Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/379

 MITYLENE. and gave it to a Galatian prince Boo;o(liatarns, or Brogitarus, as he is called on coins. (Strab. xii. p. 567; Sestini, p. 129.) [L. S.] MITYLE'NE. [Mytilene.] MITYS, a river of Pieria in Macedonia, which the Roman army, in the third campaign against Perseus, under Q. Marcius, reached on the first day after their occupation of Dium. (Liv. xliv. 7.) The Mitys was perhaps the river of Katerina. (Leake, North. Greece, vol. iii. p. 424.) [E. B. J.] MIZAGUS. [Mnizus.] MIZPAH V. MIZPEH (Mu(r4>a). This Hebrew appellative (r. HSV), signifying " a commanding height," " a beacon," " watchtower," and the like (^KaToirTfv6fj.evov tovto (TTifxaivei Kara rrjv 'lEiSpaicov •ywTTav, Joseph. Ant. vi. 2. § 1), is used as the proper name of several sites or tosvns in Palestine, doubtless from their positions. 1. The most important was Jlizpah (once written Mizpeh, Josh, xviii. 26), in the tribe of Ben- jamin, where a convocation of the tribes of Israel was held on important occasions, during the times of the Judges, and was one of the stations in Samuel's annual circuit. {Judges, xx. 1, 3, xxi. 1 ; 1 Sam. vii. 5 — 17, x. 17, &c.) It was strengthened by Asa, king of Judah, as a frontier garrison against Israel, and he used for his works the materials brought from the neighbouring Piamah, which Baasha, king of Israel, had built on his southern frontier, " that he might not suffer any to go out or to come in to Asa, king of Judah." (1 Kings, xv. 17—22; comp. 2 Chron. xvi. 6.) After the de- struction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar it be- came, for a short time, the seat of the government, and there it was that Gedaliah and his officers were barbarously murdered by Ishmael and his company. (2 Kingf, xxv. 22 — 25; Jeremiah, xl. xli.) It is clear from this narrative that it was situated on the highro.id between Samaria and Jerusalem (xli. 5, 6); and it is evident from the narrative in Judges that it could not be far distant from Gibeah of Benjamin, as the head-quarters of the Israelites were at Mizpah while they were besieging Gibeah. It was restored and inhabited soon after the cap- tivity {Nehem. ii. 7, 15), and is mentioned in the book of IIaccabees as situated over against Jeru- salem (Ma(7(rr)4)a naTivavTi 'lepovaaAri/j.), and as having been formerly an oratory of Israel; and there it was that Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers inaugurated their great work with fasting and prayer. (1 Maccah. iii. 46.) It is frequently men- tioned by Josepbus in his narrative of the Scripture history, but his orthography is far from uniform. Uadrri (vi. 2. § 1), Uaacpadd (vi. 4. § 4, x. 9. §§ 2, 4, 5), Maacpd (viii. 13. § 4). In the last cited passage he informs us that Wizpah was in the same place as Ranathon (or Raniah), which he places 40 stadia from Jerusalem (§ 3). Eusebius and St. Jerome most unaccountably confound this Mizpah with the Mizpah of Gilead (infra, No. 3). They place it near Kirjathjearim. (Onomast. s. v. Maaa-rjed.) Its site has not been satisfactorily identified. Dr. Robinson thinks that either Tell-el- Ful (Bean-hill), lying about an hour south of Er- Ram (Ramah) towards Jerusalem, or Nehy Samunl, somewhat further distant from Er-Ram, to the west of the former site, would correspond to the site of JMizpah. He inclines strongly to the latter site (Bib. Res. vol. ii. p. 144); which, however, seems to be too far removed from the highroad between Jerusalem and Samaria, on which Mizpah was cer- MOABITAE. 3G3 tainly situated. Possibly the modern village of Shaphat, identical in meaning with Mizpah, situated on that road, near to Tell-el-Ful, may mark this ancient site; or another site, between this and Er- Ram, on the east of the road, still called 'Ain Nns- peh, may mark the spot. It is worthy of remark that the high ground to the north of Jerusalem is called by a name of kindred signification with Miz- pah, and doubtless derived its name ^kowus from that town. It is on this ridge that Shaphat lies. 2. Mizpeh (LXX., Maacpd) is mentioned among the cities of Judah (Josh. xv. 38); and this must be either the one which Eusebius mentions as still existing under the same name, in the borders of Eleutheropolis to the north, or the other in the tribe of Judah, on the way to Aelia. The former of these is probably Tell-es-Safieh, the Alba Specula of the middle ages; the latter may be Beit-Safa, a little to the south of Jerusalem, between that city and Bethlehem. 3. Mizpah, in Mount Gilead, probably identical with Ramath-Mizpeh in Gad (Josh. xiii. 26), de- rived its name from the incident mentioned in Ge- nesis, xxxi. 44 — 55, and was apparently the site of the rough monument of unhewn stones called by Laban in Chaldee, " Yegar-sahadutha," and by Ja- cob in Hebrew, "Galeed," both signifying "the heap of witness." The site was called " Jlizpah ; for, he said. The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from the other." This is doubtless the Mizpah of Jephtha the Gileadite, which seems to have had somewhat of a sacred character, and to have sen'ed for the national con- ventions of the trans-Jordanic tribes, as its name- sake in Benjamin did in Palestine Proper. (Judges, X. 17, xi. 1 1, 34.) Eusebius notices it as a Levitical city m the tribe of Gad. (Onomast. s. v. Maacpd.) 4. A fourth Mizpeh is named in Josh. xi. 3, more to the north of Peraea, where we read of " the Hivite under Hermon, in the land of Mizpeh ;" and presently afterwards of " the valley of IMizpeh east- ward" (ver. 8), which cannot be identical with the Gileadite Mizpeh, but must have been at the south- ern base of Mount Hermon. 5. iIizpeh of Moab is mentioned (in 1 Sam. xxii. 3) in a manner which seems to intimate that it was the capital of that country in the time of David, as it was certainly the residence of its king. (Euseb. Onom. s. v. Maaa-qcpd.) [G. W.] MNIZUS, or MINIZUS, a small town in Galatia, between Lagania and Ancyra, where the Emperor Anastasius must have resided for some time, as several of his constitutions are dated from that place, both in the Codes Theodosianus and the Codex Justinianeus. (Ttin. Hieros. p. 575 ; It. Ant. p. 142 ; Notit. Episc, where it is called MvrjCos; Hierocl. p. 697, where it bears the name 'VeyinvnCos; Tub. Pent, calls it Mizagus; Cod. Theod. de his qui ad Ecdes. i. 3; de 'Epist. i. 33; de Poen. i. 16.) Mnizus was the see of a bishop, as we know from several councils at wdiich its bishops are mentioned. Kiepert identifies the place with the modern Ajas. [L- S.] MOAB (Mads), vallis, regio, campestria, &e [MoABiTAE.] The notice of Eusebius may be here introduced (Onomast. s. v. Mojog):— "A city of Arabia, now called Areopolis. The country also is called Moab, but the city Rabbath Moab." [Are- opolis.] [G. V.] MOABITAE (MaiaS'iTai : the country Moag?- Tis), the people descended from Moab, the son of