Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/599

 PETRA. 2. (Tlerpa : Eth. TleTplvos, Petrinus : Petrali(i), a city of Sicily, mentioned both by Pliny and Ptolemy iiniont; the inland towns of the ishnid. Cicero also notices the Petrini amonp the commu- nities that suffered from the exactions of Verres (Cic. Verr. iii. 39 ; Plin. iii. 8. s. 14 ; Ptol. iii. 4. § 14); and their name is mentioned at an earlier period by Diodorus as submittintj to the Romans durint; the First Punic War. (Diod. ssiii. 18; Exc. H. p. 505.) The name is written Petraea by Silius Italicus (xiv. 248), and the Petrinae of the Antonine Itinerary is in all probability the same place. {Itbi. Ant. p. 96.) Though so often mentioned by ancient authors, they afford very little clue to its position ; but it is probable that the name is retained by the modem Petralia, a small town about 8 miles W. of Gangi, supposed to represent the ancient Engyum. [Engyum.] Ptolemy indeed places these two towns near one another, though he erroneously transfers them both to the neighbourhood of Syracuse, which is wholly at variance with the mention of Petra in Diodorus among the towns subject to the Cartha- ginians as late as b. c. 254. (Cluver. Sicil. p. 367.) [E. H. B.] 3. A fortress of Macedonia, among the mount- ains beyond Libethra, the possession of •which was disputed by the Thessalian Perrhaebi and the Macedonian kings. (Liv. xxxix. 26, xliv. 32.) It commanded a pass which led to Pythium in Thes- saly, by the back of Olympus. By this road L. Aemilius PauUus was enabled to throw a detach- ment on the rear of the Macedonian army which was encam.ped on the J^nipeus, after the forces of Perseus had been overthrown at the pass of Petra by P. Scipio Nasica, who had been sent against it with the consul's eldest son Q. Fabius Maximus. (Liv. slv. 41.) Petra was situated on a great insu- lated rock naturally separated from the adjoining mountain at the pass which leads from Elasuna or Servia into the maritime plains of Macedonia. Here, which is at once the least difficult and most direct of the routes across the Olympene barrier, or the frontier between Macedonia and Thessaly, exactly on the Zygos^ are the ruins of Petra. (Leake, North- ern Greece, vol. iii. pp. 337, 430.) [E. B. J.] 4. A fortress of the Maedi, in Thrace. (Liv. xl. 22.) 5. A town in Illyricum, situated upon a hill upon the coast, which had only a moderately good harbour. (Caes. B. C. iii. 42.) 6. A place in the Corinthia. [Vol. I. p. 685, a.] 7. A place in the inmiediate neighbourhood of Elis. [Vol. L p. 821, a.] PETRA. II. In Asia. 1. (neVpa, Ptol. v. 17. § 5, viii. 20. § 19 ; Uerpa or neVpai, Suid. s. v. TeviQKios ; the Sela of the Old Testament, 2 Kings,txlv. 7 ; Isaiah, xvi. 1 : respecting its various names see Robinson, Biblical Researches, vol. ii. Notes and III. p. 653), the chief town of Arabia Petraea, once the capital of the Idumaeans and subsequently of the Nabataei, now Wady Musa. [Nabataei.] Petra was situated in the eastern part of Arabia Petraea, in the district called under the Christian emperors of Rome Palaestina Tertia (^Vet. Rom. Itin. p. 721, Wessel.; Malala, Chronogr. xvi. p. 400, ed. Bonn). According to the division of the ancient geographers, it lay in the northern dis- trict, Gebalene; whilst the modem ones place it in the southern portion, Esh-Sherah, the Seir, or moun- tain-land, of the Old Testament (Gewesw, xsxvi. 8). PETRA. 583 It was seated between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic gulf; being, according to Diodorus Siculus (xix. 98), 300 stadia S. of the former, whilst the Tab. Peut! places it 98 Roman miles N. of the latter. Its site is a wilderness overtopped by Mount Hor, and diver- sified by cliffs, ravines, plains, and Wadt/s, or watered valleys, for the most part but ill cultivated. Strabo (xvi. p. 779) describes it as seated in a plain sur- rounded with rocks, hemmed in with barren and streamless deserts, though the plain itself is well watered. Pliny's description (vi. 32), which states the extent of the plain at rather less than 2 miles agrees very nearly with that of Strabo, and both are confirmed by the reports of modern travellers. " It is an area in the bosom of a mountain, swelling into mounds, and intersected with gullies." (Irby and Mangles, ch. viii.) It must not, however, be under- stood to be completely hemmed in with rocks. To- wards the N. and S. the view is open ; and from the eastern part of the valley the summit of ilount Hor is seen over the western cliffs. (Robinson, ii. p. 528.) According to Pliny {I. c.) Petra was a place of great resort for travellers. Petra was subdued by A. Cornelius Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan's (Dion Cass. Ixviii. 14), and remained under the Roman dominion a consider- able time, as we hear of the province of Arabia beinc enlarged by Septimius Severus A. d. 195 (id. Ixxv. 1,2; Eutrop. viii. 18). It must have been during this period that those temples and mausoleums were made, the remains of which still arrest the attention of the traveller; for though the predominant style of the architecture is Egyptian, it is mixed with florid and over-loaded Roman-Greek specimens, which clearly indicate their origin. (Robinson, ii. p. 532.) The valley of TFady Musa, which leads to the town, is about 150 feet broad at its entrance, and is encircled with cliffs of red sandstone, which gradually increase from a height of 40 or 50 feet to 200 or 250 feet. Their height has been greatly exaggerated, having been estimated by some travellers at 700 and even 1000 feet (Irby and Mangles, ch. viii.; Stephens, ii. p. 70; see Robinson, ii. p. 517 and note). The valley gradually contracts, till at one spot it be- comes only about 12 feet broad, and is so overlapped by the clifis that the light of day is almost excluded. The ravine or Sik of Wady Musa extends, with many windings, for a good English mile. It forms the principal, and was anciently the only avenue to Petra, the entrance being broken through the wall. (Diod. Sic. ii. 48, xix. 97; Robinson, ii. p. 516 ; Laborde, p. 55.) This valley contains a wonderlul necropolis hewn in the rocks. The tombs, which adjoin or surmount one another, exhibit now a front with si.x Ionic columns, now with four slender pyramids, and by their mixture of Greek, Roman, and Oriental architecture remind the spectator of the remains which are found in tlie valley of Jehoshajjhat and in other parts of Palestine. The further side of tho ravine is spanned by a bold arch, perhaps a trium- phal one, with finely-sculptured niches evidently in- tended for statues. This, like the other remains of this extraordinary spot, is ascribed by the natives either to the Pharaohs or to the Jins or evil genii. Along the bottom of the valley, in which it almost vanishes, winds the stream mentioned by Strabo and Pliny, the small but charming Wady Musa. In ancient times its bed seems to have been paved, as many traces still show. Its stream was spanned by frequent bridges, its sides strengthened with stone walls or quays, and numerous small canals derived p r 4