Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/329

 (Ibid. 16.) At subsequent period it became a municipal town, with the ordinary privileges and magistrates; but though it received a military colony under Nero, it did not obtain colonial rank. We learn, from numerous inscriptions, that it continued to be a considerable place under the Roman empire. (Lib. Colon. p. 230; Plin. iii. 5. b. 9; Ptol. iii 1. § 62; Murat Inscr. pp. 352, 1102, 1262; Orell. Inscr. 140, 1678, 2285, &c)

Silius Italicus alludes to its cold and elevated situation (monte Nivoso descendens Atina, viii. 398), and the modern city of Atina is noted as one of the coldest places in the whole kingdom of Naples, which results not only from its own position on a lofty eminence, but from its being surrounded by high and bleak mountains, especially towards the south. Its ancient walls, built in a massive style of polygonal blocks, but well hewn and neatly fitted, comprised the whole summit of the hill, only a portion of which is occupied by the modern city; their extent and magnitude confirm the accounts of its importance in very early times. Of Roman date there are the remains of an aqueduct on a grand scale, substructions of a temple, and fragments of other buildings, besides numerous sepulchral monuments and inscriptions. (Romanelli, vol iii. p. 861 ; Craven, Abruzzi vol. i. pp. 61 — 65.)

 2. A town of Lucania, situated in the upper Valley of the Tanager, now the Valle di Diano, It is mentioned only by Pliny, who enumerates the Atenates among the inland towns of Lucania, and by the Liber Coloniarum, where it is called the "praefectora Atenas." But the correct orthography of the name is established by inscriptions, in which we find it written ; and the site is clearly ascertained by the ruins still visible just below the village of Atena, about 5 miles N. of La Sola. These consist of extensive remains of the walls and towers, and of an amphitheatre; numerous inscriptions have also been discovered on the spot, which attest the municipal rank of the ancient city. It appears that its territory must have extended as far as La Polla, about 5 miles further N., where the Tanager buries itself under ground, a phenomenon which is noticed by Pliny as occurring "in campo Atinati" (Plin. ii. 103. s. 106, iii. 11. s. 15; Lib. Colon. p. 209 ; Romanelli, vol. i. p. 424; Bullett. dell' Inst. 1847, p. 157.)

 ATINTA'NIA (: Eth., ), a mountainous district in Illyria, north of Molossis and east of Parauaea, through which the Aons flows, in the upper part of its course. It is described by Livy (xiv. 30) as poor in soil and rude in climate. The Atintanes are first mentioned in B.C. 429, among the barbarians who assisted the Ambraciots in their invasion of Peloponnesus, upon which occasion the Atintanes and Molossi were commanded by the same leader. (Thuc. ii. 80.) On the conclusion of the first war between Philip and the Romans, Atintania was assigned to Macedonia, B.C. 204; and after the conquest of Perseus in B.C. 168, it was included in one of the four districts into which the Romans divided Macedonia. (Liv. xxvii. 30, xiv. 30.) It is not mentioned by Ptolemy, as it formed part of Chaonia. (Comp. Strab. vii. p. 326; Pol. ii. 5; Scylax, s. v. ; Lycophr. 1043; Steph. B. s. r.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 118.)

 ATLANTES, a people in the interior of Libya, inhabiting one of the chain of oases formed by salt hills, which are described by Herodotus as extending along the N. of the Great Desert (Sahara), ten days' journey W. of the , and in the vicinity of , whence they derived their name. They were reported to abstain from using any living thing for food, and to see no visions in their sleep. (Herod, iv. 184; Mela, i. 8. § 5; Plin. v. 8; respecting the common confusion in the names see .) Herodotus adds, that they were the furthest (i. e. to the W.) of the people known to him as inhabiting the ridge of salt hills; but that the ridge itself extended as far as the pillars of Hercules, or even beyond them (iv. 185). The attempts of Rennell, Heeren, and others to assign the exact position of the people, from the data supplied by Herodotus, cannot be considered satisfactory. (Rennell, Geogr. of Herod. vol. ii. pp. 301, 311; Heeren, Ideen, vol ii. pt 1. p. 243.)

 ATLA'NTICUM MARE. The opinions of the ancients respecting the great body of water, which they knew to extend beyond the straits at the entrance of the Mediterranean, must be viewed historically; and such a view will best exhibit the meaning of the several names which they applied to it.

The word Ocean had, with the early Greeks, a sense entirely different from that in which we use it In the poets. Homer and Hesiod, the personified being, Ocean, is the son of Heaven and Earth (Uranus and Gaia), a Titanic deity of the highest dignity, who presumes even to absent himself from the Olympic councils of Jove; and he is the father of the whole race of water-nymphs and river-gods. (Hes. Theog. 133, 337, foll. 368; Hom. Il. xx. 7.) Physically, Ocean is a stream or river (expressly so called) encircling the earth with its ever-flowing current; the primeval water, which is the source of all the other waters of the world, nay, according to some views, of all created things divine and human, for Homer applies it to the phrases and. (Il. xiv. 201, 246; comp. Virg. Georg. iv. 382, where Ocean is called patrem rerum, with reference, says Servius, to the opinions of those who, as Thales, supposed all things to be generated out of water.) The sun and stars rose out of its waters and returned to them in setting. (Il. v. 5, 6, xviii. 487.) On its shores were the abodes of the dead, accessible to the heroic voyager under divine direction. (Od. x., xi., xii.) Among the epithets with which the word is coupled, there is one, (flowing backwards)^ which has been thought to indicate an acquaintance with the tides of the Atlantic; but the meaning of the word is not certain enough to warrant the inference. (Hom. Il. xviii. 399, XX. 65; Hesiod, Theog. 776.)

Whether these views were purely imaginary or entirely mythical in their origin, or whether they were partly based on a vague knowledge of the waters outside of the Mediterranean, is a fruitful subject of debate. Nor can we fix, except within wide limits, the period at which they began to be corrected by positive information. Both scripture and secular history point to enterprizes of the Phoenicians beyond the Straits at a very early period; and, moreover, to a suspicion, which was attempted more than once to be put to the proof, that the Mediterranean on the W. and the Arabian Gulf on the S. opened into one and the same great body of water. It was long, however, before this identity was at all generally accepted. The story that Africa had actually been circumnavigated, is related by Herodotus with the greatest distrust []: and the 