Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/606

 588 CEPHALLEXIA. CEPHALOEDIUV. motintain, which is nov oorered with a fioRrt of fir- trves, wheooe its modern luuae, Elaio^ there is a »(»leud]d view orer Acaraania, Aetolia, and the Deiifhboiinng isUods. There was also a ip»***"^^i» called Baka (Boia) aooording to Stephamis, said to have been named after the pilot of Ulysses^ The principal plain in Cephallenia is that of Same, on the easteni side of the island, which is about 6 miles in length from N. to S., and aboot 3 miles in width at the ses. From the moontaiDoos chamcter of the island, it coold nerer have been verj prodoctiva. Hence Livj (xzxviiL 28) describes the inhabitants as a poor people. We read oo one oorarifln of good crops of com in the neighbooihood «f Paleu (PoL T. 5.) Leake obeerres tktt *' the soil is rocky in the moontainous districts, and stony even in the i^aias; but the productions are eenenUlj good in their kind, particolarlj the wine. Want of water is the great defect of the island. There is not a single 000" stantly flowing stream : the sooroes are neither no> meroos nor plentiful, and manj of them fail entiiely in dry summers, creating sometimes a great distress.** The island, as has been already remarked, is called Same or Samos in Homer. Its earliest inhabitants appear to have been Taj^lans, as wss the case in the neighbouring islands. (Strab. x. pi 461.) It is said to have derived its name fimn Cephalos, who made hinii>elf master of the island with the help of Amphitryon. (Strab. z. p. 456 ; SchoL ad Lgcophr, 930; Pans. L 37. § 6 ; Heraclid. Pont. Fragm. zvii. p. 213, ed. KoraL) Even in Homer the inhabitants of the island are called Cephalleues, and are described as the subjects of Ulysses (/iL ii. 631, (U zz. 210, zziv. 355); but Cephallenia, as the name of the island, first occurs in Herodotus (iz. 281 Scylaz (p. 13) calls it Cephalenia (Kc^^aAi^yUi, with a single A), and pUoes it in the neighbourhood of Leucas and Alyzia. Cephallenia was a tetrapolis, containing the four states of Same, Pale, Cranii, and Proni. This di- vision of the island appears to have been a very ancient one, since a legend derived the names of the four cities from the names of the four sons of Co- phalus. (Etym. H. $. v. Kc4»aAAi)Ma ; Steph. B. $. V. Kpdytoi.) Of these states Same was probably the most ancient, as it is mentioned by Homer (^Od. zz. 288). The names of all the four cities first occur in Thucydides. (Tbuc ii. 30; comp. Strab. z. p. 455; Paus. vi 15. § 7.) An account of these cities is given separately ; but as none of them be- came of much importance, the history of the Island may be dismissed in a few words. In the Persian wars the Cepliallenians took no part, with the ez- ception of the inhabitants of Pale, two hundred of whose citizens fought at the battle of Platae^ (Herod, iz. 28.) At the commencement of the Peloponnesian war a large Athenian fleet visited the island, which joined the Athenian alb'ance without oflisring any resistance. (Thuc ii. 30.) In the Boman wars in Greece the Cephallenians were op- posed to the Romans; and accordingly, after the conquest of the Aetolians, M. Fulvius was sent against the island with a sufficient force, b. c. 189. The other cities at once submitted, with the ezcep- tion of Same, which was taken after a siege of four months. (Pol iv. 6, v. 3, zzii. 13, 23; Liv. zzzvii. 13, zzzviiL 28, 29.) Under the Romans Cephal- lenia was a " libera civitas." (Plin. iv. 12. s. 19.) The island was given by Hadrian to the Athenians (Dion Cass. Hz. 16); but even after that event we find Pale called in an inscription itv64pa koI ai/r6' (Bockh, /iwer. No. 340.) In the time of I Ptolemy (iiL 14. § 12) CepbaUenia was incladoi in the province of Epeims. Afto- the division of the Boman empire, the island was snbject to the By* xantine euipire till the 12th oentoiy, when it passed into the haiMU of the Franks. It fonned part of the dominioos of the Latin princes of Achaia till a. ix 1224, when it became snbject to the Venettsna, in whose hands it remained (with the ezoepcioa elf a temporary occupation bj the Turks) till the (all of the Bepoblic in 1797. It is now one of the screm Ionian islands under the protectioa of Great Britauk In 1833 the population was 56.447. Of the four cities abcndy mentkned. Same and Psom were situated on the east coast, CRami on the west coast, and Palb on the eastern side of a bay on the west coast. Besides these four ancient cities, there are also rains of a fifth upon C. Seaia, the SE. point of the island. These ruins are of the Roman period, and probably those of the city, which C. Antonius, the colleegue of Cicero m his consulship, coounoioed building, when he was i»- siding in Cephallenia after hu banishment from Italy. (Strab. z. p. 455). Ptolemy {L c.) men- tions a town Ce]riialenia as the capital of the ishmd. Ttus may have been either the town commenced by Aatonius, or is perhaps represented by the modem castle of St George in the middle of the plain of Livadho in the sonth-westera part <^ the island, where ancient remains have been found. Besides these cities, it appears from several Hellenic names still remaining, that there were other smaller towns or fortresses in the island. On a peninsula in the northern part of the island, commanding two har- bours, is a fortress called Aseo ; and as there is a piece of Hellenic wall in the modern castle, Leake conjectures that here stood an ancient fortress named Assus. Others suppose that as Livy (zzzviii. 18) mentions the Nesiotae, al<mg with the Cruiii, Palenses, and Samaei, there was an andeut place called Nesus, of which Asso may be a cor- ruption ; but we think it more probable tliat Ne- siotae is a fialse reading for Pronesiotae, the ethnic form of Pronesus, the name which Strabo giv« to Proni, one of the members of the Tetrapolis. [Pbosi.] Further south on the western coast is 7cj£d, wbere many ancient sepulchres are found: this is pro- bably the site of Taphus (Tcl^s), a Cephallenian town mentioned by Stephanos. Rakli, on the south-eastern coast, points to an ancient town He- racleia; and the port of Viskdrdho in evidently the andcnt Panormus (Udvoptws)^ opposite Ithaca (^AtUhoL Gr. vol. ii. pi 99, ed. Jacobs). (Erase, IlelUu, voL ii. pt. ii. p. 431, seq.; Leake, Northern GrtMCy vol. iii. p. 55, seq.) CEPHALOK'DIUM (KeaAoid2r, Ptol., and Pliny also has Cepha- loedis: EtK Cephaloeditanus : Cefalu)^ a town on the N. coast of Sicily, between Himera and Alaesa. It evidently derived its name from its situation on a lofty and precipitous rock, forming a bold head- hind (Kf^MAi^) projecting into the sea. Bnt though its name proves it to have been of Greek origin, no mention is found of it in Thucydides, who ezpreasly says that Himera was the only Greek colony on this coast of the island (vi. 62) ; it is probt^le that Cephaloedium was at this time merely a fortress (jppo^pioif) belonging to tlie Himeraeans, and may very likely have been first peopled by refogees after the destruction of Himera. Its name first appears in history at the time of the Carthagininn ezpedition