Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/476

 460 OBUCULA. Jlogontiacnm in Lower Gennania, but it was the cliief place of Upper Germania. Ptolemy has not men- tioned the Mosella (Mosel), and some geographers have assumed that it is the Obringas; but if tliis is so, the position of Mainz is wrong in Ptolemy, for Mainz is south of the Mosel. D'Anville observes that, according to the Not it. Imp., the district of the general who resided at Mainz comprehended Antunnacum or Andiriiach, on the Rhine, which is below the junction of the 3fosel and the Ehi7ie. If Anclernach was always in the Upper Germania, and if the boundary between the Lower and the Upper Germania was a river-valley, there is none that seems so likely to have been selected as the rugged valley of the Ah; which lies between Bonn and Anclernach, and separates the netherlands or low- lands on the north from the hilly country on the south. [*^- L.] OBU'CULA {'0§ovKoa, Ptol. ii. 4. §4), called by Pliny (iii. 1. s. 3) Obulcula, and by Appian {Hisp. 68) ^OS6Koo., a town of Hispania Baetica, on the road from Hispalis to Emerita and Corduba {Itin. Ant. pp. 413, 414), now Monclova. Some ruins are still visihle (Caro, Ant. Hisp. i. 19; Florez, Esp. S. sii. p. 382.) [T. H. D.] OBULGO (7; '0?ovKoiv, Strab. iii. pp. 141, 160; "OSovXkov, Ptol. ii. 4. § 1 1 ; 'OooK:a)r, Steph. V,.s.v.), called by Pliny (iii. 1. s. 3) Obulco Pontificense, a Ro- man muiiicipium of Hisjrania Baetica, in the juris- diction of Corduba, from which it was distant about 300 stadia according: to Strabo (p. 160). It had the privilege of a mint (Florez, Med. ii. p. 496, iii. p. 101 ; Mionnet, Suppl. i. p. 11; Sestini, p. 71 ; Gruter, Jnscr. pp. 105, 458; Muratori, p. 1052. 4). It is commonly identified with Porcuna. [T. H. D.] COIN OF OBULCO. OBULENSII('OgovA.V)wioi, Ptol. iii. 10. §9), a people of Moesia Inferior, on the S. side of the mouth of the Danube. [T. H. D.] OCA'LEA or OCALEIA ('ClKaXfa, 'ri/caAeia: Eth. 'flKaKevs), an ancient city of Boeotia, men- tioned by Homer, situated upon a small stream of the same name, at an equal distatice from Haliartus and Alalcomenae. It lay in the middle of a long narrow plain, bounded on the east by the heights of Haliartus, on the west by the mountain Tilphossium, 1 on the south by a range of low hills, and on the ! north by the lake Oopais. This town was dependent upon Haliartus. The name is probably only a dia- lectic form of Oechalia. Its site is indicated by several squared blocks on the right bank of the stream. (Hom. II. ii. 501, Hymn. Apoll. 242 ; Strab. ix. p. 410; Apollod. ii. 4. § 11; Phn. iv. 7. s. 12; Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 205, seq. ; Forchhammer, HeUenika, p. 184.) OCE'ANUS. [Atlanticum Mare.] OCE'ANUS SEPTENTRIONA'LIS, the northern portion of the waters of the all-encircling Ocean. OCEANUS SEPTENTRIONALIS. 1. The name and divisions. — According to a fracjment of Phavorinus the word 'ClKfavos is not Greek, but one borrowed from the barbarians (Spohn, de Nicephor. Blemm. Geogr. Lips. 1818, p. 23); but there seems reason for believing it to be con- nected with the Sanscrit roots "ogha" and '■ogli." (Humboldt, Cosmos, vo. ii. note 210, trans.) When the peoples living on the coasts of the Interior Sea passed, as Herodotus (iv. 152) significantly adds, "not without divine direction," through the gate into the Ocean, and first saw its primeval waters, the origin as they believed of all waters, the sea that washed the shores of the remote North was long regarded as a miry, shallow, misty sea of darkness, lying under " the Bear," who alone is never bathed in the Ocean; and hence the names Septentrionalis (6 ^opsios wKeavos, Plut. Camill. 15; Agathem. ii. 14; 'lac. Germ. I ; Plin. iv. 27; 6 apKTiKus uk., Agathem. I. c. ; b virb ras &pKTovs uik., Diod. xviii. 5) and Scythicus (Plin. vi. 14); though this, accoiding to Agathemerus {I. c.) is the E. division of the North- ern Ocean, while the Mare Germanicum and Mare Britannicum formed the W. This sea appears with the epithets " Oceanus glacialis " (Juv. iii. 1); "Mare congelatum" (Varro, R. R. i. 2. § 4; Plin. iv. 27. s. 30) ; " concretum" (Plin. I. c; ?; treTrr^yvIa 6aA., Strab. i. p. 63; ttSi'tos imr-qyus, Dionys. Per. 32; 7re'Aa7os Treirriyos, Agathem I. c); " pigrum " {Ta.c. A gr. 13, Germ. 45); " mortuum " (Plin. iv. 27; Agathem. I. c; Dionys. Per. 33). Its divisions were: — Mare Germanicum (Plin. iv. 30; Ptol. ii. 3. § 5), or M. Cimbricum (" Cymbrica Tethys," Claudian, de Bell. Get. 335), or the German Ocean, united by the Fretum Gallicum {Straits of Dover, Pas de Calais) with the M. Britannicum (Plin. iv. 33 : English Channel), and by the Codanus Sinus {Kattegattet. Ore Sund) and Lagnus Sinus (Store Belt, Lille Belt), with the M. Sarmaticum (^apfiuTiKus wK., Ptol. vii. 5. §§ 2, 6) or Suevicum (Tac. Germ. 45: Oster Siien, ov Baltic). A division of this latter was the Sinus Venedicus (OvifeStichs koXttos, Ptol. iii. 5. § 19 : Gulf of Danzig). The M. Amalchium, according to Hecataeus (ap. Plin. iv. 27), commences with the river Paropamisus; the Cimbri, according to Philemon (ap. Plin. I c), called it Morimarusa, which he interprets by M. mortuum; beyond was the sea called Cronium, or the sea into which the river Chronos {Niemen) flowed, or what is now called the Kurisches Haff, oS Memel (Schafiirik, Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 496.) 2. Progress of discovery. — The enterprise of the Phoenician navigators brought them into contact with those countries, in the N. of Europe, from whence tin was brought ; but it was the trade in amber which must have been most effectual in^ opening up a knowledge of these coasts. This amber was brought by sea, at first, only from the W. Cimbrian coast, and reached the Mediterranean chiefly by sea, being brought across the intervening counti'ies by means of barter. The Massilians, wlio under Pytheas followed the Plioenicians, hardly went beyond the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe. T.he amber islands (Glessaria or Austrania) are placed by Pliny (iv. 27) decidedly W. of the Cim- brian promontory in the Gei-man Ocean; and the connection with the expedition of Germanicus sufficiently shows that an island in the Baltic is not meant. Moreover the effects of the ebb and flood tides in the estuaries which throw up amber, where, according to the expression of Servius, '' JIare vicissim tum accedit turn recedit," suits the coast