Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/881

 SSADIUJI. Slonur, not Sandwich ; which latter town seems to have sprung up under the Saxons, after Rutupiae had begun to fall into decay, and was indeed pro- bably built with materials taken from it. Accurd- ing to Camden (p. 244) the etymology of the name of Rutupiae is analogous to that of Sandtvich, being derived from the British lihyxltufeth, signifying " sandy bottoms"; a derivation which seems much more probable than that from the Ruteui, a people who occupied the district in France now called La Roergue. The territory around the town was styled Rutupinus Ager (Auson. Parent, sviii. 8) and the coast Rutupinus Littus (Luc. I. c). The latter was celebrated for its oysters, as the coast near Margate and Reculver is to the present day. Large beds of oyster-shells have been found in the neighbourhood, at a depth of from 4 to 6 feet under ground. The port is undoubtedly that mentioned by Tacitus {Agric. 38), under the erroneous name of Trutulensis Portus, as occupied by the fleet of Agricola. It was a safe harbour, and the usual and most convenient one for the passage between France and England. (Amm. Marc. xx. 1, xxvii. 8. § 6.) The principal Roman remains at Rich- hwough are those of a castruni and of an amphi- theatre. The walls of the former present an exten- sive ruin, and on the N. side are in some places from 20 to 30 feet in height. Fragments of sculp- tured marbles found within their circuit show that the fortification must have contained some handsome buildings. The foundation walls of the amphi- theatre were excavated in 1849, and are the first remains of a walled building of that description discovered in England. There is a good description of Richhorough, as it existed in the time of Henry VIII., in Lehmd's Itinerary (vol. vii. p. 128, ed. Hearne). Leland mentions that many Roman coins were found there, which still continues to be the Case. Other Roman antiquities of various descrip- tions have been discovered, as pottery, fibulae, orna- ments, knives, tools, &c. Rutupiae was under the jurisdiction of the Comes litoris Saxonici, and was the station of the Legio Ilda Augusta. {Notitia, c. 52.) A complete account of its remains will be found in Roach Smith's Antiquities of Richhorongh, London, 1850. [T. H. D.] RYS.SADIUJI ('Pu.To-aSioj' upos, Ptol. iv. 6. § 8), '• a mountain of Interior Libya, from which flows the Stacheir (^Gambia'), making near it the lake Clonia ; the middle of the mountain (or lake ?) 17° E. long., 1 1"^ N. lat." (Ptol. I. c.) This moun- tain terminated in the headland also called Kyssa- dium ('PuorffaSioj/ aKpov), the position of which is fixed by Ptolemy (iv. 6. § 6) at 8° 30' E. long., and 1 1° 30' N. lat. We assume, with Rennell and Leake, that Arsinarium is C. Verde, a conjecture which can be made with more confidence because it is found that Ptolemy's ditference of longitude be- tween Arsinarium and Carthage is very nearly cor- rect, — according to that assumption this promontory must be looked for to the N. of the mouth of the Gambia. The mountain and lake nmst be assigned to that elevated region in which i^ Senegal and the Gambia take their rise, forming an appendage to the central highlands of Africa from which it projects northwards, like a vast promontory, into the Great Sahara. [E. B. J.] SABA. 8C1 SABA, SABAEI (Sagr? or 2a§ai: Eth. ^a§a7os, fern. ZaSaia). were respectively the principal city and nation in Yemen, or Arabia FeUx. [Akabia.J Ancient geographers difler considerably as to the extent of territory occupied by the Sabaeans, lu-a- tosthenes assigning to it a much larger area than Ptolemy. The difference may perhaps be reconciled by examining their respective accounts. Our knowledge of the Sabaeans is derived from three sources: the Hebrew Scriptures, the Greek historians and geographers, and the Roman poets and encyclopedists, Pliny, Solinus, &c. The Arabian geographers, also, throw some light upon this ancient and far-extending race. 1. In the Hebrew genealogies (Genesis, s. 6, xsv. 3) the Sabaeans are described as the de- scendants of Cush, the son of Ham. This de- scent was probably not so much fi-om a single stem, as from several branches of Hamite origin; and as the tribes of the Sabaeans were numerous, some of them may have proceeded immediately from Cush, and others from later progenitors of the same stock. Thus one tribe descended from Seba, the son of Cush, another from Jokshan, Abraham's son by Keturah ; a third from Sheba, the son of Raamah — the "Peyfia of tlje LXX. (Compare Psalm Ixxii. 10; Isaiah, ^v. 14; Esekiel, xxvii. 22, 23, xxxviii. 13.) The most material point in this pedigree is the fact of the pure Semitic blood of the Sabaeans. The Hebrew prophets agree in celebrating the stature and noble bearing, the enterprise and wealth of this nation, therein concurring with the expres- sion of Agatharchides, who describes the Sabaeans as having ra acifxara a^tooycoTepa. Their occu- pations appear to have been various, as would be the case with a nation so widely extended (" Sabaei . . . ad utraque maria porrecti," Plin. vi. 28. s. 32): for there is no doubt that in the south they were actively engaged in commerce, while in the north, on the borders of Idumea, they retained the predatory habits of nomades. (Jo6, ii. 15.) The "Queen of the South," i. e. of Ye7nen or Sabaea, who was attracted to Palestine by the fame of Solomon, was probably an Arabian sovereign. It may be observed that Yemen and Saba have nearly the same import, each signifying the right hand ; for a person turning his face to the rising sun has the south on his right, and thus Saba or Yemen, which was long regarded as the southern limit of the habitable zone, is the left- hand, or southern land. (Coiiip. Herod, iii. 107 — 113; Forster's Geogr. of Arabia, vol i. pp.24 — 38.) A river Sabis, in Carmania (jIela, iii. 8. § 4), and a chain of mountains Sabo, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf (Arrian, Periplus. M. Ergt/ir., opt) fx4yt(TTa Kiyofxiva 2aga; comp. Ptol. vi. 7. § 23), apparently indicate an extension of the Sabaeans be- yond Arabia Proper. That they reached to the eastern shore of the Red Sea is rendered probable by the circumstance that a city named Sabu or Sabe stood there, about 36 miles S. of Podnu, in lat. 14° N. (Ptol. vi. 7. § 38, v. 22. § 14.) 2. The first Greek writer who mentions the Sabaeans by name is Eratosthenes. His account, however, represents a more recent condition of this nation tlian is described by Artemidorus, or by Aga- tharchides, who is Strabo's principal authority in his narrative of the Sabaeans. On the other hand,
 * Diodorus Siculus professes to have compiled his