Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/144

 EUROPA. compose principany the highlands of Bosnia, Mace- donia, and Albania. Transverse fra c tu r es, like those of the Balkan, occur generally in the Greek moun- tains. The intervening valleys are nKwtly caldron- shaped hollows, both in Northern Greece and in Pelo^ ponnesus. Volcanic convulsions in some districts, and in Boeotia especially, have broken down the mural barriers of these hollows, and allowed their waters to escape : but in the Morea, where there have been no such outlets, they percolate through the soil. The rivers of Southern Greece are, for the most part, fordable in summer and torrents in winter and spring. A glance at the map of Europe will suffice to show that, from its general configuratiMi, the NW. divinon of the old continent is much more favourable to uniform civilisation and the physical well-being and development of its inhabitants, than that dt either Africa or Ana. On the one hand, the extent of its coast-line, its numerous promontorito and bays, act as causes of severance between the members of its frunily, and, by preventing theur accumulation in masses like those of the A^tic empires, preserve and stimulate the separate activity of the whole: on the other, the obstacles to nati<xial and federal union are not, as in many regions of the African continent, insurmountable, but, on the codbary, the central position of its sea, — the Mediterranean and its branches, — and the course of its rivers, running deep into the interior, affsrd natural paths of com- munication for all its races. No barren deserts divide its cities from one another: its table-lands are not, as in Asia, lifted into the region of snow, nor its plains condemned to sterility by the hot pestilential blasts, such as sweep over the great Sahara. Europe, indeed, is not the cradle of civilisation, — that had attained at least a high formal maturity on the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile, ages before Agamemnon ruled in Mycenae, or Theseus drew the demi of Attica within the precincts of a common wall. Neither to Europe do we owe the fbntal precepts of religion and ethics, nor the germs of the arts which civilise life. In every one of these elements of social progression Asia and Aegypt took the lead. But, although neither the original parent nor the earliest nurse <^ civilisation, Europe has been for neariy 3000 years that portion of the world which has most actively, assiduously, and successfully cherbhed, advanced, and perfected these rudiments of moral, intellectual, and political cultivation. Of civil freedom it was the birthplace: neither of the sister continents, however mature may have been its peculiar civilisation, has ever possessed, without the aid of European contact and example, a community of free men, who distinguished the obedience which is due to law from the subservience which is paid to a master. And, possessing civil freedom, at least among its nobler and its governing races, Europe has carri^ to a higher stage of development every lesson and every art which it derived from other regions, and elevated the ^rpe and standard of humanity itself. Asia and Africa have generically receded from, and, in the majority of their races, lost sight of entir^y, the paths and the oonditioos of progressive civilisation. In these regions man is a weed. He is ruled in masses; he thinks in masses. His institutions, his- tories, and modes of fS&ith are unchanged through almost immemorial tracts of time. The opposite aspect presented by European civilisation may be ascribed, in the first place, to the physical advan- tagesi which we have enumerated, and which render EUBTMEDON. 885 our ooDtment the most uniformly habitable portion of the globe; (2) to the fact that our civilisati<ni received its original impulse from the S£. comer of Europe, where the Hellenic race, in the small com- pass of a few degrees of latitude, rehearsed, as it were, the forms of government, federalism, and nego< tiation, which were destined afterwards to be the principles or postulates of European policy; (3) to the circimistance that the Roman Empire, by its conquests and colonies, stamped a general impress of resemblance upon the&milies of Europe; and (4) that, as the ancient civilisation declineid, two new elements of life were infused into Europe, — a young and vigorous population from the North, and a purer and more comprehensive religion from the East. By the combination of these several elements our conti- nent alone has been advancing, while the sister divi- sions of the globe have receded; and it is a conse- quence of such advance and of such recession, that Europe has repaid with large interest its original debt of dvilisatdon to both Asia and Africa, and has become, in all the arts which elevate or refine our race, the instructor in place of the pupil. (See Bitter, Die Vorkalle EuropdiBcher Vmkerffetchickten^ &c 1820; Ukert, Gtographie der Griechen und Romer; Bennell, Geographjf of Herodotut^ 2nd ed., 2 vols. 8vo.; Donaldson, New CratyltUy 2nd ed., Varro- niatuUf 2nd ed.; Mrs. Somerville, Phyncdl Geo- graphy ^ 2 vols. 12mo. 2nd ed.; Ersch and Grtiber's Encydopadie, art Europa.) [W. B. D.] EURaPUS (EbfMoir6s, Strab. vii. p. 827), a town of Eraathia (PtoL iii. 18. § 39), between Idomene and the plains of Cyrrhus and Pella, probably situated on the right bank of the Azius below Idomene. Not far above the entrance of the great maritime plain, the site of Europus may perhaps hereafrer be recog- nised by that strength of position which enabled it to resist Sitalces and the Thracians. (Thuc. ii. 100.) We have the concurring testimony of Ptolemy (iii. 13. § 24) and Pliny (iv. 10) that this town of Emathia was dilTerent from Europus of Almopia, which latter town seems from Hierocles — who names Europus as well as Almopia among the towns of the ConsuUr Macedonia (a provincial division containing both Thessalonica and Pella) — to have been known in his time by the name of Almopia only : and hence we may infer that it was the chief town of the ancient district Almopia. (Leake, Northern Greece^ voL iii. p. 444.) [E. B. J.] EURO'PUS (JEvfWK6s, Ptol. vi. 2. § 17, viii. 21. § 11. ; Strab. zi. p. 524), a town in the north- eastern part of ancient Media Atropatene, according to Strabo, originally called Rhaga; it was rebuilt by Sel^ucus Nicator, and called by him Europus. Strabo considered it to be the same as the town called by the Parthians Arsacia. Colonel Rawlinson has identified it with the present VerAmmf at no great distance from the ancient Rhages {LILGeogr. Soc, z. p. 119). Isidore of Charaz, speaking of Dura, a city of Mesopotamia, states that it was built by Nicator and the Macedonians, and that it was called Europus. It is possible that he was con- founding it with either the Median or the Syriazi city of ^is name. EURO'TAS. [Lacokia.] EURYAMPUS (E^^s-os), a town of Magnesia in Thessaly, of uncertain site. (Lycophron, 900; Steph. B. 9. 0.) EURY'MEDON (J£6pvfi4^v), a river flowing in a due southern direction through Pisidia and Pam- pfaylisi in which latter country it was navigable; but 3lS