Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/362

 S44 AUSARA. of Vique^ or Vich. It lies W. of Gerona^ on a S. tribatary of the Ter, the ancient Alba. (Plin. iii. 3. 8. 4; PtoL u. 6. § 70; Marca, Hitp. ii. 22, p. 191.) There is a coin with the inscription Ausa; but it is probably sparioos. (Eckhel, vol. i. p. 35 ; Mionnet, vol. i. p. 29 ; Sestini, Lettere^ vol. ix. praef., Med, Up. p. 104; XJkert, toI. ii. pt. 1. p. 426.) [P. S.] AUSARA (Aftrapa). 1. A city of the Sacha- litae on the south coast of Arabia (Ptol. Ti. 7. § 1 1), in the modem district of Mahrah: probably the capita] of Pliny's Ausaritae (vi. 28. s. 32), from which apparently a peculiar kind of incense enume- rated by him (ziL 25. s. 16) derived its name. Forster identifies it with Rat^al-Sair, (^Geog. of Arabia^ vol. ii. pp. 177, 178.) 2. Another town of the same name as the pre- ceding is enumerated among the inland cities of Arabia Felix by Ptolemy (vi. 7. 30), and placed by him in long. 71^ lat 25° 30', which Forster finds in the modem town of Zarfa^ in the Hedjaz. (Ibid. voL ii. pp. 127, 130.) [G. W.] AUSCHI'SAE {khcx'^f^, Herod, iv. 171; Kd- ^rx^roi, ApoUod. ap. Steph. B.; Mxjutm^ Diod. Sic iii. 42; Aux'toi, Ptol. iv. 5. § 21; Awx^«", Nonn. Dionys. xiii. 375), a Libyan people in Cyrenaica, W. of the AsBYSTAE, extending S. of Barca as far W. as the Hesperides (aft. Berenice), on the coast of the Greater Syrtis. Ptolemy alone places them in Marmarica. There are some exceedingly interesting remains of forts, of an extremely ancient style of building, which are fully described by Barth, who regards them as works of the Auschisae, and fortifies his opinion by the statement of Pliny (iv. 1), that it was the common custom of the Libyan tribes to build forts. (Beechey, Proceedings of the Expe- dition to explore the N. coast of Africa, pp. 251, 252 ; Barth, Wanderungen, &c. p. 354.) )p. 2dJ tP.S. ] AUSGI ((Atfirxioi), also Auscenses, one of the naticms of Aquitania who submitted to Caesar*8 legatus, P. Crassus, in B.C. 56. Strabo (p. 191) says that they had the Latinitas at the time when he wrote. Mela (iii. 2) calls the Ansd the most illustrious of the Aquitaiiian nations. Their terri- tory was fertile. The position of the Ausci is de- termined by that of Auch^ or Augusta Auscorom, their chief town ; and their territory may be repre- sented pretty nearly by the French department of Crers. [Augusta Auscorum.] [G. L.] AUSENSES (Awrcis), a Libyan people, in North Africa, dwelling about the lake Tritonis at the bottom of the Lesser Syrtis, next to the Machlyes. The Machlyes were on the S. side of the lake, and the Ausenses on the N. (E. and W. respectively, according to the view of Herodotus), the river Triton being the boundary between them: the latter people, therefore, were in the S. of the district afterwards called Byzacena. (Herod, iv. 180.) Herodotus makes them the last of the nomade peoples towards the W., their neighbours on that side, the Maxyes, bcin.!; an agricultural people. (Herod, iv. 191: it is hardly necessary to notice Benneirs allusion to, and obviously correct solution of, an inconsistency which the hypercritic may fancy between this passage and c. 186 : Rennell, Geog.to Herod, vol. ii. p. 302.) "■ The Machlyes," says Herodotus, "wear the hair on the back of the head, but the Ausenses on the front. The Ausenses celebrated a yearly festival of Athena, whom they claimed as their native goddess, in which their viigins were divided into two parties, which iisaght each other with stones and clubs, and those AUSOBA. who died of their wounds were esteemed not irae virgins. The combat was preceded by a procession, in which the most beautiful of the virgins w^as deco- rated with a Corinthian helmet and a full suit of Grecian armour, and was drawn in a chariot round the lake." (Oomp. Mela, i. 7.) Respecting the sup- posed connection of the locality with the worship of Athena, see Triton. The Ausenses are 8U]qx»ed by Pacho (^Voyage dans la Marmariquef &c) to be the same people as the Ausurii, who are mentioned by Synesius as devastating Cyrenaica in the 6th ceuturv. (Bfthr, ad Herod. I c.) [P. S.] AUSER or AUSAR (Afo-ap, Strab.: Serchw), a considerable river of Etraria, rising in the Apen- nines on the borders of Liguria, and flowing near the city of Luca, is evidently the same with the modem Serckio, though that river now flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea by a separate mouth, seven miles N. of that of the Amo^ while all ancient writers represent the Auser as falling into the Amus. The city of Pisae was situated at the pennt of their junction : and the confluence of the two streams was said to give rise to a violent agitation of their waters. (Strab. V. p. 222; Plin. iii. 5. s. 8; Rutil. /<in. L 566.) The Auser appears to have retained its ancient course till about the 12th century; but the exact period of the change is unknown; the whole space between it and the Amus, in the lower part of their course, is so flat and low that it is said that their waters still communicate during great floods. A canal or ditch between the two streams still retained the name of Osari in the days of Cluverius. The modem name of Serchio is supposed to be a cor- raption of Auserculns, a form which is found in documents of tlie middle ages. (Cluver. ItaL p. 462 ; Miiller, J^trttfiber, p. 213; Targioni-Tozzetti, Fia^^ in Toscana, vol. ii. p. 146—178.) [E. H. B.] AU'SERE {Fessahf), a river of Tripolitana, in Africa Propria. (Tab. Pent) [P. S.] AUSETA'NI (AftaiTToyoi, Ptol. ii. 6. § 70), one of the small peoples in the extreme N£. cf Hispania Tanaconensis, at the foot of the Pyrenees, in CcUa^ Ionia, Pliny (iii. 3. s. 4) places them (inius re- cedentes radice Pgrenaei) W. of the Lalbtani and Indioetes, and £. of the Lacetani and Cerrbtani. Ptolemy (/. c.) places the Cerretani furthest to the £., and next to them the AusetanL Their position is fixed by that of thdr chief cities AusA and Gerund a {Gerona)^ along the valley of the river 7Vr, the ancient Alba. The great Roman road from Narbo in Gaul to Tarraco passed through their territory. Under the Roman empire they belonged to the oonvcntus of Tarraco. Of their cities, AusA and Gerunda had the jtu Latmuan (Plin. L c.) ; and BaecuU (Beuicoi;Aa, Ptol. I c. : Etk. Baeculonenses, Plin.) was a civitas sHpen- diaria, Ptdemy also mentions Aquae Calidae CTHara ^tpfjid ; prob. Banolas), between Ansa and Gerunda: it seems not quite certain whether this town is the same as that of the ttipendarii Aquicaldenses of Pliny (/. c.) The Ausetani are several times mentioned by Livy : as conquered by Hannibal, at the b^inning of the second Panic War (xxi. 23); reconquered by Sdpio (c. 61); taking part in the revolt of Indibilis, B. c. 205 (xxix. 2, et seq.), and the war of the Emporiae, B.C. 195 (xxxiv. 20: see also xxxix. 56, and Caesar, B. C. i. 60.) [P. S.] AUSOBA, in Ireland, placed by Ptolemy (ii. 2. § 4) as the third river fixHn the Boreum promon-