Cleonymus the Lacedaemonian arrived at the mouth of the Jle- doacus, and having ascended the river with some of his lighter vessels, began to ravage the territory of the Patavini, but that people repulsed his at-