Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/588

 572 PELORUS. stationed, with the view both of threatening the city and preventing the Romans from crossing the straits. (Pol. i. 11.) And at a later period, during the con- test between Octavian and Sestus Pompey in the neighbourhood of Messana, the headland of Pelorus once more became an important post, being one of the points sedulously guarded by Pompey in order to ])revent his adversary from effecting a landing. (Appian, B. C. v. 105, 116.) The actual promontory of Pelorus, as already men- tioned, is a low spit or point of sand, about 2 miles in length, which ha,s evidently been thrown up by the currents, which flow with gre.at rapidity through the straits. (Symth's Sicily, p. 109.) A tradition, reported by Diodorus, but as ancient as the time of Hesiod, represented it as an artificial work con- .■structed by the giant Orion. (Diod. iv. 85.) Within tins sandy point, between the beach and the hills, are enclosed two small lakes or pools which are fa- mous for priducing the best eels and cockles in Sicily (Smyth, /. c. p. 106), — a reputation they already en- joyed in ancient times, as the " cockles of Pelorus " are repeatedly noticed by Athenaeus; and Solinus, who mentions the lakes in question, speaks of them as abounding in fish. There appear to have been three of them in his day, but the marvels which he relates of one of them are purely fabulous. (Athen. i. p. 4. c, iii. p. 92. f.; Solin. 5. §§ 2 — 4.) A temple of Neptune stood in ancient times upon the promon- tory, as well as a lighthouse or Pharos, the memory <if which is retained in the modern name of Punta del Faro, by which the cape is still known. This appellation seems to have indeed come into use be- fore the close of the Roman Empire, as Servius, in describing the width of the Sicilian strait, measures it " a Columna usque ad Pharon." (Sei-v. ad Aen. iii. 411.) But no remains of either building are now visible. [E. H. B.] PELO'RUS (Uewpos'), a small river of Iberia, in Asia, probably a tributary of the Cyrus. (Dion Cass, xxxvii. 2 ; comp. Groskurd's Strab. vol. ii. p. 375.) PELSO (Aur. Vict, de Caes. 40) or PEISO (Plin. iii. 27), a considerable lake in the north of Pannonia. A large portion of it was drained by the emperor Galerius, who conducted its waters into the Danube, and thus reclaimed large tracts of land, which formed an important addition to the province. (Aur. Vict. I. c.) The modern name of this lake is Plattensee : during rainy se.asons it still ovei-flows its banks far and wide, and forms extensive marshes, which are probably the very districts that were drained by Galerius. Lake Pelso is mentioned under different modifications of this name, such as Lacus Pelsodis (Jornand. Get. 52, 5-3) and Pelsois (Geogr. Rav. iv. 19), while in the middle ages it was called Pelissa. Muchar (iVortc. i. p. 3, &c.) regards Peiso and Pelso as two lakes, placing the former, with Pliny, near the Deserta Boiorum, .and identifying it with the Nemiedkrsee, while he admits the Pelso to be the Plattensee. This hy- pothesis, however, can hardly be sustained, as it is pretty certain that the Neusiedlersee did not exist in the times of the Romans, but was formed at a later period. (Comp. Scheonwisner, Antiquitates et Historia Sabariae, p. 17, &c. ; Liechtenberg, Geogr. des Oester. Kaiser staates, vol. iii. p. 1245, &c.) [L.S.] PELTAE (ne'ATOi: Eth. U«XTt]voi, Pelteni), a considerable town of Phrygia, was situated, ac- cording to Xenophon (^Anab. i. 2. § 10), at a dis- PELUSIUM. tance of 10 parasangs from Celaenae, at the head of the river Maeander. Xenophon describes it as a populous city, and states that the army of Cyrus remained there three days, during which games and sacrifices were performed. The Peuting. Table, where the name is erroneously written Pella, places it, quite in accordance with Xenophon, 26 miles from Apamea Cibotus, to the conventus of which Peltae belonged. (PUn. v. 29 ; comp. Ptol. v. 2. § 25; Steph. B. s. v.) Slrabo (xii. p. 576) men- tions Peltae among the smaller towns of Phrygia, and the Notitiae name it among the episcopal cities of Phrygia Pacatiana. The district in which the town was situated derived from it the name of the Peltaean plain {TliKTr^vuu or UeArii'hi' inSiov, Strab. xiii. p. 629). Kiepert (ap. Franz, Fiinfjnsckriften, p. 36) fixes the site of Peltae at the place where Mr. Hamilton found ruins of an ancient city, about 8 miles south of Sandakli {Journal of the Roy. Geogr. Society, viii. p. 144); while Hamilton him- self {Researches, ii. p. 203) thinks that it must have been situated more to the south-west, near the modern Ishekli. But .this latter hypothesis seems to place it too far west. [L. S.] PELTUI'NUM (£«A. Peltuinas, -atis: Ansedo- nid), a considerable town of the Vestini, and one of the four ascribed to that people by Pliny (iii. 12. s. 17). Its name is not found in Ptolemy or the Itineraries, but its municipal importance is attested by various inscriptions. One of these confirms the fact mentioned by Pliny, that the Aufinates were closely connected with, or dependent on, Peltuinum, apparently the more important place of the two. We learn from the Liber Colonianim (p. 229) that it attained the rank of a colony, probably under Augustus : but at a later period, as we learn from an inscription of the date of a. u. 242, it was le- duced to the condition of a Praefectura, though it seems to have been still a flourishing town. (Orell. Inscr. no. 4036 ; Zumpt, de Coloniis, p. 359, not.) Its site was unknown to Cluverius, but can be fixed with certainty at a spot called Ansedonia, between the villages of Castel Niwvo and Prata, about 14 miles SE. of Aquila, on the road from thence to Popoli. The ancient name is retained by a neighbouring church, called in ecclesiastical docu- ments S. Paolo a Peltuino. A considerable part of the circuit of the ancient walls is still visible, with remains of various public buildings, and the ruins of an amphitheatre of reticulated work. (Giovenazzi, Aveia, p. 119; Romanelli, vol. iii. pp. 264 — 268; Orelli, Inscr. 106, 3961, 3981). [E. H. B.] PELVA, a town of Dalmatia, which the Antonine Itinerary places on the road from Sirmium to Sa- lonae. Schafarik {Slav. Alt. vol. i. pp. 60, 247) identifies it with Plewa, a place in Bosnia, with a river of the same name, of which Pelva is the La- tinised form. [E. B. J.] PELU'SIUM (nTjAovmor, Ptol. iv. 5. § 11, viii. 15. § 1 1 ; Steph. B. s. v. ; Strab. xvii. p. 802, seq. : Eth. Ilriov(nwTrjs, nrjAoutnos), was a city of Lower Ae- gypt, situated upon the easternmost bank of the Nile, the Ostium Pelusiacum, to which it gave its name. It was the Sin of the Hebrew Scriptures {Ezeh. xxx. 15); and this word, as well as its Aegyptian appellation, Peremoun or Peromi, and its Greek (tt^^Aos) import the city of the ooze or mud (pmi, I Coptic, mud), Pelusium lying between the sea- board and the Deltaic marshes, about two and a half miles from the sea. The Ostium Pelusiacum was 1 choaked bj sand as early as the first century B. c,