Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/877

 EUBKAE. •weight. The name of Rur/07ie, applied to one of the three brandies of the Fiumicino, would be of more value, if it were certain that this name had not been distorted by antiquarians to suit their own purposes. But it appears that old maps and books write the name Rigosa. Two arguments, however, may be considered as almost decisive in favour of the Fiumi- dno a.s compared with the Luso: 1st. The distance given in the Tabula of 12 miles from Ariminum, coincides exactly with the distance of the Fiumicino from that city, as stated by Cluverius, who examined the question on the spot; and 2ndly, the redness of the gravel in the bed of the stream, from which it ■was supposed to have derived its name, and which is distinctly alluded to by Sidonius Apollinaris, as well as by Lucan (Sidon. Ep. i. 5; Lucan, i. 214), was remarked by Cluverius as a character of the Fiii- viicino, which was wholly wanting in the Luso. The circumstance which has been relied on by some authors, that the latter river is a more considerable and rapid stream than the other, and would therefore constitute a better frontier, is certainly of no value, for Lucan distinctly speaks of the Eubicon as a trifling stream, with little water in it except when swollen by the winter rains. The arguments in favour of the Fiumicino or Pisatello (if we retain the name of the principal of its three confluents) thus appear decidedly to pre- ponderate; but the question still requires a careful examination on the spot, for the statements of Clu- verius, though derived from personal observation, do not agree well with the modern maps, and it is not improbable that the petty streams in question may have undergone considerable changes since his time: still more probable is it that such changes may have taken place since the time of Caesar. (Cluver. Ital. pp. 296 — 299; Blondi Flavii Italia Illustrata, p. 343 ; Albert!, Descrizione cT Italia, p. 246 ; Magini, Carta di Romagna Mannert, Geographic von Italien, vol. i. p. 234; Murray's Handbook for Central Italy p. 104. The older dissertations on the subject will be found in Graevius and Bur- mann's Thesaurus, vol. vii. part 2.) [E. H. B.] RUBEAE and AD RUBRAS, a town in His- pania Baetica, now Cabezas Ruhias. {It. Ant. p. 431.) [T.H.D.] EUBRESUS LACUS. [Atax.] RUBRICA'TA ('Poy§pi(caTa, Ptol. ii. 6. § 74), an inland city of the Laeiitani in the NE. part of Ilispania Tarraconensis, on the river Rubricatus; according to Reichard, Olesa. [T. H. D.] RUBRICA'TUS or -UM {'Pov§piKaros, Ptol. ii. 6. § 18), a river of Hispania Tarraconensis flowing into the Mare Internum a little W. of Barcino, the modern Llohregat. (Mela, ii. 6. § 5; Plin. iii. 3. s. 4.) [T. H. D.] RUBRICA'TUS, in Numidia. [Rhui-.uicatus.] RUBRUJI MARE, or ERYTHRAEUM IMARE (7; ipvepa S)da(T(Ta, Herod, i. 180, 202, ii. 8, 158, 159, iv. 39; Polyb. v. 54. § 12, ix. 43. § 2; Strab. i. pp. 32, 33, 50, 56, xvi. pp. 765, 779, xvii. pp. 804, 815; Pomp. Mela, iii. 8. § 1 ; Plin. vi. 2. s. 7). The sea called Erythra in Herodotus has a wide ex- tension, including the Lidian Ocean, and its two gulfs the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf [Peusicus Sinus], which latter he does not seem to have con- sidered as a gulf, but as part of a continuous sea- line; when the Red Sea specifically is meant it bears the name of Arabicus Sinus [Arabicus Sinus]. The thick, wall-like masses of coral which form the shores or fringing reefs of the cleft by which the RUBRUM MARE. 857 waters of the Indian Ocean advance through the straits oi Bah-el-Mandeh, with their red and purjile hues, were no doubt the original source of the name. Thus also in Hebrew {Exod. x. 19, xiii. 18; Ps. cvi. 7, 9, 22) it was called " yam siiph," or the " weedy sea," from the coralline forests lying below the surface of the water. Ramses Sliamoum (Sesos- tris) was the first (from 1388 to 1322, b. c.) — so said the priests — who with long ships subjected to his dominion the dwellers on the coast of the Eryth- raean, until at length sailing onwards, he arrived at a sea so shallow as to be no longer navigable. Diodorus (i. 55, 56; comp. Herod, ii. 102) asserts that this conqueror advanced in India beyond the Ganges, while Strabo (xvi. p. 760) speaks of a memorial pillar of Sesostris near the strait of Deire or Bab-el-Mandeh. It appears that the Persian Gulf had been opened out to Phoenician navigation as three places were found there which bore similar if not identical names with those of Phoenicia, Tylus or Tyrus, Aradus, and Dora (Strab. xvi. pp. 766, 784, comp. i. p. 42), in which were temples resem- bling those of Phoenicia (comp. Kenrick, Phoenicia, p. 48). The expeditions of Hiram and Solomon, conjoint undertakings of the Tyrians and Israelites, sailed from Ezion Geber through the Straits of Bah- el-Mandeb to Ophir, one locality of which may be fixed in the basin of the Erythraean or Indian Ocean [Ophir]. The Lagid kings of Aegypt availed themselves with great success of the channel by which nature brought the traffic and intercourse of the Indian Ocean, within a few miles of the coast of the Interior Sea. Their vessels visited the whole western peninsula of India from the gulf of Bary- gaza, Guzer-at, and Cambay, along the coasts of Malabar to the Brahminical sanctuaries of Cape Comorin, and to the great island of Tapr(bane or Ceylon. Nearchus and the companions of Alex- ander were not ignorant of the existence of the periodical winds or monsoons which favour the navigation between the E. coast of Africa, and the N. and W. coasts of India. From the further know- ledge acquired by navigators of this remarkable local direction of the wind, they were aftrrwards emboldened to sail from Ocelis in the straits of Bab- el-Mandeb and hold a direct course along the open sea to Muziris, the great mart on the JJalabar coast (S. of Mangalor}, to which internal traffic brought articles of commerce from the E. coast of the Indian peninsula, and even gold from the remote Chryse. The Roman empire in its greatest extent on its E. limit reached only to the meridian of the Persian Gulf, but Strabo (i. p. 14, ii. p. 118, xvi. p. 781, xvii. pp. 798, 815) saw in Aegypt M-ith surprise the number of ships which sailed from IMyos Hormos to India. From the Zend and San- scrit words which have been preserved in the geo- graphical nomenclature of Ptolemy, his tabul;ir geography remains an historic monument of the commercial relations between the West and the most distant regions of Southern and Central Asia. At the same time Ptolemy (iv. 9, vii. 3. § 5) did not give up the fable of the " unknown southern land " connecting Prasum Prom, with Cattigara and Thinae (Sinarum Metropolis), and therefore joined E. Africa with the land of Tsin or Cliiita. This isthmus-hypothesis, derived from views which may be traced back to llipparchus and JIarinus of Tyre, in which, however, Strabo did not concur, made the Indian Ocean a. Jlediterranean sea. About half a century later than Ptolemy a minute, and as it ap-