Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/122

 106 ALMOPIA. Nibby*8 notes ; Nibbj, DitUomi di Roma^ vol. i. p. 130; Gell, Top, of Rome, p. 48; Bai^ess, An- tiquities of Rojm, vol. L p. 107.) From Uiis spot, which is about half a mile from the church of S. SebastkmOf and two miles finom the gates of Borne, the Almo has a course of between 3 and 4 miles to its confluence with the Tiber, crossing on the way both the Via Appia and the Via Ostiensis. It was at the spot where it joins the Tiber that the celebrated statue of Cybele was landed, when it was brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome in b. c. 204; and in memory of this circumstance the sin- gular ceremony was observed of washing the image of the goddess herself, as well as her sacred imple- ments, in the waters of the Almo, on a certain day (6 Kal. Apr., or the 27th of Mardi) in every year: a superstition which subdsted down to the final extinction of paganism. (Ov. Fcuft iv. 337 — 340 ; Lucan. i. 600; Martial, iii. 47. 2; Stat. SUv. v. 1. 222 ; SL Ital. viii. 365 ; Amm. Marc, xxiii. 3. § 7.) The little stream appears to have retained the name of Almo as late as the seventh century: it is now commonly called the Acquatacciok, a name which is supposed by some to be a corruption of Acqua dAppia^ from its crossing the Via Appia. The spot where it is traversed by that rood was about 1^ mile from the ancient Porta Capena; but the first region of the city, according to the arrangement of Au- gustus, was extended to the very bank of the Almo. (Preller, JHe Regionen Ronu, p. 2.) [E. H. B.] ALMCyPIA ('AAMMT^a), a district in Macedonia inhabited by the Almofes (*AA/A«»rcs), is snid to have been one of the early conquests o{ the Aigive colony of the Temenidae. Leake supposes it to be the same country now called Moglena, which bor- dered upon the ancient £de5sa to the NE. Ptolemy assigns to the Almopes three towns, Horma (*Op/ua), Europus (E^fKtfiroT), and Apsalus (^ki^oXos), (Thuc. ii. 99; Stcph. B. ».r.; Lycophr. 1238; PtoL iii. 13. § 24 ; Leake, iSTorM^m Greece^ vol. iii. p. 4 44.) ALONTA {'kvrai Terek), one of the chief rivers of Sarmatia Asiatica, flowing into the W. side of tlie Caspian, S. of the Udon (O08«y, Kouma), which is S. of tJie Rha ( Volga). This order, given by Ptolemy (v. 9. § 12), seems sufiicient to identify the rivers; as the Rha is certainly the Volga, and the Kouma and Terdc are the only large ri'crs that can answer to the other two. The Terek rises in M. Elbrouz, the highest summit of tlie Caucasus, and after a rapid course nearly due E. for 350 miles, falls into the Caspian by several mouths near 44*^ N. lat. [P. S.] A'LOPE CA«Jin?: Eth. 'AKorlrnt, 'A(nrt6s). 1. A town of Phthiods in Thessaly, placed by St&- phanus between Larissa Cremaste and Ediinus. There was a dispute among the ancient critics whether this town was the same as the Alope in Homer(//.ii.682; Strab. pp.427, 432; Steph.B. «.«.). 2. A town of the Opuntian Locrians on the coast between Daphnus and Cynus. Its ruins have been discovered by Gell on an insulated hill near the short). (Thuc ii. 26; Strab. p. 426; ScyL p. 23; Gell, lUner, p. 233.) 3. A town of the Ozolian Locrians of uncertain Bite. (Strab. p. 427.) ALO'PECE. [Attica.] ALOPECONNE'SUS ('AAftnrfictJwi/iroO, a town on the western coast of the Thracian Chenionesns. It was an Aeolian colony, and was believed to have derived its name from the fiict tliat the settlers were directed by an oracle to establish the colony, where ALPES. they should first meet a fox with its cob. (Steph: B. s. v.; Scymnus, 29; Liv. xxxi. 16; Pomp. MeU, ii. 2.) In the time of the Macedonian asf^ndancr, it was allied with, and imder the protection d Athens. (Dem. de Coron. p. 256, e. AriHoer. p. 675.) [L. S.] ALO'RUS (^AXMpos : EtL 'AA^pfrif Ot a town of Macedonia in the district Bottiaea, is placed by Stephanus in the innermost recess of the Tbermaic gulf. According to Scylax it was situated between the Ualiacmon and Lydias. Leake supposes it to have occupied the site of Palear-hkora, near Kap- tokkdri. The town is chiefly known on acooont of its being the birthplace of Ptolemy, who usurped the Macedonian thxxme after the murder of Alex- ander II., son of Amyntas, and who is usually called Ptolemaens Alorites. (Scyl. p. 26 ; Steph. B. «. v.; Strab. p. 330; Leake, NorUiem Greece, voL iL p. 435, seq.; Diet. ofBiogr. vol iii p. 568.) ALPE'NI ('AATni'o/, Hert)d. viL 176; 'AXwijrif woAi5, Herod. viL 216: Eth. 'AXviyrt^r), a town of the Epicnemidii Locri at the £. entrance of the pass of Thermopylae. For details, see Thebmopitlae. ALPES (oi "AAtcis ; sometimes also, but rarely T& 'AArc<y& 6fni and rci "AAiria Cpi?), was the name given in ancient as well as modem times to the gnat chain of mountains — the most extensive and loftiest in Europe, — which forms the northern boundary of Italy, separatmg that country from Gaul and Ger- many. They extend without interruption from Uie coast of the Mediterranean between Maasilla and Genua, to that of the Adriatic near Trieste, but their boundaries are imperfectly defined, it being almost impossible to fix on any point of demarcation between the Alps and the Apennines, while at the opposite extremity, the eastern ridges of the Alps, which separate the Adriatic from the Tallies of the Save and the Drove, are closely connected with the Dly- rian ranges of mountains, which continue almost without interruption to the Black Sea. Hence Pliny speaks of the ridges of the Alps as eoflemng as they descend into lUyricum (" mitesoentia Alpium joga per medium Dlyricum," iii. 25. s. 28), and Mela goes so far as to assert that the Alps extend into Thnioe (Mela, ii. 4). But though there is much pkusibility in this view considered as a question of geographical theory, it is not probable that the term was ever familiarly employed in so extensive a sense. On the other hand Strabo seems to consider the Jura and even the mountains of the Black Forest in Swabia, in which the Danube takes its rise, as mere offiiets of the Alps (p. 207). The name is probably de- rived from a Celtic word AW car Alp, signifying " a height:" though others derive it finxn an adjective AB) ^ white," which is cxinnected with the Latin Albus, and is the root of the name of Albion. (Strab. p. 202 ; and see Armstrong's Goalie Dictionary.) It was not till a late period that the Greeks appear to have obtained any distinct knowledge of the Alps, which were probably in early times r^arded as a part of the Rhipaean mountains, a general appella- tion for the great mountain chain, which formed the extreme limit of their get^raphical knowledge to the north. Lycophron is the earliest extant author who has mention^ their name, which he however erro- neously writes ScCAtio (^Alex. 1361): and the ac- count given by Apollonins Bhodius (iv. 630, foL), of the sources of the Rhodanus and the Eridanus proves his entire ignorance of the geography of these regions. The conquest of Cisalpine Ganl by the Romans, and 6till more the fMissage of Hannibal over the Al]i»