Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/439

 NICAEA. Acoording to another account (Memnon, a}). Phot. Cod. 224. p. 233, cd. Bekker), Nicaea was founded by men from Nicaea near Thermopylae, who ]iad served in the army of Alexander the Great. The town was built with great regularity, in the form of a square, measuring 1 6 stadia in circumference ; it had four gates, and all its streets intersected one another at right angles, so that from a monument in the centre all the four gates could be seen. (Strab. sii. pp. 565. &c.) This monument stood in the gym- nasium, which was destroyed by tire, but was restored w-ith increased magnilicence by the younger Pliny {^Epist. X. 48), when he was governor of Bithynia. Soon after the time of Lysimachus, Nicaea became a city of great importance, and the kings of Bithynia, whose era begins in b. c. 288 with Zipoetes, often resided at Nicaea. It has already been mentioned that in the time of Strabo it is called the metropolis of Bithynia; an honour which is also assigned to it on some coins, though in later times it was enjoyed by Nicomedeia. The two cities, in fact, kept up a long and vehement dispute about the pre- cedence, and the 38th oration of Dion Chrysostomus was expressly composed to settle the dispute. From this oration, it appears that Nicomedeia alone had a right to the title of metropolis, but both were the first cities of the country. The younger Pliny makes frequent mention of Nicaea and its public buildings, which he undertook to restore when governor of Bithynia. {Epkl. x. 40, 48, &c.) i was the birthplace of the astronomer Hipparchus and the historian Dion Cassius. (Suid. s. v. "iTnrapxos.^ The numerous coins of Nicaea which still exist attest the interest taken in the city by the emperors, as well as its attachment to the rulers ; many of them commemorate great festivals celebrated there in honour of gods and emperors, as Olympia, Isthmia, Dionysia, Pythia, Coinmodia, Severia, Philadelphia, &e. Throughout the imperial period, Nicaea re- mained an important place ; for its situation was par- ticularly favourable, being only 25 miles distant from Prusa (Plin. v. 32), and 44 from Constanti- nople. (It.A7it.^.l-ll.) When the last mentioned city became the capital of the Eastern Empire, Nicaea did not lose in importance ; for its present walls, which were erected during the last period of the Empire, enclose a much greater space than that ascribed to the place in the time of Strabo. In the reign of Constantine, A. D. 325, the celebrated Council of Nicaea was held there against the Arian hei'esy, and the prelates there assembled drew up the creed called the Nicene. Some travellers have believed that the council was held in a church still existing ; but it has been shown by Prokesch (Erin- nerungcn, iii. p. 234) that that church was built at a later period, and that the council was probably held ill the now ruined mosque of Orchan. In the course of the same century, Nicaea sufi'ered much from an earthquake; but it was restored in a. d. 368 by the emperor Valens. During the middle ages it was for a long time a strong bulwark of the Greek emperors against the Turks, who did not conquer it imtil the year 1078. During the first crusade, in 1097, it was recovered from them by the Christians, but in the peace which was afterwards concluded it was ceded to the Turks. In the 13th century, when Constantinople was the capital of the Latin empire, Theodore Lascaris made Nicaea the capital of Western Asia ; in the end, however, it was finally conquered and incorporated with the Ottoman empire by Orchan. Many of its public buildings were then NICAEA. 42E destroyed, and the materials used by the conquerors in erecting their mosques and other edifices. The modern Isnik is a very poor place, of scarcely more than 100 houses, while in Pococke's time, there still existed about 300. The ancient walls, with their towers and gates, are in tolerably good preservation ; their circumference is 14,800 feet, being at the base from 15 to 20 feet in thickness, and from 30 to 40 feet in height ; they contain four large and two small gates. In most places they are formed of alternate courses of Pioman files and large square stones, joined by a cement of great thickness. la some places have been inserted columns and other architectural fragments, the ruins of more ancient edifices. These walls seem, like those of Constan- tinople, to have been built in the fourth century of our era. Some of the towers have Greek inscriptions. The ruins of mosques, baths, and houses, dispersed among the gardens and cornfields, which now occupy a great part of the space within the Greek forti- fications, show that the Turkish town, though now so inconsiderable, was once a place of im- portance ; but it never was so large as the Greek city, and it seems to have been almost entirely con- structed of the remains of the Greek Nicaea, the walls of the ruined mrisques and baths being full of the fragments of Greek temples and churches. On the north-western parts of the town, two moles extend into the lake and form a harbour ; but the lake in this part has much retreated, and left a marshy plain. Outside the walls remnants of an ancient aqueduct are seen. (Comp. Leake, Asia Minor, pp. 10, foil. ; Von Prokesch-Osten, Erin- nerungen, iii. pp. 321, foil. ; Pococke, Journey in Asia Minor, iii. pp. 181, foil; Walpole, Turkey, ii. p. 146; Eckhel, Bocti,: Num. i. pp. 423, foil. ; Easche, Lexic. ReiNum. iii. 1. pp. 1374, foil.) [L. S.] COIN OF NICAEA IN BITITl-NIA. 2. (NiK-aia, Arrian, v. 19 ; Strab. xv. p. 698; Curt. ix. 3. 23), a city in the Panjdb, on the banks of the Hydaspes (or Jehmi), built by Alex- ander the Great to commemorate his victory over Porus, who ruled the flat country intermediate between that river and the Acesines. It was at Nicaea or Bucephalia, which appears to have been on the opposite bank, that Alexander (according to Strabo, I c.) built the fleet which Nearchus subse- quently commanded, the country in the immediate neighbourhood having abundance of wood fit for ship-building. No town now exists which can with any probability be identified with it. [V.] NICAEA. n. In Europe. .(NiKaia: Eth.Ui- Kaievs : Nizza, in French Nice), a city on the coast of Liguria, situated at the foot of the Jlaritime Alps, near the frontier of Gallia Narbonensis. On this account, and because it was a colony of JIassilia, it was in early times commonly reckoned as belonging to Gaul (Steph. B. s. v.) ; and this attribution is still followed by Mela (ii. 5. § 3) : but from the time that the Varus became fixed as the limit of Italy, Nicaea, which was situated about 4 miles E E 4