Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/710

 692 COBSOTE. found abundance of foxes and rabbits, bat no woheSi hares, or deer; the wild goat also was unknown, but the wild sheep or monsmon (jioicfwi) was found in the mountains of Corsica, as well as of Sardinia. Strabo mentions it in the latter island only, bat it is still common to them both. (Pol. ziL 3, 4.) The mines of Corsica seem to have been neglected bj the Romans ; bat its granite, which is <^ a very fine quality, was worked for architectural purposes; and the Roman quarries in two little islets a few miles from BonifaciOf at the southern extremity of Cor- sica, are still visible. (Valery, Vojfoffe en Coree, chap. 80.) [E. H. B.l COBSCyTE (Kop<r(^, Xen. Anab. i. 5. § 4), a town in Mesopotamia, on the river Mascas, where Cyrus passed three days on his march against his brother Artaxerxes. It is described by Xenophon as deserted, and it is not mentioned by any other writer. It has been conjectured by Bennell {TUut- trationa of the Xetreai of the Ten Thoueand, pw 103) that it may be represented by some laige ruins, now called Erzi or Ireak, which were ob- served by the travellers Balbi and Ranwolf, when passing down the Euj^rates. Xenophon states that the Mascas flowed round Corsote: perhaps the town was situated at the junction of the Euphrates and that river. [V.] CORSTOBPITUM, in Britain, mentioned in the fir»t Itinerary. ProlMibly Corbfidge in Northum- beriand. ^, [R. G. L.] COBSYMUS or COBSYNUS. It appears, from the coins of Aphrodisias, in Caria, that there was a river Corsymus, or Conynua, there. In the article Aphrodisias the river is named Moeynus. The name in the editions of Haiduin and SilUg (Plin. v. 29) is Orsinus. Harduin says that the editions of Pliny have Mossinus. It seems likely that Corsynus or Corsymus is the tnie name, and that the other forms are corruptions. [G. L.] CORTERATE, a town in Gallia, placed by the Table on the road from Burdigak (Bordeaux) to Ve- sunna {Perigueux), The place seems to be Coutnu, on a branch of the Dordogne, [G. L.] CORTO'NA(KV<»i'«S Ptol* : ^^ Cortonensis : €orU)nci)y one of the most ancient and powerful of the inhind cities of Etruria, situated on a lofty hill between Arretium and Clusium. It was distant only about 9 miles from the Lacus Trasimenus. There is great confusion about its ancient name. The Greek legend which represented it as founded by Dardanus, called it Cobtthus, a form frequently used in consequence by the Latin poets. (Virg. Aen. iii. 167—170, vii. 206—210, &c.; SiL Ital. iv. 721, V. 122.) But there is little doubt that this was a mere transplanting of a Greek tradition (Mttller, Eirtuker, vol. L p. 277), and the native name seems to have been Cortona, or some form closely resembling it. Dionysius writes the name Croton, and says it was char^;ed to Cortona (which he writes Ko^pWa, probably an error of the MSS. for Kof>9uyla)j when it received a Bonum colony. Livy, however, calls it Cortona at a much earlier period, without any allusion to its having changed its name. The confusion between Cor and Cro is 80 natural that it is no wonder Uie Greeks should write it Kp^wfj even if the Boman farm was the correct one : but it is not improbable that the Etruscans, who did not use the letter o, would have written the name KPVTVNA, as they wrote Pu- pluna for Populonium. (Dionys. i 26 ; Steph. Byz. «. V. Kpirwy Miiller, I c. pp. 268, 277.) COBTOKA. Polybius, however (iiL 82), writes the name KKip> TfAyioy, and there can be no doubt that the royrrv- raiof in Tyrrhenia, of Lycophnm and Tfaeopompaa, the foundation of which was ascribed by the latter to Ulysses, is merely a oorruptioa of the same name. (Lycophr. Alex. 806; Theopomp. qv. Ttets.adioeJ) All accounts agree in representing Cortona as one of the most ancient cities of Etruria, and at a very early period one of the most powerfol of the oon- federation. Dionysius expressly tells us that it was originally an Umbrian city, and was wrested fimm that people by the Pelasgians. (Dionys. i. 20.) It is evidently to the Pelagic city only that the legend of its foundation by Dardanus, to which so prominent a place has been assigned by Virgil, can be rtfexred : various other legends also appear to point to the same oonnectiMi, and may be considered as proving that the Pelasgio character of the inhabitants was strongly marked and recognised by the Greeks. But, notwithstanding the high authority of Niebuhr, it seems impossible to admit the view of Dionysiaa, who refen to this city and not to Creston in Thnoe, tiie statement of Herodotus concerning the language spoken by the Pelasgians in his day. (Herod. L 57 ; Dionys. L 29. On tUs much disputed questiain com- pare Niebuhr, voL L p^ 34, note 89 ; Miiller, Einuker, voL L p. 94 — 98 ; Lepsius, Tyrrhenitche Pdtuger, p. 18, &c.) Dionysius represents Cortona as having been made by the Pelasgians a stronghold and centre of operations from whence they gradually extended their arms over the rest of Etraria : and it ia» doubtless, with reference to this statement that Stephanos of Byzantium terms it the metropolis oC the Tynhenians. (Dionys. i. 20; Steph. Byz. s.v. Kp6Tc»tf.) There are, indeed, drcumstances which would lead us to inf^ that the dominion cf the Etruscans, properly so called (the Basena), was alao extended fiom Cortona, or its neighbourhood, over the more southern parts of Etruria ; and it would be a natural surmise that Dionysius had made a confusion between the Pelasgian Tyrrhenians and the Etruscans proper : but it seems more probable that both conquests may really have wnanated from the same quarter. [Etruria.] Important as is tiie part which Cortona bears in these early traditions, it is singular how little we subsequently hear of iL There can be no doubt that it was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan confederation: and hence in b.g. 310 Livy speaks of Perusia, Cortona, and Arretium, as at that period among the chief cities of Etruria ("ferme capita Etruriae populorum." liv. ix. 37.) They on thia ooccasion obtained a peace for 30 yean, which was soon broken ; but the name nS Cortona is not again mentioned : and we have no account of the time at which it fell under the subjection of Rome. In the Second Panic War it is incidentally mentioned : Hannibal having marched beneath its walls, and laid waste its territory just before the battle of the Thrasymenian Lake (PoL iiL 82 ; Liv. xxiL 4), but the inaccessible position of the city itself ren> dered it secure from attack. At the same time the broad and fertile valley beneath it offered no obstacles to the march of an army, and it is probably for this reason that we hear so little of Cortona in histocy successive swanns of invadera having swept past it, without caring to attack its almost impregnable position. We learn incidentally from DiooysiiiB (i. 26) that Cortona had received a Boman colony not long before his time : there can be no doubt that this must be referred to the times of SuUa, and that CA /} i f'> ?.. ' ti