Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/669

 COMARUSL COMARUS. [N100POU8 ] COMBARISTUM, a place in Gallui, which the Table places 16 Gallic leagues from Juliomafrns (^Angert)y on the road to Condate (/2etiiM«). The site appears to be Combri^ though the number 16 is erroneous, and D'Anville suggests that it ought to be 21. [G.L.] COMBREIA. [Crubis.] COMBRETCXNIUM, in Britain, mentioned in the ninth Itinerary as the second station from Venta Icenorum (iVonncA), the first being Sitomagus. Horsley phtces Com>6refof»-ium at the confluence of the rivers Breton and Stour, relying upon the simi- larity of name. This places it near iStrorf-ford, a locality with a Roman name. Others have identified Stratford with Ad ansam, the next station to Com- bretonium. Horsley's view seems the safer, f R.G.L.] COMBUST A, a place in GallU on the load from Karbo (^Narbonne) to Juncaria (Jonquiere). The distance from Narbo to Ad Vigesimum in the An- tonine Itin. is 20 M. P. ; from Ad Vigesimum to Combusta is 14; and fiioro Gombusta to Ruscino (^Caatd-RonttiUon, near the Tel) is 6. The position of Combusta is thus fixed within certain limits, but the exact site is not known. [G. L.] COMBUSTA INSULA (Karair«irav^(n7), an bland, in the Gulf of Arabia (Ptol. tL 7), supposed to be Camarany to the south of the oJf of Lo- heia. [G. W.] COMENSES, a people of GaUitia, mentioned by Pliny (v. 32) among those of some note. Ha- milton (i?esearcAef, vol. i. p. 413) discovered the remains of an ancient town at Al^ah Tashj NE. of Angora, which he thinks may be the city of the Comenses of Pliny. There is an eminence which may have been an acropolis; and there are many ancient remains in the wails of houses in the village. He copied two Greek inscriptions, one of which (Na 100, Appendix), ** was on a large block of stone, with a bas-relief above, representing the bust of a Roman senator." The other inscription (No. 101) ^* was on a stone in the wall of the same house, with two figures above, and below them a lialf- length figure with the toga, encloeed within a wreath or garland." He says that the second inscription leads him to think that this place is the site of Come, the capital of the Comenses. But this is very doubtful. The inscription contains irw^i^r, but it may be part of a word. At any rate, this part of the inscription b not intelligible. [G. L.] COMIDAVA(Ko/i«ayo, Ptol. iii.8. § 8), a town of Docia, which Sulzer {GescMchte DacierUf vol. i. p. 416) places near the remarkable fortress of Niamtz^ situated on a hill between the rivers Bit- trUza and Moldava. [£. B. J.] COMl'NIUM {Kofdvioy% a city of Samnium, the situation of which b very uncertain. There are, indeed, strong reasons to suppose that there were two pboes of the same name. It is first mentioned by Livy (x. 39 — 43) during the campaign of the Roman consnb Carvilius and Papirius in Samnium, B.C. 293, when Carvilius besieged Cominium, while hb colleague assailed Aquilonla. It appears from the detailed narrative of Livy that the two cities were not much more than 20 miles apart, and both sufficiently near to Bovianum for the fugitives of the Sainnite armies to find refuge in that city. Co- minium was taken by Carvilius, and burnt to the ground. (Liv. x. 44.) Two years bter Dionysius speaks of Cominium (evidently the same place) as again in the hands of the Samnites, from whom it GOMMAGENK 651 was taken by the consul Postumius Hogellns, bc 291. (Dionys. Exo. xvi. 16, 17.) During the Second Punic War, on the other hand, Livy mentions a town which he calb " Cominium Centum," where Hanno received the news of the defeat of his army and the capture of his camp near Beneventnm, b. o. 212. (Liv. XXV. 14.) It appears from hb narra- tive that this pboe could hardly have been very dbtant from Beneventnm, and it b at least a plau- sible conjecture that the modem town of Cerreio, abont 16 miles NW. of B^eventum, represents the Cominium Ceritum of Livy. But it b very doubt- ful whether this b the same place with the Cominium mentioned in the earlier Samnite wars. Hobtenius had suggested that thb was to be sought in the Apennines near the sources of the Fibrenus; and later Italian topographers have shown that the names of "Cominum" and *'territorium Cominense" are still found in medieval writers and documents in refierence to the dbtrict of AlvUo, just in thb part of the mountains. Hence the ruins still visible at a place called Santa Maria del Campo, on the road from Alvito to S, Donaio^ and about 5 miles NW. of Atina, are supposed by Romanelli to be those of Cominium. (Holsten. Not ad Cluv. p 223; Gio- venaztlySito diAveja^ p.50; Romanelli, vol. ii. pp. 496 — 600, iii. pp. 357 — 359.) Thb situation, however, appears too remote from Bovianum, and the position both of Cominium, and the Aquilonia connected with it, must still be regarded as undetermined. [Aqci- LOSIA.] The Comini mentioned by Pliny as an extinct community of the Aequiculi must be certainly dis- tinct from either of the preceding. [£. H. B.] COMISE'NE (Ko/uoT/v^, Ptol. vi. 5. § 1 ; Strab. xi. p. 514), one of the divbions of Parthia, accord- ing to Ptolemy, adjoining Hyrcania. Isidorus Charax (p. 7) describes it as adjacent to Choarene or Che rene, and as containing eight villages. Strabo would seem to place it in Armenia. It b not unlikely that a dbtrict he calls Catnisene (xii. p. 559) may be the same as the Comiscne of the other geographers. Its present name is said to be Komi*. [V.] COMMAGE'NE {Kofifwyrirtij PtoLv. 15; Strab. xi. p. 521, xii. pp. 533, 535, xvi. p. 749 ; Plin. v. 12. s. 24 : Tac Ann. ii. 42), a district of Syria, lying to the N., bounded on the £. by the Euphrates, on the W. by Cilicia, and on the N. by Amanus. It wss celebrated for its rich and fertile country (Strab. xii. p. 535 ; Tac. Ann, xv. 12), and was attached to the Syrian kingdom in the flourishing period of the Seleucidae. But in the civil wars of Grypus and hb brothers, and in the disorders which followed, Commagene gradually acquired independence, and had its own sovereigns connected with the Seleucid family. It remained an independent kingdom for upwards of a century. It b only necessary to give here a list of the kings of Commagene; since a full account of them will be found in tiie Dictionary of Biography under each name : Antiochus I. ^ yf^ MiTHRIDATBS I. ; AnTIOCHUS II. ; MiTHRIDATES II.; Antiochus III. After the death of An- tiochus III. in a. d. 17, Commagene became for a short time a Rranan province, but was afterwards given in a. d. 38 to the son of the late king Amriociius IV. In a. d. 73, it was again reduced to the condition of a province, and its capital Samosata received the additional name of Flavia, and a newaera which commences with the year A. d. 7 1. (Eckhel, vol. iii. p. 252 ; Clinton, F.B. vol. i. p. 60; Suet. Vesp. 8 ; Eutrop. viii. 19 ; Oros. viL 9.)