Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/626

 608 CHERSONESUS. Germany, that the Romans heard of its existence. According to Pliny (iy. 27), its native name was Cartris, which is otherwise unknown. Its common name is derived from its inhabitants, the Cimbri^ who continued to inhabit it in the time of the Roman emperors. Camp. Cimbri. [L. S.] CHERSONE'SUS HERACLEOTICA or PAR- VA. [Taurica Chersonesus.] CHERSONE'SUS MAGNA (Xfpp6vn<ros &rpa, Strab. xvii. p. 838 ; XtpaSmiffos fxtydKriy Ptol. iv. 5. § 2 ; also called X4ppovpa^ Eik, XtppoupioSy Steph. B. s. V. XtpffSrnaos : Has-et-Tifif vnlg. JiaxcUin), one of the chief promontories of N. Africa, forming the NE. headland of the great convex pro- jection of the Cyrenaic coast, but reckoned as be- longing to ^larmarica. It had a city and harbour. It was called Great in oontradbtinction to the Cher- sonesos Parva on the coast of Egypt, half a degree W. of Alexandria. (Ptol. iv. 5. § 9; Barth, Wan^ dtnmgen, &c. pp. 501, 547.) [P. S.] CHERSONE'SUS TAURICA. [TauricaChbb- 80NESUS.] CHERSONE'SUS THRA'CICA {Xtp<r6vyiiros BpiifKla)y the peninsula extending in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean, between the Hellespont and the bay of Melas. Near Agora it was pro- tected by a wall running across it against incur- sions from the mainland. (Xenoph. HdL iii. 2 . § 10 ; Diod. xvi. 38 ; Plm. iv. 18 ; Agath. 5. p. 108 ; Plut. Per. 19.) The isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadth (Herod, vi. 36 ; comp. Scyl. p. 28; Xenoph. I. c); but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern ex- tremity,cape Mastusia, was 420 stadia (Herod, /.c). It is now called the peninsula of the DardaneUe», or of GaUipolL It was originally inhabited by Thracians, but was colonised by the Greeks, es- pecially Athenians, at a very early period. (Herod. vi. 34, foil.; Nepos, MiU. 1.) During the Persian wars it was occupied by the Persians, and after their expulsion it was, for a time, ruled over by Athens 'and Sparta, until it fell into the hands of the Macedonians, and became the object of contention unong the successors of Alexander. The Romans at length conquered it from Antiochus. Its principal towns were, Cardia, Pacttya, Cal- upoLis, Alopecoknesus, Sestos, Madytus, and Elaeus. [L. S.] CHERSONE'SI PROMONTORIUM {X*p<r6vyt^ ffos &Kpa)y placed by Ptolemy (vi. 7) towards the north-eastern extremity of the Persian Gulf, in the country of the Leaniti. It apparently formed the southern promontory of the Leanites Sinus mentioned by the same geographer, and is identified by Forster with Ras-el-Chdr, (^Arabia, toL ii. p. 215, comp. vol. i. p. 48.) [G. W.] CHERUSCI (XfpovcTKoij XripowTKot^ or Xou- pov<rKol)y the most celebrated of all the German tribes, and mentioned even by Caesar (B. G. vi. 10) as a people of the same importance as the Suevi, from whom they were separated by the Silva Baccnis. It is somewhat dilEcult to define the exact part of Germany occupied by them, as the ancients do not always distinguish between the Cheruscans proper, and those tribes which only belonged to the con- federation of the Cheruscans. But we are probably not iar wrong in saying that their country extended from the Visurgis in the W. to the Albis in the £., and from Melibocus in the N. to the neighbourhood of the Sudeti in the S., so that the Chamavi and Langobardi were their northern neighbours, tJic CHIMAEBA. Chatti the western, the Hennunduri the soathern, and the Silingi and Semnones their eastern neigh- hours. (Comp. Caes. Lc; Dion Cass. Iv. 1.; Flor. iv. 12.) After the time of Caesar, they appear to have been on good terms with the Romans; but when the latter had already subdued several of the most powerful German tribes, and had made such progress as to be able to take their winter quarters in Germany, the imprudence and tyranny of Varus, the Roman commander, brought about a change in the relation between the Romans and Cheruscans; for the latter, under their chief Anni- nins, formed a confederation with many smaller tribes, and in a.d. 9 completely defeated the Romans in the famous battle of the Teutoburg forest. (Dion Cass. Ivi. 18 ; Tac Aim. il 9 ; Veil Pat iL 118; Suet. Aug. 49 ; Strab. vii. p. 291.) After this, Germanicus waged war against them to blot out the stain which the German barbarians had cast upon the Roman name; but the Rranans were un- successful (Tac. Ann. i. 57, foil., ii. 8, foil.), and it was only owing to the internal disputes and fends among the Germans themselves, that they were conquered by the Chatti (Tac. Gtrm. 36), so that Ptolemy (ii. 11. § 19) knew them only as a small tribe on the south of the Hakz mountun, though it is possible also that several tribes which he men- tions in their neighbourhood under difierent names, were only branches of the great Cheruscan nation. At a later period, in the beginning of the 4th cen- tury, the Cheruscans again appear in the confedera- tion of the Franks. (Nazar. Paneg. Const 18 ; Claudian, de IV. Cons. Hon. 450, de BeO. Get. 419 ; comp. Plin. iv. 28 ; Liv. Epit. 138 ; Zeuss, Die BetUsch. pp. 105, 383, foil.; Wilhelm, Germ. p. 190, foil.; Latham, on Tac. Germ. p. 129, foil.) [L. S.] CHE'SINUS. [Sarmatia Europaea.] CHESIUS. [Samos.] CHESULOTH (Xaur^KotBaiB, XwraXise, LXX. Josh. xix. 12, 18), a town near Mount Tabor, in the borders of Zabuion and Issachar. Dr. Robinson conjectures that the modem village of Iksdl may represent this ancient site. It is situated in the plain at the western foot of Mount Tabor, between Little Hermon, and the northern hills that form the boundary of the great plain. He writes ** It is pro- bably the Chesulloth and Chisloth-Tabor of the Book of Joshua; the Chasalus of Eusebius and JercMne in the plain near Tabor; and the Xaloth of Josephns, situated in the great plain." (J3i&. Res. vol. iii. p. 182.) [G. W.] CHILIOCO'MON (XiXirficw/ior ireStoi'). [Ama- 8IA, p. 118.] CHIMAERA (Xf/xaipa), a mountain in Lycia, in the territory of Phaselis, where there was a flame burning on a rock continually. Pliny (iL^^K ;^f^ V. 2^) quotes Ctesias as his authority, and t^o^i passage of Ctesias is also preserved by Photius ; (Cod. 72). Ctesias adds, that water did not' extinguish the flame, but increased it The flame was examined by Beaufort (^KaramtmiOf p. 47, &c.), who is the modem discoverer of it This Yanar^ as it is called, is situated on the coast of Lycia, south of the great mountains of Solyma and of Phaselis (^TeJcrova"). According to Spratt's Lycia (vol. ii. p. 181), near AdrcUchan, not far from the ruins of Olympus, " a number of rounded serpentine hills rise among the limestone, and some of them bear up masses of that rock : at the junction of one of these masses of scaglia with the serpentine is the Yanarj famous as the Chimaera of the ancients : it