Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/461

 KOMIA. find it retaining its municipal privileges down to a late period. Its territory was fertile, and produced excellent wine; which is celebrated by several writers for its quality as well as its abundance. (Plin. xiv. 4. s. 5; Colum. R. R. iii. 3; Athen. i. p. 27, b; Martial, x. 48. 19.) Seneca had a country house and farm there, as well as JIartial, and his friends Q. Ovidius and Nepos, so that it seems to have been a place of some resort as a country retire- ment for people of quiet habits. Martial contrasts it in this respect with the splendour and luxury of Baiae and other fa.-.hionable watering-places ; and Cornelius Nepos, in like manner, terms the villa of Atticus, at Nomentum, " rusticum praedium." (Sen. Ep. 104 ; Martial, vi. 27, 43, x. 44, xii. 57 ; Nep. Att. 14.) Even under the Koman Empire there is much discrepancy between our authorities as to whether Nomentum was to be reckoned a Latin or a Sabine town. Strabo ascribes it to the latter people, whose territory he describes as extending fi-om the Tiber and Nomentum to the confines of the Vestini (v. p. 228). Pliny, who appears to have considered the Sabines as bounded by the Anio, naturally includes the Nomentani and Fidenates among them (iii. 12. s. 17); though he elsewhere enumerates the former among the still existing towns of Latium, and the latter among those that were extinct. In like man- ner Virgil, in enumerating the Sabine followers of Clausus (Aen. vii. 712), includes " the city of No- mentum," though he had elsewhere expressly assigned its foundation to a colony from Alba. Ptolemy (iii. 1. § 62) distinctly assigns Nomentum as well as Fidenae to Latium. Architectural fragments and other existing remains prove the continued prosperity of Nomentum under the Roman Empire: its name is found in the Tabula ; and we learn that it became a bishop's see in the third century, and retained this dignity down to the tenth. The site is now occu- pied by a village, which bears tlie name of La Meiv- tana or Lamentana, a corruption of Civitas Nomen- tana, the appellation by which it was known in the middle ages. This stands on a small hill, somewhat steep and difiicult of access, a little to the right of the Via Nomentana, and probably occupies the same situation as the ancient Sabine town: the Roman one appears to have extended itself at the foot of the hill, along the high road, which seems to have passed through the midst of it. The road leading from Rome to Nomentum was known in ancient times as the Via Nomentana. (Orell. lnsci 208 ; Tab. Pent.) It issued from the Porta Collina, where it separated from the Via Salaria, crossed the Anio by a bridge (known as the Pons Nomentanus, and still called Ponte Lamen- tana') immediately below the celebrated ISIons Sacer, and from thence led almost in a direct line to No- mentum, passing on the Vay the site of Ficulea, from whence it had previously derived the name of Via Ficulensis. (Strab. v. p. 228; Liv. iii. 52.) The remains of the ancient pavement, or other un- questionable marks, trace its course with accuracy tliroughout this distance. From Nomentum it con- tinued in a straight line to Eretum, where it rejoined the Via Salaria. (Strab. I. c.) The Tabula gives the distance of Nomentum from Rome at xiv. M. P.; the real distance, according to Nibby, is half a mile more. (Nibby, Dintorni, vol. ii. p. 409, vol. iii. p. 635.) [E. H. B.] NO'MIA. [Lycaeus.] NOMISTE'RIUM (Nofttar^pior), a town in the NORA. 445 country of the Marcomanni (Bohemia'), not far from the banks of the Albis ; but its site cannot be determined. (Ptol. ii. 1 1. § 29 ; Wilhelm, Germanien, p. 222.) [L. S.] NONA'CRIS CNdivaKpL! : Eth. IJaivaKpiaT-ns, Ncc- vaKpieus). 1. A town of Arcadia, in the district of Pheneatis, and NW. of Pheneus, which is said to have derived its name from Nonacris, the wife of Ly- caon. From a lofty rock above the town descended the waters of the river Styx. [Styx.] Pliny speaks of a mountain of the same name. The place was in ruins in the time of Pausanias, and there is no trace of it at the present day. Leake conjectures that it may have occupied the site of Mesoriiglii. (Herod, vi. 74 ; Pans. viii. 17. § 6 ; Steph. B. s. v. ; Plin. iv. 6. s. 10 ; Sen. Q. N. iii. 25 ; Leake, Morea, vol. iii. pp. 165, 169.) From this place Hermes is called Nonacriates (NoovaKptdr-qs, Steph. B. s. v.), Evander Nonao-iiiis (Ov. Fast. v. 97), Atalanta Nonaci-ia (Ov. 3Iet. viii. 426), and Callisto No- nacrina virgo (Ov. Met. ii. 409) in the general sense of Arcadian. 2. A town of Arcadia in the territory of Orcho- menus, which formed, together with Callia and Di poena, a Tripolis. (Pans. viii. 27. § 4.) NOORDA. [Neard..] NORA (Ncopa: Eth. Vlaipavos, Steph. B. ; No- rensis: Capo di Pula), a city of Sardinia, situated on the S. coast of the island, on a promontory now called the Capo di Pula, about 20 miles S. of Ca- gliari. According to Pausanias (x. 17. § 5) it was the most ancient city in the island, having been founded by an Iberian colony under a leader named Norax, who was a grandson of Geryones. Without, attaching much value to this statement, it seems clear that Nora was, according to the traditions of the natives, a very ancient city, as well as one of the most considerable in later times. Pliny notices the Norenses among the most important towns of the island ; and their name occurs repeatedly in the fragments of Cicero's oration in defence of JI. Ae- milius Scaurus. (Cic. pro Scaur. 1, 2, ed. Orell. ; Plin. iii. 7. s. 13; Ptol. iii. 3. § 3.) The pcsition of Nora is correctly given by Ptolemy, though his authority had been discarded, without any reason, by several modern writers ; but the site has been clearly established by the recent i-esearches of the Comte de la Marmora: its ruins are still extant on a small peninsular promontory near the village of Ptda, marked by an ancient church of St. Fffisio, which, as we learn from ecclesiastical records, was erected on the ruins of Nora. The remains of a theatre, an aqueduct, and the ancient quays on the port, are still visible, and confirm the notion that it was a place of importance under the Roman govern- ment. Several Latin inscriptions with the name of the city and people have also been found; and others in the Phoenician or Punic character, which must belong to the period of the Carthaginian occupation of Sardinia. (De la Marmora, Voyage enSardaigne, vol. ii. p. 355.) The Antonine Itinerary (pp. 84, 84), in which the name is written Nura, gives the distance from Cara- !is as 32 M. P., for which we should certainly read 22 : in like manner the distance from Sulci should bo 59 (instead of 69) miles, which agrees with the true distance, if we allow for the windings of the coast. (De la Marmora, ib. p. 441.) [E. II. B.] NORA (to NcSpa), a mnuntain fortress of Cappa- docia, on the frontiers of Lycaonia, at the foot of Mount Taurus, in which Eumenes was for a whole