Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/427

 NEAPOLIS. the gulf of Oristano. The Itineraries place it 60 miles from Sulci, and 18 from Othoca {Oristano). {Itin. Ant. p. 84.) The name would clearly seem to point to a Greek origin, but ^-e have no account of its foundation or history. It is noticed by Pliny as one of the most important towns in Sardinia; and its name is found also in Ptolemy and the Itinera- ries. (Plin. iii. 7. s. 13; Ptol. iii. 3. § 2; Itin. Ant. I.e.; Tab. Pent.; Geogr. Rav. v. 26.) Its ruins are still visible at the mouth of the river Pa- hillmls, where that stream forms a great estuary or lagoon, called the Stagno di Marceddi, and present considerable remains of ancient buildings as well as the vestiges of a Roman road and aqueduct. The spot is marked by an ancient church called Sta Maria di Nabui. (De la Marmora, Voy. en Sar- daif/ne, vol. ii. p. 357.) The Aquae Xe.vpolitanae, mentioned by Pto- lemy as well as in the Itineraiy, which places them at a considerable distance inland, on the road from Othoca to Caralis, are certainly the mineral sources DOW known as the Bagni di Sardara, on the high- road from Caglinri to Oristano. {Itin. Ant. p. 82; Ptol. iii. 3. § 7 ; Geogr. Rav. v. 26; De la Marmora, I. c. p. 406.) 3. A city of Apulia, not mentioned by any ancient writer, but the existence of which is attested by its coins. There seems good reason to place it at Polignano, between Barium and Egnatia, where numerous relics of antiquity have been discovered (Romanelli, vol. ii. p. 148 — 152; MWYmsen, Numism. de Vltalie, p. 147.) [E. H. B.] 4. A town on the isthmus of Pallene, on the E. coast, between Aphytis and Aege. (Herod, vii. 123.) In Leake's map it is represented by the modern Pohjkhrono. 5. A town of Macedonia, and the haven of Phi- lippi, from which it was distant 10 M. P. (Strab. vii. p. 330; Ptol. iii. 13. §9; Scymn. 685; Plin. iv. 11; Hierocl. ; Procop. Aed. iv. 4; Itin. Hierosol.) It probably was the same place as Datum (Acitoi'), fiimous for its gold-mines (Herod, ix. 75 ; comp. B'6ckh,Pub. Econ. of A thens, pp. 8,228, trans.), and a seaport, as Strabo (vii. p. 331) intimates: whence the proverb which celebrates Datum for its " good things." (Zenob. Prov. Graec. Cent. iii. 71; Harpocrat. s.v. Aoroj.) Scylax (p. 27) does, indeed, distinguish between Neapolis and Datum: but, as he adds that the latter was an Athenian colony, which could not have been true of his original Datum, his text is, perhaps, comipt in this place, as in so many others, and his real meaning may have been that Neapolis was a colony which the Athenians had established at Datum. Zenobius {I. c.) and P^ustathius {ad Bionys. Perieg. 517) both assert that Datum was a colony of Thasos; which is highly probable, as the Thasians had several colonies on this coast. If Neapolis was a settlement of Athens, its foundation was, it may be inferred, later than that of Amphi- polis. At the great struggle at Philippi the galleys of Brutus and Cassius were moored off Neapolis. (Appian, B. C. iv. 106; Dion Cass, xlvii. 35.) It was at Neapolis, now the small Turkish village of Kdvallo (Leake, North. Greece, vol. iii. p. 180, comp. pp. 217, 224), that Paul {Acts, xvi. 11) landed. The shore of the mainland in this part is low, but the mountains rise to a considerable height behind. To the W. of the channel which separates it from Thasos, the coast recedes and forms a bay, within which, on a promontory with a port on each side, the town was situated. (Conybeare and Ilowson, NEAPOLIS. 411 Life and Fpist. of St. Paul, vol. i. p. 308.) Traces of paved military roads are still found, as well as remains of a great aqueduct on two tiers of Roman arches, and Latin inscriptions. (Clarke, Trav. vol. viii. p. 49.) J"or coins of Neapolis, see Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 72 ; Easche, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 1 149. com OF NE.U»OLIS IN JIACEDONI.V. 6. A town of the Tauric Chersonesu.s, and a fortress of Scilurus. (Strab. vii. p. 312 ; Bockh, Inscr. vol. ii. p. 147.) Dubois de Montperreux ( Voyage Autour du Caucase, vol. v. p. 389, vol. vi. pp. 220, 378) has identified this place with the ruins found at Kermentchih near Simpheropol. [E. B. J.] NEA'POLIS. II. In Asia. 1. An important city of Palaestine, commonly supposed to be identical with the SicnEM or Shechem of the Old Testament. Thus Epiphanius uses the names as synonymous {iv Si/ci'/UoiJ, TovT iffTiv iv TfJ vvv 'NeaTToAei, ado. Ilaeres.lih. iii. torn. i. p. 1055, comp. 1068). Eusebius and St. Jerome, however, place Sichem {'ZiKifxa, ^vKe/x, Si^x^i") in the suburbs of Neapolis {Onomnst. s. vv. Terebinthus, Sycheni) ; and Luz is placed near to, and, according to the former, viii. M. P., according to the latter, iii. M. P., from Neapolis {s. v. Aov(a), which would imply a considerable interval between the ancient and the modern city. In order to re- concile this discrepancy, Eeland suggests that, while the ancient city gradually decayed, the new city was extended by gradual accretion in the opposite direc- tion, so as to widen the interval ; and he cites in illustration the parallel case of Utrecht and Veehten. {Palaestina, pp. 1004, 1005.) Another ancient name of this city occurs only in one passage of St. John's Gospel (iv. 5), where it is called Sichar (2ixi^p) ; for although St. Jerome maintains this to be a corrupt reading fur Sychem {Epitaph. Paulae, Ep. IxxxvL Op. torn. iv. p. 676, Quaest. in Genes. c. xlviii. ver. 22, tom ii. p. 545), his correction of what he allows was an ancient and common error, even in his age, has no authority in any known codex or version. Another of its ancient names which has exercised the ingenuity of the learned, occurs in Pliny, who reckons among the cities of Samaria, " Neapolis quod antea Slamortha dicebatur" (v. 13), evidently a mistake for JIaboitha, which Josephus gives for the native name of Neapolis {B. J. iv. 8. § 2) ; unless, as Reland conjectures, both readings are to be corrected from coins, which he shrewdly re- marks are less liable to corruption than JISS., and which read Morthia {Uopdia), which that learned writer takes to be the classical form of the Hebrew word Moreh, which was associated with Sichem, both in the Old Testament and the Rabbinical commen- taries. {Gen. xii. 6; Dent.^. 30; Reland, Disser- tatioms Miscell. pars i. pp. 138 — 140.) The same writer explains the name Sichar, in St. John, as a name of reproach, contemptuously assigned to the city by the Jews as the seat of error (the Hebrew 1j5Ei' signifying mendacium, falsuni), and borrowed from the prophet Habakknk, where the two words Moreh Shaker ("Ij^^ ITIID) occur in convenient