Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/621

 PIIOCUSAE. Between Parnassus and the Boeotian frontier, Daulis, Panopeus, Traciiis. On Mount Parnassus, Ly- couEiA, Dklphi, C-rissa, Anemoreia, Cyparis- sus. West of Parnassus, and in the neighbourhood of the Corinthian gulf from N. to S., Cirrha, the port-town of Crissa and Delphi, CiRPiiis, JIedeon, Echedajeeia, Anticvra, Ambrysus, Mara- THUS, Stiuis, Phlygonium, Bulis with its port Mychus. (Dodwell, Classical Tour, vol. i. p. 155, seq.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 69, seq.) M COIN OF PHOCIS. PHOCU'SAE, PHUCUSSAE (^u>Kowai, Ptol. iv. 5. § 75 ; ^oKovaaai, Athen. i. p. 30, d. ; Hesych. s. V. ; Steph. B.), islands lying off Zephyrium in Ma.xmsi.rc-a.(^M(trsa LabeW), which the Coast-describer {Stadiasvi. § 20) calls Delphines. FE. B. J.] PHOEBA'TAE, PHOEBA'TIS. "[Dassare- TAE.] PHOE'BIA. [BuPHiA.] PHOENl'CE (JboiviK-n), a city of Cliaonia in Epeirus, situated a little inland north of Buthrotum (Strab. vii. p. 324), upon a river, the ancient name of which is not recorded. It is described by Polybius, in B. C. 230, as the strongest, most powerful, and richest of the cities of Epeirus. (Polyb. ii. 5, 8.) In that year it was captured by a party of Illyrians, assisted by some Gallic mercenaries ; and the Epirots, ■who had marched to the rescue of the place, were surprised by a sally of the Illyrians from the city, and put to the rout with great slaughter. (Polyb. /. c.) Phoenice continued to be an important city, and it was here that a treaty of peace was negotiated between Philip and the Komans towards the close of the Second Punic War, B.C. 204. (Liv. xxix. 12; Polyb. xxvi. 27.) Phoenice appears to have escaped the fate of the other Epeirot cities, when they were destroyed by order of the senate, through the influ- ence of Charops, one of its citizens. (Polyb. xxxii. 22.) It is mentioned by Ptolemy (iii. 14. § 7) and Hierocles (p. 652), and was restored by Justinian. (Procop. de Aedif. iv. 1.) Procopius says that it was situated in a low spot, surrounded by marshes, and that Justinian built a citadel upon a neigh- bouring hill. The remains of the ancient city are found upon a hill which still bears the name of Finiki. " The entire hill was surrounded by Hellenic vialls. At the south-eastern extremity was the citadel, 200 yards in length, some of the walls of which are still extant, from 12 to 20 feet in height. .... About the middle of the height is the em- placement of a very large theatre, the only remains of which are a small piece of rough wall, which en- circled the back of the upper seats; at the bottom, in the place of the scene, is a small circular found- ation, apparently that of a town of a later date. Between it and the north-western end of the citadel are the remains of a Eoman construction, built in courses of tiles." (Leake Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 66.) PHOENI'CIA, a country on the coast of Syria, bounded on the E. by Mount Lebanon. PHOENICIA. I. Name. 605 Its Greek name was ^oivIk'o (Horn. Od. iv. 83; Herod, iii. 5; Thucyd. ii. 69; Strab. p. 756; Ptol.' v. 15. § 21, &c.), which in the best Latin wi iters is literally rendered Phoenice (Cic. Acad. ii. 20; Tac. //. V. 6; Mela, i. 12; Plin. v. 13, &c.), and in later authors Phoenicia (Serv. ad Virg, Aen. i. 446; Mart. Capell. vi. 219, &c.), and once in a suspected passage of Cicero. {Fin. iv. 20.) The latter form has, however, prevailed among the moderns. By the Phoenicians themselves, and by the Israelites, their land was called Canaan, or Chna ; an appellation which embraced the whole district between the river Jordan and the ]Iediterranean. In Genesis the name of Canaan occurs only as that of a per- son, and the country is described as " the land of Canaan." In the tenth chapter of that book the following tribes are mentioned ; the Arvadites, Sinites, Arkites, and Zemarites, wliose sites may be identified with Aradus, Sinna, Area, and Simyra; whilst the name of Sidon, described as the firstborn of Canaan, marks one of the most important of the Phoenician towns. The abbreviated form Chna (Xm) occurs in a fragment of Hecataeus {Fragm. riistor. Graec. p. 17, Paris, 1841), and in Sle- phanus Byzantinus (s. v.) : and the translation of Sanconiatho by Philo, quoted by Eusebius (Praep. Evang. i. p. 87, ed. Gaisford) records the change of this appellation into Phoenix. The Septuagint fre- quently renders the Hebrew Canaan and Canaanite by Phoenicia and Phoenician. In Hebrew, Chna or Canaan signifies a low or flat land, from W3,"tobe low," in allusion to the low land of the coast. Its Greek name "^oiViJ has been variously deduced from the brother of Cadmus, from the palm-tree, from the purple or blood-red dye, (poivSs, which formed the staple of Phoenician commerce, and from the Eed Sea, or Mare Erythraeum, where the Phoenicians are supposed to have originally dwelt. (Steph. B. s. V. ; Sil. Ital. i. 89 ; Hesych. s. v. (poivdv ; Ach. Tatius. ii. 4 ; Strab. i. p. 42, &e.) Of all these etymologies the second is the most probable, as it accords with the practice of antiquity in many other instances. II. Physical Geography. The boundaries of Phoenicia are not very clearly laid down in ancient writers. The Mediterranean sea on the W. and Lebanon on the E. form natural limits ; but on the N. and S. they are variously fixed. According to Herodotus the N. boundary of Phoenicia was the bay of Myriandrus, whilst on the S. it terminated a little below Jlount Carniel, or where the territory of Judaea touched the sea (iii. 5, iv. 38. vii. 89). Strabo makes it extend from Orthosia on the N., to Pelusium in Egypt on the S. (xvi. pp. 753, 756). But Phoenicia, considered as a political confederation, neither reached so far N. as the boundary of Herodotus, nor so far S. as that of Strabo. Jlyriandrus was indeed inhabited by Phoenicians ; but it api)ears to have been only a colony, and was separated from Phoenicia, pro- perly so called, by an intervening tract of the Syrian coast. (Xenopli. Anah. i. 4. § 6.) The more accu- rate boundaries of Phoenicia, and which will be adopted here, are those laid down by Pliny (v. 17), which include it between Aradus on the N., and the river Chorseas or Ciocodilon on the S. The s.ame limits are given in Ptolemy (v. 15. § 4), except