Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/876

 856 RUADITAE. Schafarik (^Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 342), received tlielr appellation from the Sarmatian " Ifasa," — perhaps the Volga oi* some other river in their settle- ments. [E. B. J.] EUADITAE. [Marmarica, p. 278, a.] RUBI (Eth. 'PvSa<TTftv6s, Ruhastinus: Ruvo), a city of Apulia, situated on the hranch of the Appian Way between Canusia and Butuntum, and about 10 miles distant from the sea-coast. It is men- tioned by Horace, as one of the places where Mae- cenas and his companions slept on the journey from Rome to Brundusium. (Hon Sat. i. 5. 94.) The distance from Canusium is given as 23 miles in the Antonine Itinerary, and 30 in the Jerusalem Itine- rary, whicji is the more correct, the direct distance on the map being above 28 miles. (^Ittn. Ant. p. 116; Itin. Hier. p. 610.) Neither Strabo nor Pto- lemy notices the existence of Rubi, but the inhabi- tants are mentioned under the name of Rubustini by Pliny, among the municipal towns of Apulia, and the " Rubustiiius Ager " is enumerated in the Liber Coloniaram among the " Civitates Apuliae." (Plin. iii. 1 1. s. 16; Lib. Colon, p. 262.) An inscription also attests the municipal rank of Kubi in the reign of the younger Gordian. (Mommsen, Inscr. R. N. 624.) The singular ethnic form given by Pliny is confirmed by the evidence of coins which have the nameP V BA2- TEINXIN at full. Tliese coins show also that Rubi must have received a consider.able amount of Greek influence and cultivation ; and this is still more strongly confirmed by the discoveries which have been recently made by excavations there of numerous ■works of Greek art in bronze and terra cotta, as well as of vast numbers of painted vases, of great variety and beauty. These, however, like all the others found in Apulia and Lucania, are of inferior execu- tion, and show a declining state of art as compared with those of Nola or Volci. All these objects have been discovered in tombs, and in some instances the ■walls of the tombs themselves have been found co- vered with paintings. (Romanelli, vol. ii. p. 172; Bullett. dtir Inst. Arch. 1829, p. 173, 1834, pp. 36, 164, 228, &c.) The modern town of Euvo is still a considerable place, with an episcopal see. [E.H. B.] COIN OF RUEI. RUBICON ('Pov§'iKoiv), a small river on the E. coast of Italy, flowing into the Adriatic sea, a few miles N. of Ariminum. It was a trifling stream, one of the least considerable of the numerous rivers that in this part of Italy have their rise in the Apennines, and discharge their waters into the Adriatic; but it derived some importance from its having firmed the boundary between Umbria, or the part of the Gaulish territory included in that pro- vince, and Cisalpine Gaul, properly so called. Heface, when the limits of Italy were considered to extend only to the frontiers of Cisalpine Gaul, the Rubicon beaime on this side the northern boundary of Italy. (Strab. V. p. 217; Plin. iii. 15. s. 20; Lucan. i. 215.) This was the state of things at the outbreak of the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey: Cisalpine Gaul was included in the government of the former, and the Rubicon was therefore the limit of his pro- vince; it was this which rendered the passage of RUBICON. this trifling stream so momentous an event, fur it was, in fiict, the declaration of war. Caesar liiniself makes no mention of its passage, and it is difficult to believe that he would have set out on his march from Ravenna without being fully prepared to ad- vance to Ariminum; but the well-known story of his halt on its banks, his hesitation and ultimate decision, is related in detail by Suetonius and Plu- tarch, as well as by Lucan, and has given a prover- bial celebrity to the name of the Rubicon. (Suet. Caes. 31; Plut. Cues. 32; Appian, .B. C. ii. 35; Lucan, i. 185, 213—227.) The river is alluded to by Cicero a few years later as the frontier of Gaul ; and M. Antonius was ordered by a decree of the senate to withdraw his army across the Rubicon, as a proof that he abandoned his designs on the Gaul- ish province. (Cic. Phil. xi. 3.) Strabo stil! reckons the Rubicon the limit between Gallia Cisalpina and Umbria; but this seems to have been altered in the division of Italy by Augustus; and though Pliny alludes to the Rubicon as " quondam finis Italiae," he includes Ariminum and its territory as far as the river Crustumius, in the 8th Region or Gallia Cispadana. (Plin. I.e.; Ptol. iii. 1. §23.) Its name, however, was not forgotten ; it is still found in the Tabula, ■which places it 12 miles from Ariminum {Tab. Pent.), and is mentioned by Sidonius Apolli- naris. {Ep. i. 5.) But in the middle ages all trace of it seems to have been lost ; even the Geographer of Ravenna does not notice it, notwithstanding its proximity to his native city. In modern times the identification of this cele- brated stream has been the subject of much con- troversy, and cannot yet be considered as fully determined. But the question lies within very nar- row compass. We know with certainty that the Rubicon was intermediate between Ariminum and Ravenna, and between the rivers Sapis (5ai'/o), which flowed some miles S. of the latter, and the Ariminus or Marecchia, which was immediately to the N. of the former city. Between these two rivers only two streams now enter the Adriatic, within a very short distance of each other. The southernmost of these is called the Lmo or Lusa, a considerable stream, which crosses the high-road from Rimini to Ravenna about 10 miles from the former city. A short distance further N. the same road crosses a stream now called Fiumiclno, which is formed by the united waters of three small streams or tor- rents, the most considerable of which is the Pisatello (the uppermost of the three); the other two are the Riffosa or Rigone, called also, according to some writers, the Rugone, and the Plusa, called also the Fiumicino. These names are those attested by the best old maps as well as modern ones, especially by the Atlas of Magini, published in 1620, and are in accordance with the statements of the earliest writers on Italian topography, Flavio Biondo and Leandro Alberti. Cluverius, however, calls the northernmost stream the Rugone, and the one next to it the Pisatello. This point is, however, of little im- portance, if it be certain that the two streams always united their waters as they do at the present day before reaching the sea. The question really lies between the Luso and the Fiumicino, the latter being the outlet both of the Rugone and the Pisa- tello. A papal bull, issued in 1756, pronounced in favour of the Luso, which has, in consequence, been since commonly termed the Rubicon, and is still called by the peasants on its banljs II Rubicone. But it is evident that such an authority has no real