Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/242

 GEDROSIA. — these are probably the Bala or JBrahtU Ifdun- tamt; and to the W. an extensive range, which was the boundary of the province in 3ib direc- tion of Caramania, the Penici Monies (now Bush' htrd or Burkind Mountama), There were few riven in Gedroeia, and these chiefly mountain tor- rents, or little better, which in the summer were almost diy or lost in the sands. The best known appears to be the Arabia (now Pnrali) ( Arrian, IntL oc 23,23) [ArabisJ, which enters the Indian Ocean about 90 miles to the W. of the mouths of the Indus : there are two smaller streams mentioned in ancient anthom, one the Nabrus, which Pliny calls a navi- gable river (vi. 23, 26), and which may, perhaps, be the modem Dustee or Bkuffumr (Bumes* Map), and Tomerus (Arrian, IwL c. 24), or Tuberum flu- men (Plin. vi. 23, 26), probably die modem BhtuuL Karcian and Ptolemy mention several other rivers ; but these are probably only small streams, and no- thing is known of them but their names. The character of Gedrosia seems to have been for the most part unfruitful, owing to the heat of the climate and the scarcity of water for irrigation. Arrian, however, and Strabo mention that it pro- duced many rare plants, such as myrrh, spikenard, and difi'erent kinds of palms. Aristobulus (ap. Arrian^ ri. e. 22) speaks of the vast quantities of the Arabian myrtle (jtv^!>a) which the soldiers of Alexander met with, and states that the Phoenician merchants came thither to collect the gum of tliis shrub, which grew there to a grt'at size Besides this, were some species of spikenard and laurels, from which the Phoenicians also procured sweet- scented gums, and a plant armed with Uioms bo sharp tiiat hares mnning through them are cften caught by them (cactus). The inhabitants of the country ccHistracteid their huts of shells, and covered them (for roofs) vrith the bones of ii.sh (Arrian, vL c 23), and probably subsisted, like their neighbours the Ictbyophagi, chiefly upon fish. There was a current story there that Semiramis, on her return from India, lost all her army, except twenty, in tra- versing Gedrosia, and that Cyrus escaped through the same district with seven only. (Arrian, vi. 24.) Arrian has described with much minuteness the dif- ficulties under which Alexander himself laboured. The Gedrosii appear to have been an Arianian race, akin to the Arachosii, Arii, and DrangianL They are first known to us by Alexander's invasion; but they do not seem to have been completely sub- dued by him : hence it is that very little is known of their political state. At the same time, it must be borne in mind, that between the time of Alexan- der and Ptolemy many changes may have taken place in the country, and that a district which Alexander and hb generals found nearly devoid of towns may, in later times, have had all the cities which Ptolemy enumerates, but which we are not now able to identify. A considerable number of the places along the coast have been satisfactorily made out by Dr. Vincent ( Voyage ofNtarchus), with the aid of some modem surveys. At the time of Ne- archus*s voyage and Alexander's march, the people were apparently under the government of a number of petty chieftains, who roled the different districts which are mentioned in the accounts we have of those expeditions. Along the coast we find (to pro- ceed from £. to W.) the districts named Saranga, •Sacala, and Morontobaca, between the Indus and the Arabis (Arrian, Ind. xxii,), with a harbour in the last called TvwoMw XifnllVf mentioned also by Marcian GBTLA. 98;| (p. 24) and Ptolemy (vL 21. § 2). Then follow the Arabitae, along the banks of the Arabis; and Oreitae, Orae, On, or Horitae, like the last, a people said to be of Indian extracti<x). (Strab. xv. p. 720; Arrian, ItuL 23, Anab. vl 22 ; Curt ix. 10.) The hmd of the last tribe produced com, wine^ rice, aid dates. Nearchus founded, at the mouth of the Tomerus {Bhutu[)f a town which bore in after-times the name of Oraea ('Opoia), — now Urmara (PteripL M, Er, p. 21), to serve as a port of export for the surround- ing country. D'Anrille has suggested Hour as its rejnresentative. Vincent rejects the position of Oraia as given by the author of the Periplus altogether. ( Voy, of NearchtUf vol. i. p. 218.) At no great distance from, and perhaps within the limits of, the same tribe was Khambacia ('Poft^oxfa), which Alexander considered so well placed that he ordered Hephaestion to establish a colony .there. (Arrian, vi. 21, 22.) Mannert supposes this b now Haur (v. 2. § 13); others, that it is represented by Kani' gkur. To the W. commenced the territories of another tribe, the Ichthyophagi (Arrian, Ind, c. 26), who lived, as their name indicates, along the sea- board of the land. Their territory was probably a long narrow strip of land (Strab. xv. p. 720), and containing a few places, for the most part only small flashing villages (Arrian, Ind, 26 ; Plin. vi. 23. s.26). Still fttither to the W. are several towns enumerated by Arrian, and indicative of a more fraitful and habitable soil; as, Balonmm, Dcndrobosa, Cyiza, Canasis or Canasida, Troesa, and Dagasiris. The author of the Periplus (p. 18) adds another town, which appears to have had some importance in his time as an emporium, Omana (ra "Ofuiya), men- tioned also by Murcian (p. 22), and perhaps the same which Ptoltmy mentions under the name of Com- mana (vi. 8. § 7). In the interior of Gedrosia Alexander met with a large place, which, from the description, M-ould seem to have been a sort of metropolb, called Pura (IIovpo, Arrian, vi. 24). Forbiger supposes that this town b represented by the modem Btm-pur: Wilson {Ariana, p. 158), that it may be Fuhra — a place vbited hj Major Pottinger in hb joumey through thb country. Major Pottinger's town would, however, seem to be too far inland to answer the description in Arrian. Pura, as a word of Sanscrit origin, signifying " town, may, after all, have only meant "the city," as the chief place of the neighbourhood. [V.] GEIDUNI or GEIDUMNI, a people mentioned by Caesar as dependent on the Belgian nation of the Nerviu The reading of the name is not quite cer- tain (Caes. B. G, v. 39., ed. Schneid.), and the po- sition of the people b unknown. [G. L.] GElRorGlRFL. [Libya.] GELA (PcAa: Eth, UK^o%, Gelensb: Terra- iMwa), one of the most important Greek cities of Sicily, situated on the S. coast of the bland, between Agrigentum and Camarina, and at the mouth of the river of the same name. It was founded, as we learn from Thucydides, forty-four years after the foundation of Syracuse, or b. a 690, by a joint colony of Cretans and Bhodians under the guidance of Antiphemus of Rhodes and Entimus of Crete. The Rh(Mlbn colo- nbts came, for the most part, from Lindus; hence the spot on which the new city was finst built ob- tained the name of Lindii, by which it continued to be known in the days of Thucydides, though the city itself acquired that of Gela, from the river of that name on the banks of which it was situated. (Thuc. vi. 4 ; Herod. vU. 153; Schol. ad Pmd, OL ii. 16 ; Diod. Sr 4