Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/498

 482 OMBRIOS. of HacJjar-seheleh. The more magnificent of the two stands upon the top of a sandy hill, and appears to have been a species of Pantheon, since, according to extant inscriptions, it was dedicated to Aroeres (Apollo) and the other deities of the Ombite nome hj the soldiers quartered there. The smaller temple to the XW. was sacred to Isis. Both, indeed, are of an imposing architecture, and still retain the bril- liant colours with which their builders adorned them. They are, however, of the Ptolemaic age, with the exception of a doorway of sandstone, built into a wall of brick. This was part of a temple built by Thothmes III. in honour of the crocodile- headed god Sevak. The monarch is represented on the door-jambs, holding the measuring reed and chisel, the emblems of construction, and in the act of dedicating the temple. The Ptolemaic portions of the larger temple present an exception to an almost universal rule in Aegyptian architecture. It has no propylon or dromos in front of it, and the portico has an uneven number of columns, in all fifteen, arranged in a triple row. Of these columns thirteen are still erect. As there are two principal entrances, the temple would seem to be two united in one, strengthening the supposition that it was the Pantheon of the Ombite nome. On a cornice above the doorway of one of the adyta is a Greek inscrip- tion, recording the erection, or perhaps the restora- tion of the sekos by Ptolemy Philometor and his sister-wife Cleopatra, b. c. 180 — 145. The hill on which the Ombite temples stand has been con- siderably excavated at its base by the river, which here strongly inclines to the Arabian bank. The crocodile was held in especial honour by the people of Ombi; and in the adjacent catacombs are occasionally found mummies of the sacred animal. Juvenal, in his 15th satire, has given a lively de- scription of a fight, of which he was an eye-witness, between the Ombitae and the inhabitants of Ten- tyra, who were hunters of the crocodile. On this occasion the men of Ombi had the worst of it ; and one of their number, having stumbled in his flight, was caught and eaten by the Tentyrites. The sa- tirist, however, has represented Ombi as nearer to Tentyra than it actually is, these towns, in fact, being nearly 100 miles from each other. The Ro- man coins of the Ombite nome exhibit the crocodile and the effigy of the crocodile-headed god Sevak. The modern hamlet of Koum^Ombos, or the hill of Ombos, covers part of the site of the ancient Ombi. The ruins have excited the attention of many distinguished modem travellers. Descriptions of them will be found in the following works : — Pococke, Travels, vol. iv. p. 186; Hamilton, Aegyp- tiaca, p. 34 ; Champollion, FEgypte, vol. i. p. 167; Denon, Description de VEgypie, vol. i. ch. 4, p. 1, foil. ; Burckhardt, Nubia, 4to. p. 106; Belzoni, Travels, vol. ii. p. 314. On the opposite side of the Nile was a suburb of Ombi, called Contra-Ombos. [W.B.D.] OMBRIOS INS. [FoRTiTNATAE Ins.] OMBRO'NES ("0/u§paii'€s, Ptol. iii. 5. § 21), a people of European Sarmatia, whose seat appears to Lave been on the flanks of the Carpathiam, about the sources of the Vistula. Schafarik {Slav. Alt. vol. i. pp. 389 — 391, 407) considers them to be a Celtic people, grounding his arguments mainly upon the identity of their name with that of the Celtic — as he considers them to be — Umbrians, or the most ancient inhabitants of the Italian peninsula. Recent inquiry has thrown considerable doubt upon the derivation of the Umbrians from a Gaulish ONCHESTUS. stock. [Italia,Vo1.II. p. 86,b.] This is one proof, among others, of the futility of the use of names of nations in historical investigations ; but, as there can be no doubt that there were Gallic settlements beyond the Carpathians, names of these foreign hordes might still linger in the countries they had once occupied long after their return westward in consequence of the movement of nations from the East. [E. B. J.] OJIENO'GARA (^Oixfv6'yapa), a town in the district of Ariaca, in the division of India intra Gangein. There is no reason to doubt that it is the present Ahmed-nagar, celebrated for its rock for- tress. (Ptol. ^^i. 1. § 82; comp. Pott. Etym. Forsch. p. 78.) [V.] OMIRAS. [Euphrates.] OMPHA'LIUM ('OiJL<pdKiov), a plain in Crete, so named from the legend of the birth of the babe Zeus from Rhea. The scene of the incident is laid near Thenae, Cnossus, and tlie river Triton. (Callim. Hymn, ad Jov. 45 ; Diod. v. 70 ; Schol. ad Nicand. Aleocipharm. 1 ; Steph. B. 5. v.; Hock, Kreta, vol. i. pp. 11. 404; Pashley, Trav. vol. i. p. 224.) [E. B. J.] OMPHA'LIUM QOix<paKiov), one of the inland ' cities of the Chaones in Epeirus. (Ptol. iii. 14. § 7.) Stephanus B. (s. t'.) erroneously calls it a city of Thessaly. Leake places it at Premedi, in the valley of the Viosa (the Aous). {Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 120.) ON. [Hexjopolis.I ONCAE. [Thebae.] ONCEIUM {"OyKeiov), a place in Arcadia tipon the river Ladon, near Thelpusa, and containing a temple of Demeter Erinnys. (Paus. viii. 25. § 4 ; Steph. B. s. «■.) The Ladon, after leaving this temple, passed that of Apollo Oncaeates on the left, and that of the boy Asclepius on the right. (Paus. viii. 25. § 11.) The name is derived by Pausanias from Oncus, a son of Apollo, who reigned at this place. Leake supposes that Tumhihi, the only re- markable site on the right bank of the Ladon between Thelpusa and the Tuthoa, is the site of the temple of Asclepius. (J/orcfl, vol. ii. p. 103.) Other writers mention a .small town Oncae ( '07^01) in Arcadia, which is probably the same as Onceium. (Tzctzes, ad Lycophr. 1225 ; Etym. M. p. 613; Phavorin. s. ■».) ONCHESMUS {'OyKViCT^os). a port-town of Chaonia in Epeirus, opposite the north-western point of Corcyra, and the next port upon the coast to the south of Panormus. (Strab. vii. p. 324 ; Ptol. iii. 14. § 2.) It seems to have been a place of import- ance in the time of Cicero, and one of the ordinary points of departure from Epeirus to Italy, as Cicero calls the wind favourable for making that passage an Onchesmites. (Cic. ad Att. vii. 2.) According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus {Ant. Rom. i. 5l) the real name of the place was the Port of Anchises {^hyxiffov Mfji'^ii'), named after Anchises, the father of Aeneas ; and it was probably owing to this tra- dition that the name Onchesmus assumed the form of Anchiasmus under the Byzantine emperors. Its site is that of the place now called the Forty Saints. (Leake, Nortkei-n Greece, vol. i. p. 11.) ONCHESTUS. 1. {'Oyxv<TT6s: Eth. 'O^xV- Tios), an ancient town of Boeotia in the territory of Haliartus, said to have been founded by Oncliestus, a son of Poseidon. (Paus. ix. 26. § 5 ; Steph. B. s. v.) It possessed a celebrated temple and grove of Poseidon, which is mentioned by Homer ('O7- XlffTtii/ 6', Upbv noaiSrj'iov, ayahy &ffos, II.