Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/514

 498 ORTOSPEDA. leading through Bactriana met at this place; hence the notice in Strabo (/. c.) of the r] e'/c Bo/cTpaic rpioSos. Groskurd has (as appears to us), on no sufficient ground, identified Ortospana with the pre- sent Kandahar. If the reading of some of the JISS. of Ptolemy be correct, Kabul may be a corruption of KdSovpa. It is worthy of note, that in the earlier editions of Ptolemy (vi. 18. § 3) mention is made of a people whom he calls KaSoAiroi ; in the latest of Nobbe (Tauchnitz, 1843) the name is changed to BaiA.rrai. It is not improbable that Ptolemy here is speaking of Kabul, as Lassen has observed. (/wfZ. Alterthums. vol. i. p. 29.) The three roads may be, the pass by Bamiiin, that by the Hindu- Kusli, and that from Anderdb to Khawar. [V.] ORTOSPEDA. [OaospEDAJ. ORTY'GIA. [Delos.] ORTY'G[A. [Sykacuse.] ORU'DII (to 'OpovSia opt), Ptol. vii. 1. §§ 25, 36), a chain of mountains in India intra Gangem, which were, according to Ptolemy, the source of the river Tynna (now Pennnis). It is difficnlt now to identify them with certainty, but Forbiger conjec- tures that they may be represented by the present Nella-Mella. TV.] ORYX. [Arcadia, Vol. I. p. 193, a.] ^ OSCA. 1. ("Oc/ca, Ptol. ii. 6. § 68), a town of the Ilergetes in the N. of Hispania Tarraconensis, on the road from Tarraco and Ilerda to Caesar- au2usta (^Itln. Ant. pp. 391, 451), and under the jurisdiction of the last-named city. Pliny alone (iii. 3. s. 4) places the Oscenses in Vescitania, a dis- trict mentioned nowhere else. It was a Roman colony, and had a mint. We learn from Plutarch (Sert. c. 14) that it was a large town, and the place where Sertoiius died. It is probably the town called Ileoscin ('lAfJcTKai') by Strabo, in an apparently corrupt passage (iii. p. 161; v. Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 451.) It seems to have possessed silver mines (Liv. xxxiv. 10, 46, xl. 43), unless the '' argentum Oscense " here mentioned merely refers to the minted silver of the town. Florez, however (Med. ii. 520), has pointed out the impossibility of one place sup- plying such vast quantities of minted silver as we find recorded in ancient writers under the terms " argentum Oscense," " signatum Oscense ; " and is of opinion that Oscense in these phrases means Spanish, by a corruption from the national name, Eus cara. (Cf. Caes. B.C. i. 60; Veil. Pat. ii. 30.) It is the modern ffuesca in Arragon. (Florez, Med. ii. p. 513; Sestini, p. 176; Mionnet, i. p. 46, Suppl. i. p. 92 ; Jlurray's Handbook of Spain, p. 448.) 2. A town of the Turdetani in Hispania Baetica, which some have identified with Huescar, but which Ukert (vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 370) thinks must be sought to the W. of that place. (Ptol. ii. 4. § 12; Plin. ii. 1. s. 3.) The pretended coins of this town are not genuine. (Florez, Med. I. c. ; Sestini, p. 78; Mionnet, i. p. 43, Suppl. i. p. 40; Sestini, p. 78; Ukert, ;. c.) [T. H. D.j COIN OF OSCA. OSCI. OSCELA. [Lepontii.J OSCI or OPICI (in Greek always "OiriKoi : the original form of the name was Opscus, which was still used by Ennius, up. Fest. s. v. p. 198), a nation of Central Italy, who at a very early period appear to have been spread oer a considerable part of the peninsula. So far as we can ascertain they were the original occupants, at the earliest time of which we have anything like a definite account, of the central part of Italy, from Campania and the borders of Latium to the Adriatic ; while on the S. they ad- joined the Oenotrians, whom there is good reason to regard as a Pelasgic tribe. Throughout this extent they were subsequently conquered and reduced to subjection by tribes called Sabines or Sabellians, who issued from the lofty mountain tracts of the Apen- nines N. of the territory then occupied by the Oscans. The relation between the Sabellians and the Oscans is very obscure ; but it is probable that the former were comparatively few in number, and adopted the language of the conquered people, as we know that the language both of the Campanians and Samnites in later times was Oscan. (Liv. x. 20.) Whether it remained unmixed, or had been modified in any degree by the language of the Sabellians, which was probably a cognate dialect, we have no means of determining, as all our existing monuments of the language are of a date long subsequent to the Sa- bellian conquest. The ethnical affinities of the Oscans, and their relations to the Sabellian and Dther races of Central Italy, have been already considered under the article It.lia ; it only remains to add a few words concerning what is known of the Oscan language. Niebuhr has justly remarked that " the Oscan language is by no means an inexplicable mystery, like the Etruscan. Had a single book in it been preserved, we should be perfectly able to decipher it out of itself." (Nieb. vol. i. p. 68.) Even with the limited means actually at our command we are able in great part to translate the extant inscriptions in this language, few and mostly brief as they are ; and though the meaning of many words remains uncertain or unknown, we are able to arrive at distinct conclusions concerning the general character and affinities of the language. The Oscan was clasely connected with the Latin ; not merely as the Latin was with the Greek and other branches of the great Indo-Teutonic family, as offshoots from the same original stock, but as cognate and nearly allied dialects. This affinity may be traced through- out the grammatical foi'ms and inflections of the language not less than in the vocabulary of single words. The Latin was, however, in all probability a comjiosite language, derived from a combination of this Oscan element with one more closely akin to the Greek, or of Pelasgic origin [Latium, p. 137] ; while the Oscan doubtless represents the language of Central Italy in its more unmixed form. In many cases the older and ruder specimens of the Latin retain Oscan forms, which were laid aside in the more refined stages of the language : such is the termination of the ablative in d, which is found in the Duilian and other old Latin inscriptions, and appears to have been universal in Oscan. The few notices of Oscan words which have been preserved to us by Latin writers, as Varro, Festus, &c., are of comparatively little importance. Our chief knowledge of the language is derived from extant inscriptions; of which the three most important are : I. the Tabula Bantina, a bronze tablet found in the