Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/988

 968 SERICA, period of several centuries. On the other liand, niav it not be possible that the product was called after the people, instead of the people after the pro- duct ? We are not without examples of an analo- gous procedure; as, for instance, the name of the phasis. or jjjieasant, from the river I'hasis; of our own Word currants, anciently a.nd properly Corintlis, fiom the place whence that small species of grape was originally brought, &c. However this may be, we may refer the reader who is desirous of a further account of the origin and manufacture of silk, to an excellent dissertation in the Textrinum Antiquarum of Mr. Yates (part i. p. 160, seq.), where be will find all the passages in ancient authors that bear upin the subject carefully collected and discussed. Be>iiles its staple article, Serica also produced a vast quantity of precious stones of every kind (^Ex- pos. tot. Jilundi, ap. Hudson, iii. p. 1, seq.), as well as iron, which was esteemed of a better quality even tlian the I'arthian (Plin. I. c.) and skins (Per. M. Erythr. p. 22 ; Amm. I. c.) Accoidiiig to Pausanias (vi. 22. § 2) the Seres were a mixture of Scythians and Indians. They are mentioned by Strabo (xv. p. 701), but only in a cursory inani er. It appears from Mela (iii. 7) and from Pliny (vi. 17. s. 24), compared with Eusta- thius {ad Dionys. Per. v. 753, seq.), and Ammianus Murcellinus {I. c), that they were a just and gentle people, loving tranquillity and comfort. Although addicted to conmierce, they were completely isolated from the rest of the world, and carefully avoided all intercourse with strangers. From these habits, they were obliged to carry on their commercial transac- tions in a very singular manner. They inscribed the piices of their goods upon the bales in which they were packed, and then deposited them in a solitary building called the Stone Tower; perhaps the same place mentioned by Ptolemy (vi. 15. § 3) under the name of Hormeterion, situated in a valley on the upper course of the Jaxartes, and in the Scythian district of Casia. The Scythian merchants then approached, and having deposited what they deemed a just price for the goods, retired. After their departure, the Seres examined the sum de- posited, and if they thought it sufficient took it away, leaving the goods; but if not enough was founil, they removed the latter instead of the money. In the description of this mode of traffic we still recognise the characteristics of the modern Chinese. The Parthians also traded with the Seres, and it was probably through the former that the Romans at a later period procured most of their silk stuffs; though the Parthians passed them off as Assyrian goods, which seems to have been believed by the Romans (Plin. xi. 22. s. 25). After the overthrow of the Partisan empire by the Persians, the silk trade naturally fell into the hands of the latter. (Vopisc Aurel c. 45; Procop. B. Pers. i, 20, &c.) With regard to their persons, the Seres are de- scribed as being of unusual size, with blue eyes, red hair, and a rough voice (Plin. vi. 22. s. 24), almost totally unacquainted with diseases and boddy infir- mities (Expos, tot. Mtindi, I. c), and consequently reaching a very great age (Ctes. I. c. ; Strab. xv, p. 701 ; Lucian, Macrob. 5). They were armed with bows and arrows (Hor. Od.i. 29. 9; Ciuu-ic. vi. 3). Ptolemy {II. cc.') enumerates several dis- tinct tribes of them, as the Annibi, in the extreme N., on the mountains namml after them; the Zizyges, between them and the Anxacian mountains ; the Piranae, to the S. of these; and still further S. SERIPHOS. down to the river Oechardes, the Pialae ; the Oechardae, who dwelt about the river of the same name; and the Garenaei and Nabaiinae, to the E. of the Annibi. To the S. of these again was the dis- trict of Asmiraea, near the mountains of the same name, and still further in the same direction the Issedones; to the E. of wham were the Throani. To the S. of the Issedones were the Asparacie, and S. of the Throani the Ethaguri. Lastly, on the extreme southern borders were seated the Batae and the Ottorocorrae, — the latter, who must doubtless be the same people called by Pliny Attacori, on the like-named mountain. To the southern district must also be ascribed the Sesatae mentioned in Arrian's Peripl. M. Erythr. (p. 37), small men with broad foreheads and flat noses, and, from the de- scription of them, evidently a Mongol race. They migrated yearly with their wives and cliildren to the borders of the Sinae, in order to celebrate their festivals there ; and when they had returned to the interior of their country, the reeds which they left behind them, and which had served them for straw, were carefully gathered up by the Sinae, in order to prepare from it the Malabathron, a species of ointment which they sold in India. (Comp. Hitter, Erdkunde, ii. p. 179, v. p. 443, 2nd ed.; Buhlen, das Alte Jndien, ii. p. 173; Heeren's, /rfcen, i. 2. p. 494). According to Ammianus {I. c.) the towns of Serica were few in number, but large and wealthy. Ptolemy, in the places cited at the head of this article, names fifteen of them, of which tiie most important .seem to have been, Sera, the capital of the nation; Issedon; Throana, on the E. declivity of the Asmiraei mountains, and on the easternmost source of the Oechardes; Asmiraea, on the same stream, but somewhat to the NV. of the precediiiij town ; Aspacara, on the left bank of the Bautisus, not far from its most western source; and Ottoro- corra. [T. H. D.] SERIMUM (Se'piyuof, Ptol. iii. 5. § 28), a town on the Borysthenes, in the interior of European Sarmatia. [T. H D.] SERI'PHOS or SERI'PHUS (2ef)«f)os : Eth. Sept'c^ios : Serpho), an island in the Aegaeaii sea, and one of the Cyclades, lying between Cythnos and Siphnos. According to Pliny (iv. 12. s. 22) it is 12 miles in circumference. It possessed a town of the same name, with a harbour. (Scylax, p. 22 ; Ptol. iii. 15. § 31.) It is celebrated in mythology as the place where Danae and Per.seus were driven to shore in the chest in which they had been exposed by Acrisius, where Perseus was brout'bt up, and where he afterwards turned the inhabitants into stone with the Gorgon's head. (Apollod. ii. 4. § 3; P'md. Pytk. s.. ~ 2, s'u. 18; Strab. x. p. 487; Ov. Met. V. 242.) Seriphos was coloiii.scd by lonians from Athens, and it was one of the few islands which refused submission to Xerxes. (Herod, viii. 46, 48.) By subsequent writers Seriphos is almost always mentioned with contempt on account of its poverty and insignificance (Aristoph. Acharn. 542; Plat. Rep. i. p. 329; Plut. de Exsil. 7. p. 002; Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 31, de Senect. 3); and it was for this reason em])loyed by the Roman emperors as a place of banishment for state criminals. (Tac. Ann. ii. 85, iv. 21; Juv. vi 564, x. 170; Senec. ad Cunsol. 6.) It is curious that the ancient writers make no men- tion of the iron and copper mines of Seriphos, which were, however, worked in antiquity, as is evident from existing traces, and which, one might have supposed, woyld ha,ve bestowed some prosperity upon the island.