Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/986

 966 SEQUANI. United streams of the Sequana and Matrona entered the sea near Castra Constantia (Coutances), which is a great mistake. In the cosmography of Aethieus the Sequana is named Geon or Ge.obonna. [G. L.] SE'QUANI ('S.rjKovai'oi), a Celtic nation in the tipper valley of the Arar or Saone. Lucan (i. 425) follows the quantity of the Greek form: — " Optima gens flexis in gyrum Sequana fraenis." Caesar fixes the position of the Sequani. Their territory extended to the Rhine. (B. G. i. 1.) The Jura separated them on the east from the Helvetii; and the narrow pass between the Jura and the Ehune at Fort VEcluse was in the possession of the Sequani {B. G. i. 6, 8). The southern boundary of their territory from Foi-t VEcluse was the Rhone; but they did not possess all the country in the angle between the Rhone and the Saone, for part of it was held by the Allobroges {B. G. i. 12), and part by the Segusiani {B. G.. 10) and by the Ambarri, who were dependent on the Aedui (£. G. i. 11). When Caesar describes the march of the Helvetii from fort VEcluse to the Scwiie, he says that the Helvetii first passed through the territory of the Sequani, and then entered the territory of the Aedui, which they plundered. But they had not yet reached the Saone, as Casar's narrative shows, and it is clear from this passage (5. G. i. 11) and those already cited, that a large tract of country between the Rhone and Saone did not belong to the Sequani, for the line of march of the Helvetii from Fort VEcluse to the Saone would probably bring them to the Same at a point not much lower down than Macon. The western boundary of the Sequani was the Arar, also called the Sauconna, a name which appears to be the same as the name of the Sequani. Their neigh- bours on the west side of the Saone were the Aedui, with whom the Sequani had disputes about the river tolls (Strab. iv. p. 192). On the north their neighbours were the Leuci and Lingones. Strabo (iv. p. 186) describes the Arar and Dubis (^Douhs) as flowing through the country of the Sequani. D'Anville has an argument to show that the part of the dioceses of Chahn-sur-Saone and Macon which is east of the Saone belonged to the old territory of the Se- quani, which may be time; but the towns Matisco (^Macon) and Cabillonum {Chulon') were on the west side of the Saone and in the territory of the Aedui (B. G. vii. 90). In another passage besides that already referred to, Caesar shows that the Sequani extended to the Ehine, for in describing the course of this river from south to north, he says that it passes by the terri- tory of the Helvetii, Sequani, Mediumatrici and Triiiocci. (5. G. iv. 10.) The Sequani belonged to the division of Belgica under the Empire (Plin. iv. 17; Ptol. u. 9. § 21). The territory of the Sequani contained much good land, some of the best in Gallia. Their chief town was Vesontio {Besanqon) on the Doubs, and they bad other towns also. They fed hogs, and their hams and bacon were exported to Rome as Strabo (iv.p.l92) says; and Varro {de R.R. ii. 4) may mean to say the same, when he speaks of Gallic bacon. The Sequani had kings, sometimes at least; for Gallic kings were not perpetual. (B. 6^. i. 3.) Before Caesar went into Gallia, the Arverni and Aedui had been the two most powerful peoples. The Sequani were in league with the Arverni, who occupied the centre of all Gallia, but hostile to their neighbours the Aedui. To maintain themselves against the SERDICA. Aedui, the Ar^'erni and Sequani hired Germans to come over the Rhine. The Germans came in great numbers, and in Caesar's time it was computed that there were 120,000 of them in Gallia. This is the first historical notice of a permanent settlement of Germans in these parts. The Sequani with the assistance of their allies defeated and humbled the Aedui, but they gained nothing by this victory. Ariovistus, the king of these German mercenaries, took from the Sequani a third part of their lands, and was threatening to take a second third, when Caesar drove the Germans into the Rhine, after defeating them near that river. If the Germans were all destroyed or driven away from the territory of the Sequani by Caesar, they came again, for the country on the west bank of the Rhine, which belonged to the Sequani, the Upper Alsace, has been German for many centuries. In B. c. 52, the Sequani were among the nations who sent their contingent to attack Caesar before Alesia. [G. L.] SERA(2r)pa,PtoLi. ll.§ 1, 17, § 5, vi. 1.3. § 1, 16. § 8, viii. 24. § 8), the capital of the country of Serica, and one of the chief commercial towns of the Seres. It was the remotest point of Eastern Asia with which the ancients had any commerce, or of which they possessed any knowledge. It was situated on the mountain Ottorocorras at the east- ern source of the Bautisus. Mannert (iv. p. 501) identifies it either with Singan in the province of Schensi, or with Honan on the Hoang-ho; but ac- cording to Heeren (Jdeen, i. 2. p. 668) it is Fekin itself. [T. H.D.] SERACA C^epaKa, Ptol. v. 9. § 28), a town in the S. of Asiatic Sarmatia. [T. H. D.] SERANUSA, perhaps more correctly Seramusa, a town of the interior of Pontus Polemoniacus, on the south-east of Comana Pontica. (^Tab. Pent.; Ptol. v. 6. § 9, where it is written l,efivouTa or 26fi/xou7o.) [L. S] SERAPIUM (It. Anton, p. 170; Serapiu, Tab. Pent.), a large village seated near the junction of the canal of the Ptolemies with the Bitter Lakes, east of the Delta. Serapium was 18 miles distant from Heroopolis and 50 from Clysma, at the top of the Sinus Heroopolites. Its temple of Serapis, and its position on the canal that connected the Nile with the Red Sea, rendered it a place of consider- able traffic. It was probably founded, or at least enlarged, by the Ptolemies after Philadelphus (b. c. 274) had extended the canal to the Bitter Lakes. [W. B. D.] SERBES (2f>gr)Tos iK§oal, Ptol. iv. 2. § 7), a small river on the N. coast of Mauritania, which fell into the sea to the W. of Rusuccurum ; either the present Massafran, or, more probably, the Isser. [T H. D.] SERBI or SIRBI (2e>§o( or 2i'p§oi, Ptol. v. 9. § 21), a people in Asiatic Sarmatia, according to Ptolemy (Z. c.) between the Ceraunian mountains and the river Rha, above the Diduri and below the Vali. Pliny, however (vi. 7. s. 7), places them on the E. shore of the Jlaeotis, between the Vali and the Arrechi. (Comp. SchaSarik, Slav. Alterth. i. p. 165.) [T. H.D.] SERBO'NIS LACUS. [Sirbonis Lacus.] SE'RDICA or SA'RDICA (2ap5«i7, Ptol. iii. 11. §12) (the first of these forms is the more usual with the Romans, the latter with the Greeks), a considerable town of Upper Moesia, which in earlier times was regarded as belonging to Thr.ice (Ptol. I.e.), but which in the third century was attributed