Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/466

 450 NOVIOIVIAGUS. is Noeomagus in Ptolemy (ii. 9. § 17). In Am- mianus Marcellinus (xv. 11, xvi. 2) and the Notitia Imp. it occurs under the name of the people, Nemetes or Nemetae. It is now Speier, near the hmall stream called Speierhach, which flows into the Rhine. In some of the late Notitiae we read " civitas Nemetum, id est, Spira." (U'Anville, Notko. <^c.) 3. A town of the Batavi, is the Dutch town of Nymegen. on the Vahalis ( Waal). It is marked in the Table as a chief town. D'Anville observes that the station Ad Duodecimum [Duodecimum, Ad] is placed by the Table on a Roman road, and next to Novioma'i^us ; and that this shows that Novio- masus had a territory, for capital places used to reckon the distances from their city to the limits of their territory. 4. A town of the Bitnriges Vivisci. (Ptol. ii. 7. § 8.) [BiTURiGES Vivisci.] 5. A town of the Remi, is placed by the Table on a road which, leadins; from Durocortorum (Beims') to a position named Mosa, must cross the Maas at Mouson [MosoMAGUS.] Noviomaaus is xii. from Durocortorum, and it is supposed by D'Anville to be Neiwille. 6. A town of the Treviri, is placed in the Anto- nine Itin. xiii. from Trier, on the Mosel. In the Table it is viii., but as viii. is far from the truth, D'Anville supposes that the v. in the Table should be X. The river bends a pood deal below Trier, and in one of the elbows which it forms is Neuwagen, the representative of Noviomagus. It is mentioned in Ausonius's poem {Mosella, v. 11): — " Novimagum divi castra inclita Constantini." It is said that many Roman remains have been found at Neumagen. 7. A town of the Veromandui. In the Antonine Itin. tills place is fixed at 27 IM. P. from Suissons, and 34 M P. from Amiens. But their distances, as D'Anville says, are not exact, for Noviodunum is Noyon, which is further from Amiens and nearer to Soissom than the Itin. fixes it. The alteration of the name Noviomagus to Noyon is made clearer when we know that in a middle age document the name is Noviomum, from which to Noyon the change is easv. [G. L.J NOVIOMAGUS (NoirJ^ttToJ, Ptol. ii. 3. § 28), capital of the Regni in Britannia Prima, marked in the Itin. Ant. (p. 472) as the first station on the road from London to Durovernum, and as 10 miles distant from the former town. It has been variously placed at Woodcote in Sui~rey, and Holwood Hill in Kent. Camden, who adopts the former site in his description of Suri-ey (p. 192), seems in his descrip- tion of Kent (^. 219) to prefer the latter; where on the little river Ravenshoiim, there still remaia traces of ramparts and ditches of a vast extent. This site would also agree better with the distances in the Itinerary. [T. H. D.] NOVIOREGUM, in Gallia, is placed by the An- tonine Lin. on a road from Burdigala {Bordeaux) to ilediolanum Santonum (Saintes); and between Tanmum {Talmon or Tallemont) and Mediolanum. D'Anville supposes Novioregum to be lioyan on the north side of the Gironde ; but this place is quite out of the direct road to Saintes, as D'Anville admits. He has to correct the distance also in the Itin. between Tamnum and Novioregum to make it acree with the distance between Talmon and Royan. [G. L.] NOVIUM Qioomuv, Ptol. ii 6. § 22), a town NUBAE. of the Artabri in Hispania Tarraconensis, idea- titled by some with Porto Monro, by others with Noya. [T. H. D.] NOVIUS (Noomoy, Ptol. ii. 3. § 2), a river on .M the W. coast of Britannia Barbara, or Caledonia, ^ flowing into the estuary Ituna (or Solway Firth), now the Nith. [T. H. D.] NOVUM COJIUM. [CoMUM.] NUAESIUM (yiovaiaiov), a town of Germany, mentioned only by Ptolemy (ii. 11. § 29). It was probably situated in the country of the Chatti, in the neighbourhood of Fritzlar, though others identify its site with that of castle Nienhus in Westphalia, Tiea.T Neheim. (Wilhelm, Germawten.p. 188.) [L.S.] NUBA LACUS. [Nigeik.] NUBAE (NoSSai, Strab. xxvii. pp. 786, 819 ; Ptol. iv. 7. § 30 ; Steph. B. s. v. ; also Novgaiui and Noi;§a5€s; Nubei, Plin. vi. 30. s. 34), were a negro race, situated S. of Meroe on the western side of the Nile, and when they first appear in history were composed of independent clans governed by their several chieftains. From the Nubae is derived the modern appellation of Nubia, a region which properly does not belong to ancient geography ; yet the ancient Nubae differed in many respects, both in the extent of their country and their national cha- racter, from the modern Nubians. Their name is Aegyptian, and came from the Nile-valley to Europe. From remote periods Ae- gypt and Aethiopia imported from the regions S. of Meroe ivory, ebony, and gold; and gold, in the language of Aegypt, was Nouh; and thus the gold- producing districts S. of Sennaar (Meroe), and in Kordofan, were designated by the merchants trad- ing with them as the land of Noub. Even in the present day the Copts who live on the lower Nile call the inhabitants of the country above Assouan (Syene) Nubah, — a name indeed disowned by thu.'^e to whom it is given, and of which the origin and import are unknown to those who give it., Kor- dofan, separated from Aegypt by a desert which can be easily crossed, and containing no obstructing population of settled and warlike tribes, lay almost within view of Aethiopia and the country N. of it; and the Nubae, though of a different race, were familiarly known by all who drank of the waters of the Lower Nile. The occupations of the Nubae brought them into immediate contact with the mer- cantile classes of their more civilised neighbours. They were the water-carriers and caravan-guides. They were employed also in the trade of Libya In- terior, and, until the Arabian conquest of Eastern Africa, were generally known to the ancients as a nomade people, who roamed over the wastes between the S. of Meroe and the shores of the Red Sea. Nor, indeed, were they without settled habitations : the country immediately N. of Kordofan is not en- tirely barren. but lies within the limit of the periodical rains, and the hamlets of the Nubae were scattered over the meadow tracts that divide the upper branches of the Nile. The independence of the tribes was probably owing to their dispersed habi- tations. In the third century a. d. they seem to have become more compact and civilised; for when the Romans, in the reign of Diocletian, A. d. 285 — 305, withdrew from the Nile-valley above Philae, they placed in it and in the stations up the river colonies of Nobatae (Nubae, NouSoSes) from the western desert. These settlements may be regarded as the germ of the present Nubia. Supported by the Romans who needed them as a barrier against