Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/446

 428 BRANCHIDAE. Was Didyma or Didymi (AfSv/ui, Steph. t. p.; Herod, vi. 19), as we might also infer from the name of Apollo Didymens; bat the place was also called Branchidae, which was the name of a body of priests who had the care of the temple. Croesus, king of Lydia (Herod, i. 46, 92)« consulted the oracle, and made rich presents to the temple. The god of Bran- ehidae was consulted by all the lonians and Aeolians; and Necos, king of Egypt, after he had taken Ca* dytis (Herod, ii. 159), sent to the god the armour in which he had been victorious. We may infer that the fame of this god had been carried to Egypt by the Milesians, at least as early as the time of Necos. Afler the revolt of Miletus, and its capture by the Persians (b. c. 494) in the time of the first Darius, the sacred place at Didyma, that is the sacred place of Apollo Didymeus. botJb the temple and the oracular shrine were robbed and burnt by the Persians. If tliis is true, there was hardly time for the temple to be rebuilt and burnt again by Xerxes, the son of Darius, as Strabo says (p. 634); who also has a story that the priests (the Branchidae) gave up the treasures to Xerxes when he was flying back from Greece, and accompanied him, to escape the punish- ment of their treachery and sacrUege. (Gomp. Strab. p. 517.) The temple was subsequently rebuilt by the Mi- lesians on an enormous scale; but it was so large, says Strabo, that it remained without a roof. A village grew up within the sacred precincts, which contained several temples and chapels. Pausanias (vii. 2) says that the temple of Apollo at Didymi was older than the Ionian settlements in Asia. The tomb of Neleus was shown on the way from Miletus to Didymi, as Pausanias writes it It was adorned with manv most costly and angent ornaments. (Strabo.) W-^, .'.'.? I &,CgU^jX* X X/, A road called the Sacred Way led from the sea up to the temple ; it ** was bordered on either side with statues on chaurs, of a single block of stone, with the feet close together and the hands on the knees, — an exact imitation of the avenues of the temples of Egypt" (Leake, Ana Minor^ p. 239.) Sir W. Cell copied from the chair of a sitting statue on this way, a Boustiophedon inscription, which con- tains ranroAAwi't, that is rtp PLiroWtovi. The temple at Branchidae was of white marble, in some parts bluish. There remain only two columns with the architrave still standing; the rest is a heap of ruins. The height of the columns is 63 feet, wit^ a dia- meter of 6]| feet at the base of the shaft. It has 21 columns on the flanks, and 4 between the antae BrtuMuapant^ before the 16th century, though there of the ppnaos, 112 in all; for it was decastyle dip- teral Chandler describes the position and appear- ance of the ruins of Apollo's temple at Didyma (c 43, French Tr. with the notes of Servois and Barbie' Dn Bocage ; see also the Ionian Antiquities, pub- lished by the Dilettanti Society).^ ' [G. L.] BRANCHIDAE (Bftayxi^, Strab. xiv. p. 633; Tb Twy Bpceyxi^^y fttrrw, Strab. xi. p. 517), a small town in Sogdiana which Alexander the Great de- stroyed, because it was said to have been built by the priests of the temple of Apollo Didymeus, near Miletus. [See above.] Xerxes subsequently allowed them to settle at a place in Sogdiana, which they named Bran- chidae. Curtius (vii. 5) gives a graphic account of what he justly calls the cruel vengeance of Alex- ander against the descendants of these traitors, re- marking that the people still retained the mannera of their former country, and that, though they had BREGENTIO. they still spoke their own tongue with little dege- neracy, [v.] BRANNODU'NUM, in Britain, mentioned in the Notitia as being under the " Comes littoris Saxonici per Britanniam." Name for name, and place for place, it agrees with Brancaster^ in Norfolk, and was the most northern station of the Litus. It was under a Praepositus Equitum Dalmatamm. [R. G. L.] BRANNOGE'NIUM (Bpa»vvY4viov), a place in Britain, mentioned by Ptolemy (iL 3. § 18) as a town of the Ordovices. H. Horsely agrees with Camden in considering it to be the Branonium, and also the Bravinnium, of the Itineraiy, but differa from him in fixing it in the parts about Ludlow^ rather than at Worcester. [R. G. L.] BRANNOVICES or BRANNOVII, a Gallic people mentioned by Caesar {B. G, vii. 75). D*An- ville conjectures that they may have been in the canton of Brionnois, in the diocese of M&con, Walckenaer {G^og. vol. i. p. 331) has some remarks on these people. In Caesar (B. G. vii. 75) there are also readings ^ Blannovicibus " and " Blannoviis (On- dendorp. ed. Caes.);" and Walckenaer proposes to place the Blannovices or Brannovices in the district of M&con, where D'Anville also places the Bran- novices or BrannoviL Walckenaer urges, in favour of this supposition, the existence of a place called Bkmnot in the district of Mdcon. There is another Blannot in the department of Cote dOr^ about 4 leagues from Amcof, and here Walckenaer places the Blannovii. All this is very uncertain. [G. L.] BRASIAE. [Prasiae] BRA'TTIA (Brazza), an island off the Dahnatian coast of lUyricum. (Plin. iii. 26. s. 30; Tab. Pent; It Ant; Geogr. Rav.) BRATUSPA'NTIUM, a town of the Bellovaci. Caesar (B. G. ii. 13), in b. c. 57, marched from the territory of the Suessiones into the territory of the Bellovaci, who shut themselves up and all they had in Bratuspantium. After the surrender of the placo he led his troops into the territory of the Ambiani* The old critics concluded that Bratuspantium was the chief town of the Bellovaci, but D'Anville (AV tice^ ^0 being informed that there existed two cen- turies before his time 8<nne traces of a town called Bratuspantey one quarter of a league from Breteuil, was inclined to suppose that this was the Bratu- spantium of Caesar. But Walckenaer (jGiog. vol. i. p. 423) shows that there is not sufficient authority, indeed, hardly anything that can be called authority, to prove the existence of this name Brattupantef or has been undoubtedly a Roman town near BreteuiL Now as Caesar mentions no town of the Bellovaci except Bratuspantium, and as everything that he sa}'s seems to show that was their chief place, even if they had other towns, it is a reas<»iable conclusion that this town was the place which Ptolemy calls Caesaromagus, which is the Bellovaci of the late cm. pire,and the modera Beauuais. It is true, that we can- not determinewhat Roman town occufned thesite near BreteuUj and this is a difiiculty which is removed by the supposition of its being Bratuspantium, a name however which occnra only in Caesar. [G. L.] BRAURON. [Attica, p. 332, a.] BRAVINNIUM (Bravincum, Bravonium), in Britain, mentioned in the Itinerary; and probably Leintwardine^ m Shropshire. Placed, also, at lAtd^ low and Worcester. [R, G. L.] BREGAE'TIUM, BREGE'TIO, BRIGITIO, acquired also the native language of their new home, I BREGE'NTIO or BREGE'NTIUM (Bp^'yaiTioi' /. o •^ r/i^r -/."v. .V « «b ^*^' /. A- rf*