Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/395

 MUTINA. the city and its territory had begun to feel severely the calamities that were pressing upon the whole of this fertile and once flourishing tract of country. In A. D. 377, the remains of the conquered tribe of the Taifali were settled, by order of the emperor Gratianus, in the country around Mutina, Regium, and Parma (Amm. Marc. xsxi. 9. § 4) — a plain indication that the population was already deficient; and St. Ambrose, writing not long after the same date, describes Mutina, Regium, and the other cities along the Aemilian Way, as in a state of ruin and decay, while their territories were uncultivated and desolate. (Ambros. -£/>. 39.) The same district again suiTered severely in A.d. 452, from the ravages of Attila, who laid waste all the cities of Aemilia with fire and sword. (^Rist. Miscell. sv. p. 549.) They, however, survived all these calamities, from which, nevertheless, Mutina appears to have suffered more severely than its neighbours. Under the Lombard kings, it became the frontier city of their dominions towards the Exarchate ; and though taken by the Greek emperor Mauricius in 590, it was again annexed by Agilulphus to the Lombard king- dom of Italy. (Muratori, Antiq. Ital. vol. i. p. 63.) At this period it fell into a state of great decay. P. Diaconns, who mentions Bononia, Panna, and Regium as wealthy and flourishing cities, does not even notice the name of Mutina {Hist. Lang. ii. 18); and a writer of the 10th century draws a lament- able picture of the condition to which it was re- duced. The numerous streams which irrigated its territory having been then neglected, inundated the whole surrounding tracts; and the site of the city liad become in great part a mere morass, in which the ruins that attested its ancient grandeur, were half buried in the mud and water. (Murat. Ant. vol. ii. pp. 154, 155.) At a later period of the middle ages, Modena again rose to prosperity, and became, as it has ever since continued, a flourishing and opulent city. But the truth of the description above cited is con- firmed by the fact, that the remains of the ancient city are wholly buried under the accumulations of alluvial soil on which the buildings of the modem city are founded, and are only brought to light from time to time by excavations. (Murat. I. c.) Large portions of the ruins were also employed at various periods, in the construction of the cathedral and other churches ; and no remains of ancient buildings are now extant. But a valuable collection of sar- cophagi and inscriptions, discovered at various periods on the site of the modern city, is preserved in the museum. These have been fully illustrated by Cavedoni in his Antichi Marmi Modenesi (8vo. Modena, 1828), in which work the facts known concerning the ancient history of the city are well brought together. Modena is situated between the river SeccMa, which flows about 3 miles to the W. of the city, and the Panaro, about the same distance on the E. The latter is unquestionably the ancient Scultenna, a name which it still retains in the upper part of its course. The Secchia is probably the Gabellus of Phny; but seems to have been also known in ancient times as the Secia; for the Jerusalem Itinerary marks a station called Pons Secies, 5 miles from Mutina, where the Aemilian Way crossed this river. {liin. Hier. p. 616.) The Apennines begin to rise about 10 miles to the S. of the city; and the ancient territory of Mutina seems to have included a con- siderable extent of these mountains, as Pliny notices MUZ A. 379 a prodigy which occurred " in agro Mutinensi " when two mountains were dashed against one another with great violence, so that they appeared to recoil again from the shock. (Plin. ii. 83. s. 85.) This phenomenon, which occurred in b. c. 91, was doubtless the result of an earthquake, and not, as has been sometimes supposed, of a volcanic out- break ri^ IT R T MUTUSCAE. [Trebula MuTuscA.] MUTYCA. [MoTYCA.] MUZA (Mu^a, Arrian; Movcra and Mov^a cVto- piov, Ptol.), an important mercantile town on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea, not far north of the Straits of Bab-el- Mandeh, in the country of Elisari: placed by Ptolemy in long. 74° 30', lat. 14°; or 30' west, and 2° north of Ocelis ("OktjXis e/j.nopioif') close to the straits. (Ptol. vii. 1 5. p. 1 52.) He states that its longest day is 12^ hours, that it is 1' east of Alexandria, and within the tropics (viii. Tab. vi. Asiae, p. 241); Pliny (vi. 23) names Musa as the third port of Arabia Felix " quern Indica navigatio non petit, nee nisi turis odommque Arabicorum mercatores." The author of the Feriplus frequently alludes to it, and gives a full account of it and its trade. He de- scribes it as situated in the southernmost gulf of this coast, a regular mart; inhabited altogether by Arab mariners and merchants, distant about 12,000 sta- dia from Berenice to the south, and 300 north of the straits. (Vincent, Feriplus, p. 296. n. 100; Gosselin, Recherches, (fc. tome ii. pp. 265, 266.) It was not only an emporium of Indian merchan- dise — a manifest contradiction of Pliny's state- ment already cited — but had an export trade of its own. It was distant three days' journey from the city of Save (2ai/rj), which was situated inland, in the country of Maphoritis. It had no proper harbour, but a good roadstead, and a sandy anchorage. Its principal import trade was in fine and common pur- ple cloth; Arab dresses with sleeves — probably the kemis — some plain and common, others embroidered with needlework and in gold; saffron ; an aroma- tic plant, named cyperus (fciirrfpos) ; fine linen ; long robes — the abiis; quilts; striped girdles ; per- fumes of a middling quality; specie in abundance; and small quantities of wine and grain, for the countiy grew but little wheat, and more wine. To the king and tyrant were given horses, pack-mules, vessels of silver and brass, and costly raiment. Be- sides the above named articles of merchandise, which were chiefly supplied to its markets from Adule, on the opposite coast, the great emporium of African produce [Adule], Musa exported a precious myrrh cf native growth, an aromatic gum, which the author names (TTafcrr) aSeip(j.ivaia, and a white marble or alabaster {vySos). (Arrian, Peripl. ap. Hudson. Geogr. Min. vol. i. pp. 13, 14.) Vessels from this port visited all the principal mercantile towns of the south coast of Arabia. Bochart's identification of this Musa with the Mesha mentioned by Closes, as one extreme point of the Joktanite Arabs, — Sephar being the other (Gen. x. 30), — is thought by Mr. Forster to be untenable, on account of the narrow limits to which it would confine this large and important race; for the site of Sephar is clearly ascertained. [Maphokitae; Saphoeitae.] {Geogr. of Arabia, vol. i. pp. 93, 94.) M. Gosselin {liccherches, ff-c. tome ii. p. 89) asserts that this once most cele- brated and frequented port of Yemen is now more than six leagues from the sea, and is replaced as a port byil/oMa,the foundation of which dates back no more than 400 years (Niebuhr, Voyage en Arable,