Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/660

 644 rOLEMONIUM. much to their efTert. Dante sjicaks of the environs ■of Pola, as in liis time remarkable fur the numerous sarcoi)har;i and ancient tombs with which they were almost wholly occupied. These have now disap- peared. (Dante, Inf. ix. 13.) The anti(iuities of Pola have been repeatedly de- scribed, and illustrated with figures; among others, in the fourth volume of Stuart and Revett's Athens^ fol. Lond. 1816, and in the Voyage. Pittoresque de ristrie et de la Dalmatk, fol. Paris, 1802; also in Allasou's Antiquities of Pola, fob, Lond. 1819. The harbour of Pola is completely landlocked, so as to have the appearance of a small basin-shaped lake, communicating by a narrow cliannel with the sea. Oif its entrance lies a group of small islands called the Isole Brioni, which are pi-obabiy those called by Pliny Cissa and Pullaria. (Plin. iii. 26. s. 30.) The southernmost promontory of Istria, about 10 miles distant from Pola, derived from it the name of Polaticum Promontorium. It is now called Capo Promoniore. [E. H. B.j POLEMO'XIUM (UoXitJLoiviov), a town on the coast of Pontus, at the mouth of the small river Si- denus, 10 stadia from Phadisane, and 130 from Cape lasonium. (Arrian, Peripl. p. 16; Anonym. Peripl. p. 11, &c.; Ptol. V. 6. § 4; Steph. B. s. v.) Phny (vi. 4) places the town 120 Roman miles from Ami- sus, which seems to be too great a distance. (Comp. Amm. Marc. xxii. 8; Hierocl. p. 702, where it is er- roneously called ToAeixufiov; Tab. Peuting.) Neither Strabo nor any writer before him mentions this town, and it is therefore generally believed that it was built on the site of the town of Side, which is not noticed by any writer after Strabo. Its name intimates that it was founded, or at all events was named, after one Polemon, perhaps the one who was made king of that part of Pontus, about B. C. 36, by M. Antonius. It had a harbour, and seems to have in the course of time become a place of considerable import- ance, as the part of Pontus in which it was situated received from it the name of Pontus Polemoniacus. The town was situated on the western bank of the Sidenus, where its existence is still attested by the ruins of an octagon cliurch, and the remains of a massive wall; but the ancient name of the place is preserved by the village of Pouleman, on the opposite side of the river. (Hamilton, Researches, vol. i. T.. 270.) [L. S.] I'OLICHNA (noA.i'xJ'a). 1. A town of Laconia, mentioned only by Polybius (iv. 36), is placed by Leake in the interior of the country on the eastern slope of Mt. Parnon at Rtonda (ra "Piovro.), where, among the ruins of a fortified town of the lower empire, are some remains of Hellenic walls. ^Leake, Peloponnesiaca, p. 364.) 2. A town in the NW. of Me.ssenia on the road from Andania to Dorium and Cyparissia. (Paus. iv. 33. § 6.) [Dorium.] 3. A town of Megaris, mentioned only in a line of Homer, quoted by Strabo, tor which the Athenians substituted another to prove that Salamis at the time of the Trojan War was a dejjendency of Athens. (Strab. ix. p. 394.) 4. (£■/!/«. noAix'"';s), a town of Crete, whose territory bordered upon that of Cydcnia. (Time, ii. 85.) In u. c. 429 the Athenians assisted the inhabitants of Policlma in making war upon the Cydonians. (Thuc. I. c.) Herodotus also mentions the Polichnitae, and says that this people and the Praesii were the onl- people in Crete who did not join the other Cretans in the expedition against POLITORIUJI, Camicus in Sicily in order to revenge the death of Minos (vii. 170; Steph. B. s. v.). Cramer (^Ancient Greece, vol. iii. p. 380) sujjposes the ruins at Polis S. of Armyro to be those of Policlma, which Pashley, however, regards as those of Lappa or Lampa. {Crete, vol. i. p. 83.) POLICHNE (noAtxcTj), a small town in the upper valley of the Aesepus in Troas (Strab. xiii. p. 603; Plin. V. 32; Steph. B. s. v.; Hierocl. p. 662.) Re- specting a place bearing the same name near Clazo- menae, .see Clazomenae. [L. S.] POLIMA'RTIUM {Bomarzo), a town of Etruiia, not far from the right bank of the Tiber, and about 12 miles E. of Viterho. The name is not found in any writer earlier than Paulus Diaconus {Hist. Lang. iv. 8), and there is therefore no evidence of its an- tiquity: but it is certain that there existed an an- cient Etruscan city about 2 miles N. of the jiresent village of Bomarzo. Some ruins and other slight vestiges of ancient buildings still remain, and nume- rous sepulchres have been discovered, some of which have yielded various objects of interest. One of them is adorned with paintings in the Etruscan style, but apparently not of early date. (Dennis's Etruria, vol. i. p. 214—226.) [E. H. B.] POLIS (IIoAis), a village of the Hyaea in Locris Ozolis, which Leake supposes occupied the site of Karutes, where he found an inscription. (Thuc. iii. 101; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 620.) POLISiMA (ndAicr^a), a small place on the river Simoeis in Troas, was originally called Polion; but it was situated in an unsuitable locality, and soon decayed. (Strab. xiii. p. 601.) [L. S.] P'OLITOTvlUM {UoMrupiov : Eth. UoAiruplvos, Steph. B.), an ancient city of Latium, destroyed at a very early period of the Roman history. The account of its capture and destruction by Ancus Marcius comprises indeed all we know concerning it; for the statement cited from Cato (Serv. ad A en. v. 564), which ascribed its foundation to Polites, the son of Priam, is evidently a mere etymological fiction. According to Livy and Dionysius, it was a city of the Prisci Latini, and was the first which was at- tacked by the Roman king, who made himself master of it with little difficidty, and transported the inhabitants to Rome, where he settled them upon the Aventine. But the Latins having soon after recolonised the deserted city, Ancus attacked it again, and having taken it a second time, entirely destroyed it, that it might not for the future afford a shelter to his enemies. (Liv. i. 33; Dionys. iii. 37, 38, 43.) The destruction appears to have been complete, for the name of Politorium never again occure, except in Pliny's list of the cities of Latium that were utterly extinct. (Plin. iii. 5. s. 9.) Its site is consequently involved in the greatest obscu- rity; the only clue we have is the circumstance that it appears in the above narrative associated with Tellenae, which is equ.ally uncertain, and with Ficana, the position of which at Dragoncello, on the Via Ostiensis, may be considered as well established. [Ficana.] Nibby would place Politorium at a spot called Lu Torretta near Becimo, on the Via Lau- rentina; while Cell considers the remains of an ancient city that have been discovered at a place called La Giostra, on the right of the Via Appia, about a mile and a half from Fiorano and 10 miles from Rome, as those of Politorium. There can be no doubt that the ruins at La Giostra — consisting of considerable fragments of walls, built in a very massive and ancient style, and enclosing a long and