Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/385

 MONETIUJr. enumerated by Pliny, who places them below the Saltus Pyrenaeus (iv. 19). The name seems to be preserved in that of Monei/is, which is between Pons and Navarrehis, where it is said that there are traces of Roman camps, ilotieins is in the department of Basses Pyrenees. [G. L.] MONE'TIUM (Moj'jjTioi'), a town of the lapodes in Illyria. (Strab. iv. p. 207, vii. p. 314.) MONOECI POKTUS (MocoiKoy M^v, Strab. Ptol.), or more correctly PORTUS HEKCULIS MONOECI (Plin. iii. 5. § 7 ; Tac. Hist. iii. 42), sometimes also PORTUS HERCULIS alone (Val. Max. i. 6. § 7 : Manaco), a port and town on the coast of Liguria, at the foot of the Maritime Alps, distant rather more than 200 stadia from Antipolis. (Strab. iv. p. 202.) Its name was obviously derived from the existence there of a temple of Hercules ; and the Greek form of the epithet by which it was characterised, at once shows that it must have owed its foundation to the Greeks of Massilia. But Strabo, who derives the same inference from the name, had evidently no account of its origin or foundation, which were naturally connected by later writers with the fables concerning the passage of Hercules, so that Ammianus ascribes the foundation of " the citadel and port " of Monoecus to Hercules himself. (Amm. Marc. xv. 10. § 9.) The port is well described by Strabo (J. c.) as of small size, so as not to admit many vessels, but well sheltered. Lucan, however, who gives a somewhat detailed notice of it, says it was exposed to the wind called by the Gauls Circius (the Vent de Bise) which ren- dered it at times an unsafe station for ships (Lucan. i. 405 — 408) ; and Silius Italicus dwells strongly on the manner in which the whole of this part of the coast of Liguria was swept by the same wind, which he designates under the more general name of Boreas. (Sil. Ital. i. 586—593.) The port was formed by a projecting rocky point or headland, on which stands the modern town of Monaco, and which was doubtless occupied in like manner in an- cient times, at first by the temple of Hercules, after- wards by the town or castle of Slonoecus {arx Mo- noeci, Ainmian. I. c.) The town, however, does not seem to have ever been a place of much importance ; the advantage of its port for commercial purposes being greatly neutralised by the want of commu- nication with the interior. It was, however, fre- quently resorted to by the Roman fleets and ships, on their way along the coast of Liguria into Spain ; and lience was a point of importance in a naval pint of view. (Val. Max. i. 6. § 7 ; Tac. ffist. iii. 42.) The headland of Monaco itself is of com- paratively sm:ill height, and lies immediately under a great mountain promontory, formed by one of the spurs or projecting ridges of the ]Iaritime Alps : and which was regai'ded by many writers as the natural termmation of the great chain of the Alps. [Alpes, p. 107.] * The passage of this mountain must always have been one of the principal diffi- culties in the way of constnieting a high road along the coast of Liguria ; this was achieved for the first time by Augustus, and on the highest point of the passage (called in the Itineraries " in Alpe summa " and "in Alpe maritima," Itin. Ant. p. 296; Tah. Peut), he erected a trophy or monument to com- memorate the complete subjugation of the different MONS SELEUCUS. 569 arce Monoeci" (^Aen. vi. 830) by a poetical figure for the Maritime Alps in general. VOL. II. nations inhabiting the Alps. The inscription of this monument has been pre.served to us by Pliny (iii. 20. s. 24). and is one of oiu- chief authorities for the geography of the Alpine tribes. The ruins of the monument itself, which was of a very massive character, still remain, and rise like a great tower above the village of Turbia, the name of which is evidently a mere corruption of Tropaea Augusti (TpdTraia SeSao-ToC, Ptol. iii. 1. § 2), or Tkopaea Alpium, as it is termed by Pliny (Z. c). The line of the Roman road, cut in the face of the mountain, may be traced for some distance on each side of Turbia, and several ancient milestones have been found, which commemorate the construction of the road by Augustus, and its reparation by Hadrian. (Millin. Vol/, en Piemont, vol. ii. pp. 135, 138; Durante, Chorograpkie du Comte de Nice, pp. 23 —30.) The port of Monoecus seems to have been the extreme limit towards the E. of the settlements of Massilia, and hence both Pliny and Ptolemy regard it as the point from whence the Ligurian coast, in the more strict sense of the term, began. (Plin. iii. 5. s. 7; Ptol. iii. 1. §§ 2, 3.) Ptolemy has made a strange mistake in separating the Portus Herculis and Portus ]Iouoeci, as if they were two distinct places. [E. H. B.] MONS AUREUS (Xpvaow upas). 1. A moun- tain in Moesia Superior, which the emperor Probus planted with vines. (Eutrop. ix. 17, 20; It. Ant. p. 132; It. H. p. 564.) 2. A town on the Danube, at the foot of the mountain, 23 miles from Singidunum. (^Tab. Pent.) [A. L.] MONS BALBUS, a mountain fastness of N. Africa, to which Masinissa retired. (Liv. xxis. 31.) Shaw (Trat?. p. 184) places the range in the dis- trict of DaJchul, E. of Tunis ; perhaps Sabalei-es- Sahib. [E. B. J.] MONS BRISIACUS. This is one of the posi- tions in the Roman Itins. along the Rhine. They place it between Helvetum or Heleebus [Helcebus] and Urunci. There is no doubt that is Vieux- Brlsach or AUhreisach, as the Germans call it. All the positions of the Itins. on the Rhine are on the west or Gallic side of the river, but Vieux-Brisach is on the east side. The Rhine has changed its bed in several parts, and this is one of the places where there has been a change. Breisach is de- scribed by Luitprand of Pavia (quoted by D'Anville), as being in the tenth century surrounded by the Rhine " in modum insulae." It may have been on an island in the Roman period. The hill (mons) of Altbreisach is a well marked position, and was once crowned by a citadel. Altbreisach is now in the duchy of Baden, and opposite to Neubreisach on the French side of the Rhine. [G. L.] MONS MARIO'RUM, a town in Hispania Bae- tica, on the Mons Marianus, and on the road leading from the mouth of the Anas to Emerita, now Ma- rines, in the Sieii^a Morena. {It. Ant. p. 442; Inscr. ap. Caro, Ant. i. 20; Spon. Miscell. p. 191 ; Florez, Esp. Sagr. ix. p. 23.) ]IONS SACER {rh lephv opos, Ptol. iii. 17. § 4), a mountain range on the SE. coast of Crete, near Hierapytna, identified with the Pytna (XIutco) of Strabo (x. p. 472; comp. Groskurd, ad loc; Hock, Kreta, vol. i. p. 1 6.) [E. B. J.] MONS SELEUCUS, in Gallia Narbonensis, is placed in the Antoiiine Itin. next to Vapincum {Gap), on a road from Vapincum to Vienna ( Vienne). B B
 * Hence Virgil uses the expression " descendens