Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/362

 346 MESSENIACUS SINUS. of the western coast stood SIethone, supposed to be the Homeric Pedasus. North of Iilethone, on the W. coast, was Pylus, on the promontory Coryjjha- sium, opposite to which was the island Sphacteria. Further north, was the small town Erana, and then the more important Cyi'AUISSIA; beyond which was a place Aulon, at the entrance of the defile of this name, through which flowed the river Cy- parissus. (On the gco_2;raphy of Jlossenia. see Leake. Morea. vol. i. pp. 324, seq. ; Boblaye, Jiecherckes, p. 103, seq; Curtius, Peloponnesus, vol ii. p. 121, seq.) COIN OF JIESSENIA. MESSENIACUS SINUS. [Messenia.] MKSUA, in Gallia Narbonensis, is described by llela (ii. 5) " as a hill surrounded by the sea almost on all sides, and it would be an island if it were not joined to the mainland by a narrow agger." The place is supposed to be Mese or ^[eze, on the border of the E'tang de Tau, between Agde and Mont- pellier. [G. L.] METAGONI'TAE {m.€Taywv:Tai, Ptol. iv. 2. § 10), a people of Mauretania, between the Mulu- cha and the Pillars of Hercules. Their name re- calls the Urp.es Metagoniticae (JAijayuivnuiu irSXeis, Polyb. iii. 33), or settlements founded by the Carthaginians on the NW. coast, and which seem to have formed a regular chain from their frontier to the Pillars of Hercules (Scyl. p. 81). These marts enabled the republic to carry on inland trade with the nomad tribes, as well as to keep open a commu- nication by land with Spain. (Heeren, African Nations, vol, i. p. 52, transl.) [E. B. J.] JIETAGONI'TES PROM. (MiTayaivir-ns uKpov, Ptol. iv. 1. § 7), a headland of Mauretania Tingi- tana, W. of the Mulucha, now Ctyje Tres Foveas or Ras-ud-Dekir of the natives. [E. B. J.] METAGO'NIUM {UiTa-yuviov, Strab. xvii. pp. 827—829 ; Pomp. Mela, i. 7. § 1), a headland of N. Africa, which Strabo (J. c.) places over against Carthago Nova, at a distance of 3000 stadia. He describes the district about it as being dry and barren, and bearing the same name ; the headland is now called Ras-el-Harshah. (Conap. Shaw, Trav. p. 94.) [E. B. J.] METALLI'NUM. [BIeteli.inum.] METALLUM. [Matalia.] METAPA (5; MtraTra: Eth. MeraTraios, Mera- ireus), atown in Aetolia, situated on the northern shore of the lake Trichonis, at the entrance of a narrow defile, and 60 stadia from Thermum. It was burnt by Phihp, on his invasion of Aetolia, B.C. 218, as he returned from the capture of Thermum. Its site cannot be fixed with certainty, notwithstanding the description of Polybius. Leake places it immediately below Vrakhori, near the eastern extremity of the lake Hyria, or the smaller of the two lakes; sup- posing that as these two lakes are connected with one another, the larger division may often have given name to the whole. (Pol. v. 7, 13j Steph. B. s. v. ; JIETAPONTUM, Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 150, seq.; comp. Thermum.) METAPINUM OSTIUM. [Rhodanus.] METAPONTUM or METAFONTIUM (Mera- iv6vTtov : Thuc, Strab., and all Greek writers have this form; the Latins almost universally Metapon- tum: Eth. MeTaTovT7vos, Paus., Steph. B., and on coins; but Herod, has Merairdi'Tios; in Latin, Metapontinus : Ru. near To7-7-e di Mare), an im- portant city of Magna Graecia, situated on the gulf of Tarentum, between the river Bradanus and the Casuentus. It was distant about 14 miles from Heraclea and 24 from Tarentum. Historically speaking, there is no doubt that ]Ietapontum was a Greek city founded by an Achaean colony ; but va- rious traditions assigned to it a much earlier origin. Strabo ascribes its foundation to a body of Pylians, a ])art of those who had followed Nestor to Troy (Strab. V. p. 222, vi. p. 264); while Justin tells us it was founded by Epeius, the hero who constructed the wooden horse at Troy ; in proof of which the in- habitants showed, in a temple of Minerva, the tools used by him on that occasion. (Justin, xx. 2.) Another tradition, reported by Ephorus (^ap. Strab. p. 264), assigned to it a Phocian origin, and called Daulius, the tyrant of Crisa near Delphi, its founder. Other legends carried back its origin to a still more remote period. Antiochus of Syracuse said that it was originally called Metabus, from a hero of that name, who appears to have been identified with the Metdpontus who figured in the Greek mythical story as the husband of Melanippe and father of Aeolus and Boeotus. (Antioch. ap. St7-ab. I. c. ; Hygin. Fab. 186; Eustath. ad Dionys. Per. 368; Diod. iv. 67.) Whether there may have really been a settlement on the spot more ancient than the Achaean colony, we have no means of determining ; but we are told that at the time of the foundation of this city the site was unoccupied ; for which reason the Achaean settlers at Crotona and Sybaris were desirous to colonise it, in order to prevent the Tarentines from taking possession of it. With this view a colony was sent from the mother-country, under the com- mand of a leader named Leucippus, who, according to one account, was compelled to obtain the territory by a fraudulent treaty. Another and a more plau- sible statement is that the new colonists were at first engaged in a contest with the Tarentines, as well as the neighbouring tribes of the Oenotrians, which was at length terminated by a treaty, leaving them in the peaceable possession of the territory they had acquired. (Strab. vi. pp. 264, 265.) The date of the colonisation of Metapontum cannot be determined with certainty ; but it was evidently, from the circumstances just related, subsequent to that of Tarentum, as well as of Sybaris and Crotona: hence the date assigned by Eusebius, who would cany it back as far as B. c. 774, is wholly un- tenable; nor is it easy to see how such an error can have arisen. (Euseb. Arm. Chron. p. 99.) It may probably be referred ±0 about 700 — 690 b. c. We hear very httle of Metapontum during the first ages of its existence; but it seems certain that it rose rapidly to a considerable amount of prosperity, for which it was indebted to the extreme fertility of its territory. The same policy which had led to its foundation would naturally unite it in the bonds of a close alliance with the other Achaean cities, Sybaris and Crotona; and the first occasion on which we meet with its name in history is as joining with