Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/458

 4 42 KIVARIA. the bleachers and glassmakers of Aesrypt. Parallel with the Natron Lakes, and separated from them by a narrow ridge, is the Bahr-he-la-Ma, or Waterless Eiver, a name given by the Arabs to this and other hollows which have the appearance of having once been channels for water. It has been surmised that the lake Moeris {Birlet-el-Keroum) may have been connected with the Mediternmean at some remote period by this outlet. The Bahr-he-la-Ma contains agatised wood. (Wilkinson, Mod. Egypt and Thebes, vol. i. p. 300.) The valley in which the Natron Lakes are contained, was denominated the Nitriote nome {v6ixos liiTpiiuTLS or NiTpLUTrjs, Strab. xvii. p. 803; Steph. B. s. V. nirpiai). It was, according to Strabo, a principal seat of the worsliip of Serapis, and the only nome of Aegypt in which sheep were sacrificed. (Comp. Macrob. Saturn, i. 7.) The Serapeian worship, indeed, seems to have prevailed on the western side of the Nile long before the Si- nopic deity of that name (Zeus Sinopites) was intro- duced from Pontus by Ptolemy Soter, since there was a very ancient temple dedicated to him at Rha- cotis, the site of Alexandreia (Tac. Hist. iv. 83), and another still more celebrated outside the walls of Memphis. The monasteries of the Nitriote nome were notorious for their rigorous asceticism. They were many of them strong-built and well-guarded fortresses, and offered a successful resistance to the recruiting sergeants of Valens, when they attempted to enforce the imperial rescript {Cod. Theodus. sii. tit. 1. lex. 63), which decreed that monastic vows should not exempt men frum serving as soldiers. (Photius, p. 81, ed. Bekker; Dionys. Perieg. v. 255; Eustath. ad loc; Pausan. i. 18; Strab. xvii. p. 807; Clem. Alex. Strom, i. p. 43.) [W. B. D.] NIVARIA, a city of the Vaccaei in Hispania Tarraconensis, lying N. of Cauca. (Ittn. Ant. p. 435; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 432.) [T. H. D.] NIVARIA INS. [FoRTUNATAE Ins., Vol. I. p. 906, b.] NOAE (No'ai, Steph. B.: Eth. Koaios, Noaeus: Noara), a city of Sicily, the name of which is not mentioned in history, but is found in Stephanus of Byzantium (s. ?;.), who cites it from Apollodorus, •and in Pliny, who enumerates the Noaei among the communities of the interior of Sicily (Plin. iii. 8. s. 14.) We have no clue to its position, but the re- semblance of name renders it probable that it is re- presented by the modern village of Noara, on the N. .slope of the Neptunian mountains, about 10 miles from the sea and 13 from Tyndaris. (Cluver. Sicil. p. 335.) [E. H. B.j NOARUS (Noapos), a river of Pannonia, into which, according to Strabo (vii. p. 314), the Dravus emptied itself in the district of Segestice, and which thence flowed into the Danube, after having received the waters of another tributary called the Colapis. This river is not mentioned by any other writer ; and as it is well known that the Dravus flows directly into the Danube, and is not a tributary to any other river, it has been supposed that there is some mistake in the text of Strabo. (See Groskurd, Strabo, vol. i. pp. 357, 552.) [L. S.] NOEGA (Nuiya), a small city of the Astures, in Hispania Tarraconensis. It was seated on the coast, not far from the river Jlelsus, and from an estuary which formed the boundary between the Astures and Cantabri, in the neighbourhood of the present Gi- jon. Hence Ptolemy (ii. 6. § 6), who gives it the additional name of Ucesia (JSioiyaovKoria), places it NOLA. in the territory of the Cantabri. (Strab. iii. p. 1 67 ; Mela, iii. 1 ; Phn. iv. 20. s. 34.) [T. H. D.] NOELA, a town of the Capon in Hispania Tarra- conensis, now Noi/a on the Tamhre. (Plin. iv. 20. s. 34; Ulcert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 438.) [T. H. D.] NOEODU'NUM {^oi6^ovvov was the chief city of the Diablintes [Diablintes], or of the Aulircii Diaulitae, as the name appears in the Greek texts of Ptolemy (ii. 8. § 7). There is no doubt that the old Gallic name of the town was exchanged for that of the people, Diablintes; which name in a middle age document, referred to by D'Anville, is written Juhlent, and hence comes the corrupted name Ju- bleins, a small place a few leagues from Mayenne. There are said to be some Roman remains at Jid}lei')is. A name Nudionnum occurs in the Theodosian Table between Araegenns and Subdinnum (^Mans), and it is marked as a capital town. It appears to be the Noeodunum of the Diablintes. [G. L.] NOEOMAGUS (yioiSixayos), a town of Gallia Lugdunensis, and the capital of the Vadicassii (Ptol. ii. 8. § 16). The site is uncertain. D'Anville supposes that it may be Vez, a name apparently derived from the Viducasses. Others suppose it to be NeuvUle, apparently because Neuville means the same as Noeomagus. [G. L.] NOES (Norjy, Herod, iv. 49) or NOAS (Valer. Flace. vi. 100), a river which takes its source in Slount Haemus, in the territory of the Corbyzi, and flows into the Danube. It has not been satisfac- torily identified. [T. H. D.] NOIODENOLEX, a place in the country of the Helvetii, which is shovrn by inscriptions to be Vieux Chdtel, near Neiifchatel. Foundations of old build- ings, pillars and coins have been found there. One of the inscriptions cited by Ukert (Gallien, p. 494) is: " Publ. iViartius Miles Veteranus Leg. xxi. Civium Noiodenolicis curator." [G. L.] NOIODU'NUM. [CoLONiA Equestris Noio- DUNUM.] NOLA (NiAo: Eth. N&>Aa?os, Nolanus: Nola), an ancient and important city of Campania, situated in the interior of that province, in the plain between Mt. Vesuvius and the foot of the Apennines. It was distant 21 miles from Capua and 16 from Nu- ceria (^Itiii. Ant. p. 109.) Its early history is very obscure; and the accounts of its origin are contra- dictory, though they may be in some degree recon- ciled by a due regard to the successive populations that occupied this part of Italy. Hecataeus, tlie earliest author by whom it is mentioned, appears to have called it a city of the Ausones, whom he re- garded as the earliest inhabitants of this part of Italy. (Hecat. ap. Steph. Byz. s. v.^ On the other hand, it must have received a Greek colony from Cumae, if we can trust to the authority of Justin, who calls both Nola and the neighbouring Abella Chakidic colonies (Justin, xx. 1); and this is con- firmed by Silius Italicus (^Chalcidicam Nolam, xii, 161.) Other authors assigned it a Tyrrhenian or Etruscan origin, though they differed widely in regard to the date of its foundation ; some writers referring it, together with that of Capua, to a date as early as B. c. 800, while Cato brought them both down to a period as late as b. c. 471. (Veil. Pat. i. 7. This question is more fully discussed under the article Capua.) But whatever be the date assigned to the establishment of the Etruscans in Campania, there seems no doubt that Nola was one of the cities which they then occupied, in the same manner as the