Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/373

 MOIACES. Pisidia, bordering upon Lycia, that is, the territory extending from Termessus northward to the foot of mount Cadmus. (Polyb. v. 72; Strab. xii. p. 570, xiii. p. 631, xiv. p. 666.) This district, the western part of which bore the name of Cabalia, is after- wards described, sometimes as a part of Lycia (Ptol. V. 3. § 7, 5. § 6), and sometimes as part of Pam- piiylia or Pisidia. (Ptol. v. 2. § 12; Plin. v. 42.) After the conquest of Antiochus the Great, the Ro- mans gave the country to Eumenes (Polyb. Exc. de Leg. 36), though Pisidian princes still continue to be mentioned as its rulers. The greater part of Milyas was rugged and mountainous, but it also contained a few fertile plains. (Strab. xii. p. 570.) The inliabitants were called Milyae. (MiAuai, Herod, vii. 77 ; Strab. xiv. p. 667; Plin. v. 25, 42.) This name, which does not occur in the Homeric poems, probably be- longed to the remnants of the ancient Solymi, the original inhabitants of Lycia, who had been driven into the mountains by the immigrating Cretans. The most important towns in Milyas were Cibyra, Oenoanda, Balbura, and Bubon, which formed the Cibyratian tetrapolis. Some authors also men- tion a town of Milyas (Polyb. v. 72 ; Ptol. v. 2. § 12; Steph. B. .<f. v. MiAuai), which m.ust have been situated N. of TeiTnessus in Pisidia. [L. S.] JIIMACES (Mi'/uafes), a people in Byzacium (Ptol. iv. 3. § 26), and also in Libya Interior. (Ptol. iv. 6. § 20.) [E. B. J.] MIJIAS (o MiVas), a mountain range in Ionia, traversing the peninsula of Erythrae from south to north. It still bears its ancient name, under which it is mentioned in the Odyssey (iii. 172.) It is, pro- perly speaking, only a branch of Mount Tmolus, and was celebrated in ancient times for its abundance of wood and game (Strab. xiv. pp. 613, 645.) The neck at the south-western extremity of the peninsula formed by Mount ilimas, a little to the north of Teos, is only about 7 Roman miles broad, and Alexander the Great intended to cut a canal through the isthmus, 60 as to connect the Caystrian and Hermaean bays ; but it was one of the few undertakings in which he did not succeed. (Phn. v. 31; Paus. ii. 1. § 5; comp. vii. 4. § 1 ; Thucyd. viii. 34; Ov. Met. ii. 222; Amni. JIarc. xxxi. 42; Calhra. Eymn. in Lei. 157; Sil. Ital. ii. 494.) Mount Mimas forms three promontories in the peninsula; in the south Coryceum (^Koraka or Kurko), in the west Argennum {Cape Blanco), and in the north Melaena {Kara Burnu). Chandler (Travels, p. 213) describes the shores of Mount Mimas as covered with pines and shrubs, and garnished with flowers. He passed many small pleasant spots, well watered, and green with corn or with myrtles and shrabs. The summit of the moun- tain commands a magnificent view, extending over the bays of Smyrna, Clazomenae, and Erythrae, the islands of Samos, Chios, and several others. [L. S. j MINAEI (Mfd'aToi), a celebrated people of Yf-men, in the SW. of Arabia. Strabo names them first of four great nations situated in this extremity of the peninsula, and bordering on the Red Sea : their principal town was Carna or Carana; next to these were the Sabaei, whose capital was Mariaba. The Catabanes were the third, extending to the straits and the passage of the Arabian Gulf — the Straits of Bab-el Mandeh. Their royal city was Tamna. To the east were the Chatr.amotitae, whose capital was named Cabatanum. From Elana to the country of the Minaei was 70 MIXAEL 357 days' journey. Thus far Strabo (xvi. pp. 768, 776); consistently with whose account, Ptolemy (vi. 7. §2.3) mention-i the Minaei as a mighty people (Micaroi, fxiya idyos), bordering on the inner frankincense country, not far from the Sabaei, and places Carna Metropolis in long. 73° 30', lat. 23° 15', which would be on the coast of the Gulf of Arabia, distinct from the Carnus or Carna above named, and identical with the Cornon of Pliny, a town of the Charmaei, who were contiguous to the Minaei. Pliny represents the Minaei as contiguous to the Atramitae in the in- terior; which Atramitae — identical no doubt with the Chatramotitae of Strabo — he represents as a branch of the Sabaei, which last tribe extended along both seas, i. e. the Indian Ocean and the Arahian Gulf; and as the Carnus, which he names as a city of the Sabaei, is doubtless the Carna which Strabo makes the capital of the Minaei, he would seem to imply that these last were also another division of the same principal tribe of the Sabaei. Their country ■was reported by Aelius Gal] us to be exceedingly rich. " Minaeis fertiles agros palmetis arbustisque, in pecore divitias." (Plin. vi. 32.) They are men- tioned by Diodorus (as Mivvaloi), in connection with the Gerrhaei, as transporting frankincense and otiier scented wares from Upper Arabia (eV rf/s afoj Xcyo- /xev-qs 'ApaSias), i.e. the interior (iii. 42). All these notices would sen'e to fix the seat of this tribe at the SW. part of the peninsula, in the modern Yemen. Pliny says that they were supposed to denve their origin from Minos, the king of Crete, as their neighbours, the Rhadamaei, were from his brother Rhadamanthus (vi. 32), in which Mr. Forster thinks we may " easily recognise, under the thin veil of classical fiction, the important historical fact of the existence of an open trade between the Greeks and Arabs from very remote times, and of all the facilities implied by com- mercial intercommunity." (Arabia, vol. i. p. xsxvii., ii. pp. 74, 75.) In his account of the myrrh and frankincense, Pliny relates that this plant, which grew in the countiy of the Atramitae, one canton (pagus) of the Sabaei, was conveyed by one narrow path thror.gh the neighbouring canton of the Minaei, who were the first to carry on the trade, and always the most active in it; from which fact the frankin- cense cairie to be called IIinnaeum (xii. 30). And in speaking of the various qualities of myrrh, he mentions second, " Minaea, in qua Atramitica,'' as most esteemed nest to the Troglodytica (xii. 35). With regard to the position of this important tribe in the modem map of Arabia, there is a wide difference of opinion among geographers. D'Anville finds their capital Carana in the modern Almulca- rana, which is, he says, a strong place. (Geoyraph. Anc. tome ii. p. 221 ; comp. Forster, Arabia, vol. i. p. liii.) Gosselin contends that Ahnakarana is too far south for the Carna of the Minaei, and is dis- posed to find this cajiital in Carn-al-Manazil, as Bochart had suggested {riialeg, lib. ii. cap. 22. p. 121); which Edrisi places two days' journey from Mekka, on the road to Sanaa. (Gosselin, Recherches sur la Geographie des Anciens, tome ii. p. 116.) Dean Vincent thus attempts to fix their position : — " The site of the Jlinaeans is not easy to fix; but by a comparison of different accounts, they were S. of lleJjaz, N. of Iludramaut, and to the eastward of Sabca; and they were the carriers to all these provinces: their caravans passed in 70 days from lladramaut to Aila, as we learn from Strabo; and Aila is but 10 miles (?) from Petra." He re- A A 3