Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/645

 tain as 80 stadia in circumference (which is very near the truth) and covered with wood, consisting of oaks, bay trees and myrtles. It is 10 miles distant from Tarracina, and forms the NW. limit of a bay, of which the other extremity is constitated by the headland of Caieta: this is evidently the Sinns Amy- clanos of Pliny (ziv. 6. s. 8 ; Mare Amndannm, Tao. Ann.. iv. 59)f so called from the extinct city of Amydae. But viewed on a larger scale, the Circaean Promontory is the northern extremity of a great gulf which extends from thence to Cape Misenum, with the adjacent islands of Aenaiia and Prochyta, forming an arc of which the chord is about 45 geograpbiMl miles in length. In early times this remarkable headland constitated the southern limit of Latiam, before the Vobcian districts (extending from thence to the Liiis) wan induded under that anpellatian. (Plin. iiL 5. s. 9. § 56.) The town of Circeii was situiUed at the northern foot of the mountain [Cibceii] : beddes this Strabo tdls us there was a temple of Circe, which perhaps stood on the highest summit of the mountain, which b still known as the Monte di Circe and is crowned by the remains of walls and substructions of a massive character. The mountain, which is wholly of a calcareous rock, contains several cavemsi one <^ iriuch is regarded by popular tradition as the abode of the enchantress Circe. (Bcocchi, Viagg, al Capo Cmrxo, pp. 863, &c.) [E. H. B.]

CIRCE’SIUM (, Zosim. iu. 18; Procop. B. P. iL 5 ; Amm. Marc xxiii. 6), a town of Meso- potamia, bekiw Nicephorium, at the junction of the Cbaboras {Kkahkr) with the Euphrates. Ammi- anus speaks of it as an idand surrounded 1^ the confluence of these two riven. Procopius (J9. P, iL 5) calls it the ^povfuay iitxvrw of the Romans, who do not appear to have hdd any fortified place beyond the Khabkr eastward. Procopius confirms the account of its podtion, stating that its fcrtifi- cationa formed a triangular figure at the junction of the two rivers. He adds (<fe Aodtf. L 6) tiiat Dio- cletian added additional outworks to the place, which Ammianus also states. There is eveiy reason to beliew that Giroedum represents the phuse mentioned in the Bible under the name of GABCHmnsH (2 Ckron, xxxv. 20,* Jerem, xlvi. 2: /mmA, x. 9). The name is written with alight differences by andent anthon, as Circudum (Eutropi ix. 2), Ciroessum (Sext Rnf. c. 22), &c. It is now called Karkina, (Bochart, Geog, Sae. iv. 21.) [V.]

CIRPHIS (Kfft^is), a range of mountaina in Phoda near the aea, aeparated from Parnassus by the valley of the Pldstus. (Strab. ix. p. 418; Leake, Northern Greece, voL ii. pi 539.) CIBRA'DAE (Ki^^oSoi, Ptd. vl 12. § 4), a tribe who lived, acocnding to Ptdemy, along the banks of the Oxns in Sogdiana. Wilson (Ariemoj p. 164) recognises in them an Indian peojie called the Kirdtae, foresters and mountaineers. [V.]

CIRRHA. []

CIRRHA’DIA. [.]

CIRTA (Klpro, L e. sunply the CUg, in Phoe- liidan, a name which it obtained from bdng built by Punic architects: Eth, Ki/n^ioi, Cirtenaes: Con- gt an tine h, Ru.), an inland city of the Maaaylii in Kumidia, 48 M. P. from the sea, in a sitoation of femarkable beanty and fiertility. It was built on a ateep rock almost surrounded by a tributaiy of the river Ampsaga, now called the BummeL It was the reddenoe of the kings of the Massylii, whose palace appears to have been i| splendid ediiSoe. Midpsa CISSA. especially enlarged and beautified it, and settled Greek coloniats in it. Under him it could send forth an army of 1 0,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry. It b frequentiy mentioned in the Punic, Jugurthine, and Civil Wars, as the strongest fortress in tiie coun- try, a reputation which it has maintdned in our own day, daring the French conquest of Alffcritk Under the Romans it was a colony with the sanuune JuUa ; and it was sometimes called Coloma Sittianorum^ from the partisan chief Sittins, to whom it was granted by Julius Caesar. [Africa.] It was the central point for all ^e Banaaxi roads throughout Numidia. Having fallen into decay in process of time, Cirta was restored by Constantine, and called Covstan- TiNA, the name which it still retdns. Among the ruins of the andent dty, the finest remnant is a triumphd arch, which has been removed to Paris. (Strab. zvil pp. 828, 832 ; Polyb. xxxvii. 3; Appian. Pun. 27, 106, NumieL Fr. iii., B, C. ii. 96, iv. 53, 55 ; Dion Cass, xliii. 3; liv. xxx. 12; Sallust. Jug. 2, 21, &c. ; Mela, i. 6. § 1 ; PUn. v. 3. s. 2 ; Itin. Ant. pp. 24, 28, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42 ; Tab, Feut.; Ptd.iv. 3. § 28, viii. 14. § 8; Shaw, TracelSj p. 60, 2nd ed. ; Autland, 1837, Nou 224.) [P. S.]

CISAMUS (KUrufiosj. 1. The port of Aptera in Crete, f Aptera.] 2. Another town of this name appears in the Pentmger Tables 32 M. P. to the W. of Cydonia (comp. Ptol. iii. 17. § 8 ; Staduum. § 322, 323, HienxL ; Cisamum, Plin. iv. 12). In and about Kieamo Kasteli are 14 or 15 fragments of shafts of marble and granite columns, an Ionic capital, and remains of walls, indicating that there once existed upon this site a flourishing and important ci^. (Pashlcy, Trcw. vd. ii. p. 43.) [E. B. J.]

CISON (yii<rw, LXX.: Nahr d-MvkHtta), the " andent river," which pouring its waters through the plain of Esdradon in such abundance ^ swept away" the troqM of Sisera during the battie of Deborah and Barak (Judgee v. 21, comp. iv. 13 ; P«. Ixxxiii. 9.) The earliest writers place its source in Mt. Tabor (OnomaeL «. v.), and this statement is correct; but a considerable supply of water flows into its bed fixnn the S. of the pldn to the W. of Littie Hermon and Mt. Gilboa, as well as from the S. chain which connects Carmd and the hills of Samaria. The Kiahon is not now a permanent stream, but fbws only during the season of rdn, though at the mouth, where it discharges itself into the sea at the S. comer of the bay d Ptolemais by the foot of Mt Carmel, it is never dry. At the battle of Tabor between the French and Arabs, many of the latter were drowned in the stream which Burkhardt {Trav. p. 339) calls the Deburieh, and is formed from the Wadys, I^W. of Tabor. (Robinson, Pales- ttnej vol. iii. pp. 228, foU. ; Ritter, Erdkunde^ vol. XV. pp. 19, 247, 296; Von Raumer, Palestinaf p. 52.) [E. B. J.]

CISSA (Kifftraj Polyb. iii. 76; Cdns; Sdssis, Liv. XXL 60; prob. Guwona), an inland city of Uispania Citerior, in the neighbourhood of which Cn. Sd]Ao defeated and took the Carthaginian general Hanno and the Spanish chieftain Indibilis, in the first year of the Second Punic War, b.o. 218. Some identify it with the Cikna (Kbva) mentioned by Ptolemy (iL 6. § 72) as a city of the Jaccetani. (Marca, Eitp. p. 202 ; Flores, Etp. S, xxiv. 74 ; Sestini, pp. 132, 163; Num. Goth.] Ukert, vd. iL pt i. p. 425.) [P. S.]