Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/389

 RAGRADA. Utiet And Carthage^ bat much nearer to the latter than it now does. Flowing through the alluyial plain of western Zeogitana [Africa], it carried down in its turbid waters a great quantity^ of soil, and the deposits thus formed have enlarged its delta and altered the coast Une. The qualitj and operation of the rifer are noticed by the ancient poets. (Lucan, IT. 588 :— " Bagmda lentns agit, siccae snlcator arenae." SiL Ital. vi. 140—143:— Bagrada, non olio Libjcis in finibns amna Victus limosas eztendere latins nndas, Et stagnante vado patnlos invoivere oampos.*^ The alterationa thus caused in the coast-line can be traced bj aad of statements in the ancient writers; to follow which, howerer, a few words are necessary on the present state of the coast. The great CftUf of Ttmit is divided into three smaller gulfs by two promontories, which stand out from its E. and W. flodes. On the latter of these promontories stood Carthage, S. by E. of the Apollinis Pr. (C. Forma), the western headland of the whole gulf. Between Carthage and this headland lies a bay, the coast of which is formed by a low and manhy plain, whose level is broken by an eminence, evidentiy the same oo which the elder Sdpio Africanos established his camp when he invaded Africa. [Castra Cokne- UA.] This hill, though now fiur inland, is described by Caesar {B. C. iL 24) as jutting out into the sea; and its projection formed a harbour. (Appian, Pun. 25; Liv. xzz. 10.) North of the Castra Cornelia, at the distance of a mile in a straight line, but of six miles by the road usually taken to avoid a marsh be- tween the two places, lay Utica, also on the sea- coast; and on the S., between the Castra Cornelia and Carthage, the ^igradas fell into a bay which washed the N. side of the peninsula of Carthage. But now this bay is quite filled up; the river flows no longer between Carthage and Sdpio's camp, but to the N. of the latter, close under the ruins of Utica, which, like the hill of the camp, are now left some miles inland : the great marsh described by Caesar has become firm land, and similar marshes have been formed in what was then deep water, but now an Alluvial pkin. (Strab. xvii. p. 832 ; Caes. B. C. il 24, 26; Liv. xxx. 25; Appian, B. C, ii. 44, 45 ; Mela, L 7; Plin. v. 3. s. 4; Ptol. iv. 8. § 6, where the Greek numbers denoting the latitude are cor- mpted ; Agathem. ii. 10, p. 236, Gronov., p. 49, Hods.; Shaw, TraveU, 4^. pp. 146, foil., pp. 77, folL, 2d ed.; Barth, Wandenmgea^ (fc., pp. 81, 109, 110, 199.) Bespecting the enormous serpent killed by Begulus on the bonks of the Bagradas, see Gel- lins (vi. 3) and Florus (ii. 2. § 21, where, as also in iv. 2. § 70, the old editions and some MSS. read Bngadam). Polybius (i. 75) mentions the river under the name of &fAGABAS (Mainipa, gen.), which Gesenius con- aidentobe its genuinePunic name, derived from Mokar the Tyrian Hercules {Monumenta Phoeniciaj p. 95). That the Phoenicians, like the Greeks and Romans, assigned divine cUgnity to their rivers, is well known; but it may be worth while to notice the proof furnished, in this specific case, by the treaty of the Carthaginians with Philip, in which the rivers of the hmd are mvoked among the attesting deities (Polyb. vii. Fr. 3). Of the very familiar cormption by which the m has passed into a 6, the BAIAE. 371 very passage referred to presents an example, for we have there the various reading htuedpa (Suldas gives BovKdpas). The modem name Mejerdah furnishes one among many instances, in the geo- graphy of K. Africa, in which the ancient Punic name, corrupted by the Greeks and Bomans, has been more or less closely restored in the kindred Arabic. The conjecture of Reichard, that the river Paoida, or Pagwas, mentioned in the war with Tac&riuas, is the Bagradas, seems to have no ad&» quate proof to support it (Tac. Ann. iii. 20; Bei« chard, Kleine Gtogt. SckrifUn^ p. 550.) Ptolemy places another river of the same name in Libya Interior, having its source in Mt. Usaroala, nearly in the same longitude as the former river« (Ptol. iv. 6. § 10.) [P. S.] BAGRADAS (i Ba7p(£Joj, Ptol. vi. 4. § 2; vi. 8. § 3, Bagrada; Amm. Marc, xxiii. 6; Marclan, p. 19 20, 23), a small river which flowed into the Persian Gulf, and which appears to have been the boundary of the provinces of Persls and Carmania. It has been oonjectored that it is either the Rhoganis of Arrian (Jnd. c. 39), or the Granis of the same writer. (2. c.) It is probably represented by the present Ncibendy which divides Larist&n and Fdrs (Bumes's Map), or by the Bender-hegh, (Vincent, Navig. of InMan Ocean, vol. i. p. 401.) [V.] BAGRAUDANE'NE (Ba-ypav8oi^>^, vulg. Bo- ypcoMvhiviiy Ptol. V. 13), one of the cantons of Ar- menia, lying to the E., near the sources of the Tigris. The Tauraunites mentioned by Tacitus {Annals^ xiv. 24) are placed by Forbiger (vol. iL p. 602) in this district. [E. B. J.] BAHURIM, a town of Benjamin, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. (2 Sam. xvL 5.) It must have been situated near Bethany, and has been coi^ecturally assigned to the site of a modem village named Abu Dis (Shubert, cited by Robinson, BU>, Bes. vol. ii. p. 103, note 3), which, however, waa without the border of Benjamin. [G. W.] BAIAE (Batcu: Eth. Baianus: Baja a place on the coast of Campania, celebrated for its warm baths, as well as for the beauty and pl^uiantness of its situation, on the SW. side of the bay between Cape Misenum and Puteoli, which was commonly known as the Sinus Baianus. We find no mention of a town of the name in early times, but its port was celebrated from a remote period, and was supposed to have derived its name finom Baius, one of the companions of Ulysses, who was buried there. (Lyoophr. AUx. 694 ; Strab. v. p. 245 ; Sil. Ital. xii. 114 ; Serv. ad Am. vi. 107, ix. 710.) But it vras never a place of any note till it became a favourite resort of the wealthy and luxurious Roman nobles towards the end of the Republic: a favour for which it was almost equally indebted to the abun- dance and varie^ of i^ warm springs, and to the charms of its beautiful situation. Horace speaks of the bay of " the pleasant Baiae " as surpassed by no other in tlie world {Ep. i. 1, 83) ; and its praises are not less celebrated by later poets, as well as prose writers. (Mart. xi. 80; Stat. SUv. iii. 5.96; Tac. Ann. xlit.21.) It appears to have come into fashion before the time of Cicero: Lucullus had a villa here, aS well as at a still earlier period C. Marius, and the example was followed both by Pompey and Caesar (Varr. R. R. iii. 17. § 9 ; Seneta, Ep. 51 ; Tac. Ann. xiv. 9.) The villas of the latter were on the hill above Baiae, but subsequent viidtors established themselves on the very edge of the sea, and even threw out vast substrucUons into the midst of the £U2
 * Torbidos arentes lento pede snicat arenas