Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/497

 OLYNTHUS. prince died of a fever, and was succeeded by Poly- l)iades as general, who put an end to the war, B.C. 379. The Olynthians were reduced to such straits, that they were obliged to sue for peace, and, break- ing up their own fetleration, enrolled themselves as swoni members of the Lacedaemonian confederacy under obligations of fealty lo Sparta (Xen. Eell. v. 2. § 12, 3. § 18; Diodor. xv. 21— 23; Deni. de Fals. Leg. c. 75. p. 425). The subjugation of Olynthus was disastrous to Greece, by removing the strongest bulwark against Macedonian aggrandisement. Sparta was the first to crush the bright promise of the con- federacy; but it was re.served for Athens to deal it the most deadly blow, by the seizure of Pydna. Me- thone, and Potidaea, with the region about the Ther- iiiaic gulf, between B.C. 368 — 363, at the expense of Olynthus. The Olynthians, though humbled, were not subdued ; alarmed at Philip's conquest of Amphipfjlis, B.C. 358, they sent to neg^^tiate with Athens, where, through the intrigues of the Mace- donians, they were repulsed. Irritated at their ad- vances being rejected, they closed with Philip, and received at his hands the district of Anthemus, as well as the important Athenian possession of Poti- daea. (Dem. Pkilipp. ii. p. 71. s. 22). Philip was too near and dangerous a neighbour; and, by a change of policy, Olynthus concluded a peace with Athens B. c. 352. After some time, during which there was a feeling of reciprocal mistrust between the Olynthians and Philip, war broke out in the middle of B. c. 350. Overtures for an alliance bad been previously made by Athens, with which the Olynthians felt it prudent to close. On the first recognition of Olynthus as an ally, Demosthenes deUvered the earliest of his memo- rable harangues; two other Olynthiac speeches fol- lowed. For a period of 80 years Olynthus had been the enemy of Athens, but the eloquence and statesman- like sagacity of Demosthenes induced the people to send succours to their ancient foes: and yet he was not able to persuade them to assist Olyn- thus with sufficient vigour. Still the fate of the city was delayed; and the Olynthians, bad they been on their guard against treachery within, might perhaps have saved themselves. The detail of the capture is unknown, but the struggling city fell, in B.C. 347, into the hands of Philip, "callidus emptor Olynthi" (.Juv. xiv. 47), through the treachery of Lasthenes and Euthycrates; its doom was that of one taken by storm (Dem. Philijyp. iii. pp. 125 — 128, Fals. Leg. p. 426; Diod. xvi. 53). All that survived — men, women, and children — were sold as slaves; the town itself was destroyed. The fall of Olynthus com- pleted the conquest of the Greek cities from the Thessalian frontier as far as Thrace — in all 30 Chalcidic cities. Demosthenes (^Philipp. iii. p. 117; comp. Stiab. ii. p. 121; Justin, viii. 3), speaking of them about five years afterwards, says that they were so thoroughly destroyed, that it might be sup- posed that they had never been inhabited. The site of Olynthus ?A Aio Mamas is, however, known by its distance of 60 stadia from Potidaea, as well as by some vestiges of the city still existing, and by its lagoon, in which Artabazus slew the inhabitants. The name of this marsh was Boi.ycA (rj BoAn/crj Aif^vr), Hegisander, ap. Athen. p. 334). Two rivers, the Amita.s ('A/uiTaj) and Olynthiacus {'OXvudia- Koi), flowed into this lagoon from A pol Ionia (Athen. I. c). Mecybeuna was its harbour; and there was a spot near it, called Cantharolethron {KavQa- puiXeepov, Strab. vii. p. 330 ; Plut. de An. Tranq. 475. 45; Arist. Mirab. Ausc. 120; Plin. xi. 34), so VOL. U. OMIJI. 4 91 called because black beetles could not live there. Eckhel (vol. ii. p. 73) speaks of only one extant coin of Olynthus — the " type" a head of Heracles, with the lion's skin; but Mr. Millingen has engraved one of those beautiful Clialcidian coins on which the " legend" OATN0 surrounds the bead of Apollo on the one side, and the word XAAXIAEHN, his lyre, on the reverse. (Cousinery, Foi/a^e, vol. ii. p. 161; Leake, North. Greece, vol. iii. pp. 154, 457 — 459; Voeniel, de Olynthi Situ, civiiate, potentia, ef ever- sione, Francof. ad M. 1829; Winiewski, Comm. ad Dem. de Cor. pp. 66, seq.) [E. B. J.] OMANA {"Onava, Peripl. Mar. Erythr. c. 27, 36; Marcian, Peripl. c. 28, ed. Muller, 1855), a port of some importance on the coa.st of Carmania, which is noticed also by Pliny (vi. 28. s. 32). Its position was near the modern bay of Tshubur, per- haps where Mannert has suggested, at Cape Tanka (v. 2. p. 421). Vincent places it a little to the E. of Cape lask. In Ptolemy, the name has been cor- rupted into Commana (vi. 8. § 7). [V.] OilANA (ja "O/xava), a deep bay on the south coast of Arabia east of Syagros, 600 stadia in dia- meter, according to the Periplus, bounded on the east by lofty and rugged mountains (ap. Hudson, Geog. Min. torn. i. p. 18), doubtless identical with the Omanum emporium, which Ptolemy places in long. 77° 40', lat. 19° 45', which must have belonged to the Omanitae mentioned by the same geographer (vi. 15), separated only by the Cattabani from the Monies Asaborum, doubtless the mountains men- tioned in the Periplus. If Pas Fartah be cor- rectly taken as the ancient Syagros, the ancient Omana must have been far to the west of the dis- trict of Arabia now called by that name, and within the territory of Hadramaut. The modern 'Oman is the south-eastern extremity of the penin- sula, and gives its name to the sea outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which washes it on the east and south. (Gosselin, Recherches, tom. iii. pp. 32,33; Vincent, iii. 16; Forster, Geogr. of Arabia, vol. ii. pp. 173, 180, note f.) [G.W.] OMANI or OMAXNI (Aoiryioi oi 'Ojxavoi or 'O/uaj/foi), a branch of the Lygii, in the KE. of Germany, between the Oder and the Vistula, to the S. of the Burgundiones, and to the N. of the Lygii Diduni (Ptol. ii. 11. § 18). Tacitus (CmB. 43) in enumerating the tribes of the Lygii does not mention the Oinani, but a tribe occurs in his list bearing the name of Manimi, which from its resemblance is ge- nerally regarded as identical with the Omani. But nothing certain can be said [L. S.] OMBI ('Om§oi, Ptol. iv. 5. § 73 ; Steph. B. s. v.; It. Anton, p. 165; Ombos, Juv. xv. 35; Ambo, Not. Imp. sect. 20: Eth. 'O^eirrjs ; comp. Aelian, Ilist. An. x. 21), was a town in the Thebaid, the capital of the Nomos Ombites, about 30 miles N. of Syene, and situated upon the E. bank of the Nile ; lat. 24° 6' N. Ombi was a gar- rison town under every dynasty of Aegypt, Pliaraonic, Macedonian, and Ron]an ; and was celelirated for the magnificence of its temples and its hereditary feud with the people of Tentyra. Ombi was the first ciiy below Syene at which any remarkable remains of antiquity occur. The Nile, indeed, at this portion of its course, is ill-suited to a dense populati<m. It runs between steep and narrow banks of sandstone, and deposits but little of its fertilising slime upon the drcarj- and barren shores. There are two temples at Ombi, constructed of the stone obtained from the neighbouring quarries