Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/387

 MOEGANTIA and it was in great part by the assistance of a body of mercenary troops from Morgantia and other towns of the interior, that that tyrant succeeded in estabhshing liis despotic power at Syracuse, B. c. 317. (Justin, xxii. 2; Diod. xix. 6.) Morgantia is repeatedly mentioned during the Second Punic War. During the siege of Syracuse by Marcellus it was occupied by a Roman garrison, and great magazines of corn collected there; but the place was betrayed by the inhabitants to the Carthaginian general Himilco, and was for some time occupied by the Syracusan leader Hippocrates, who from thence watched the proceedings of the siege. (Liv. xxiv. 36, 39.) It was ultimately recovered by the Eoman general, but revolted again after the departure of Marcellus from Sicily, b. c. 211; and being retaken by the praetor M. Cornelius, both the town and its territory were assigned to a body of Spanish merce- naries, who had deserted to the Komans under Mericus. (Id. xxvi. 21.) Morgantia appears to have still continued to be a considerable town under the Roman dominion. In the great Servile insurrection of b. c. 102 it was besieged by the leaders of the insurgents, Tryphon and Athenion; but being a strong place and well fortified, offered a vigorous resistance; and it is not clear whether it ultimately fell into their hands or not, (Diod. xsxvi. 4, 7. Exc. Phot. pp. 533, 534.) Cicero repeatedly mentions its territory as one fertile in corn and well cultivated, though it suffered se- verely from the exactions of Verres. (Cic. Verr. iii. 18. 43.) It was therefore in his time still a municipal town, and we find it again mentioned as such by Pliny (iii. 8. s. 14); so that it must be an error on the part of Strabo, that he speaks of Mor- gantium as a city that no longer existed. (.Strab. vi. p. 270.) It may, however, very probably have been in a state of great decay, as the notice of Pliny is the only subsequent mention of its name, and from this time all trace of it is lost. The position of Morgantia is a subject of great uncertainty, and it is impossible to reconcile the conflicting statements of ancient writers. Most authorities, however, concur in associating it with the Siculian towns of the interior, that border on the valleys of the Symaethus and its tributaries, Menaenum, Agyrium, Assorus, &c. (Diod. xi. 78, xiv. 78; Cic. Verr. I. c; Sil. Ital. xiv. 265); and a more precise testimony to the same effect is found in the statement that the Carthaginian general Mago encamped in ike territory of Agyrium, by the river Chrysas, on the road leading to Mor- gantia. (Diod. xiv. 95.) The account of its siege during the Servile War also indicates it as a place of. natural strength, built on a lofty hill. (Diod. xxxvi. I. c.) Hence it is very strange that Livy in one passage speaks of the Roman fleet as lying at Mor- gantia, as if it were a place on the sea-coast ; a statement wholly at variance with all other accounts MORIDUNUM. 371 COIN OF MORGANTIA. of its position, and in which there must probably be some mistake. (Liv. xxiv. 27.) On the whole we may safely place Morgantia somewhere on the bor- ders of the fertile tract of plain that extends from Catania inland along the Simeto and its tributaries ; and probably on the hills between the IHttaino and the Gurna Longa, two of the principal of those tribu- taries; but any attempt at a nearer determination must be purely conjectural. There exist coins of Morgantia, which have the name of the city at full, MOPFANTINnN : this is unfortunately effaced on the one figured in the pre- ceding column. [E. H. B.] MOIiGE'TES (Mo'p777T6j), an ancient people of southern Italy, who had disappeared before the period of authentic history, but are noticed by several ancient writers among the earliest inhabitants of that part of the peninsula, in connection with the Oenotrians, Itali, and Siculi. Antiochus of Syracuse {ap. Dionys. i. 12) represented the Siculi, Morgetes and Italietes as all three cf Oenotrian race ; and derived their names, according to the favourite Greek custom, from three successive rulers of the Oenotrians, of whom Italus was the first, Morges the second, and Siculus the third. This last monarch broke up the nation into two, separating the Siculi from their parent stock ; and it would seem that the Morgetes followed the fortunes of the younger branch ; for Strabo, who also cites An- tiochus as his authority, tells us that the Siculi and Morgetes at first inhabited the extreme southern peninsula of Italy, until they were expelled from thence by the Oenotrians, when they crossed over into Sicily. (Strab. vi. p. 257.) The geographer also regards the name of Morgantium in Sicily as an evidence of the existence of the Morgetes in that island (Ibid. pp. 257. 270) ; but no other writer notices them there, and it is certain that in the time of Thucydides their name must have been effectually merged in that of the Siculi. In the Etymologicon JIagnum, indeed, Morges is termed a Wxig of Sicily : but it seems clear that a king of the Siculi is intended ; for the fable there related, which calls Siris a daughter of Morges, evidently refers to Italy alone. (^Efym. M. v. Sip^s.) All that we can attempt to deduce as historical from the legends above cited, is that there appears to have existed in the S. of Italy, at the time when the Greek colonists first became acquainted with it, a people or tribe bearing the name of IMorgetes, whom they regarded as of kindred race with the Chones and other tribes, whom they included under the more general appellation of the Oenotrians. [Oenotria.] Their particular place of abode cannot be fixed with certainty; but Strabo seems to place them in the southern peninsula of Brut- tium, adjoining Rhegium and Locri. (Strab. vi. p. 257.) [E- H. B.] MORGINNUM, in Gallia Narbonensis, is placed by the Table on the road from Vienna {Vienne) to Alpis Cottia, and 14 M. P. short of Cularo (^Grenoble). The place is Moirans. [G. L.] SIORI'AH. [Jerusalem.] MORICAMBA (MoptKdfJL§r], Ptol. ii. 3. § 3), an estuary of Britain, Morecambe Bay, on the coast of Lancashire. [C. R. S.J MORIDU'NUM, in Britain, placed both by the Antonine Itin. and Geogr. Rav. near Isca of the Dumnonii (^Exeter) : it was one of the stations termed mansioncs and mutatlones, probably the latter : its site has by no means been agreed upon by B B 2