Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/257

 998 GERMANU INF. oessor Commodos, in a. d. 180, purchased a peace of the GermaoB, and gave np the farts which had heen bnilt along the Danube. Soon afterwards it was foond that the Roman dominion on the western bank of the Rhme also was not safe; for seyeral German tribes, especiaUy the Alemanni and Franks, harassed Gaul bj freqaent invasions, nntQ in the end Germany poured forth its hosts across the Rhine, the Dannbe, and the Alps, conquering Ganl, Italj, Spain, and even crossing over into Africa, and establishing a new kingdom on the rains of ancient Carthage. This happened towards the end of the 5th centnry; while somewhat eariier other tribes, such as the An- gli, Saxons, ahd Frisians, had crossed over into Britain, and, partly subduing and partly expelling the Celtic population, established in this island a new order of things, which lasted for upwards of five centuries. Nearly the whole of the west of Europe was thus governed by German tribes. Oar chief authorities among the ancients concern- ing the ethnography und geography of Gennany are Tacitus, especially in his Germania^ and Ptolemy. Fliny, too, who himself served in Germany (xvi. 1), famiahes much valuable information, although his great work in 20 books on the wars of the Romans with the Germans is lost Besides these, Strabo, Pytheas, Eratosthenes, Dion Gassius, Velleius Pater- culus, Suetonius, and others must be consulted. The works of modems, especially Germans, are almost countless; bat the principal <xies are Cluverins, Ger- mania Antiqua^ Lngd. Bat 1616, fol.; A. B. Wil- helm, Germanien «. teine Bewohner^ &c. Naumburg, 1823; Von Wersebe, Uber die Volker u. Volker- bOndniste dea alien DeuUchlandt^ Hanover, 1825; Zeuss, Die Deutsehen u, die Nachbarttamme ; Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie ; Latham's Prole- gomena and Epiiegomena, in his edition of Tacitns's Gemumia. An able statement of the results at which these and other inquirers have arrived is* contained in the Srd vol. of Forbiger's Handlnich der alten Geoffraphie^ Leipzig, 1848. [L. S.] GERMA'NIA INFE'RIOB. [Gaixia, p. 967.] GERMA'NIA SUPE'RIOB. [Galua, p. 967.J GERMANICOTOLIS (TtpfiovucdiroKis), a town in Bithynia, not far from Prusa, was in earlier times called Helgat or Booscoete (L e. fiobs fcolri}, Plin. V. 40). A second town of the same name (though PtoL, V. 4. § 5, calls it FfpfioySiroKis) is mentioned in Paphlagonia, not far from Gangra. (^NcveU, 29.) This town, like the one in Bithynia, appears to have been named after Germanicus, but none of the coins found on its site are older than the reign of M. Au> relius. A third Germanicopolis was a town in Isau- ria. (HierocL p. 709; Concil. Chalced. p. 659 ; Const Porphyr. de Them, i. 13.) [L.S.] GERMA'NICUM WlRE (Ttptxayuchs *CU€aM6s), the German Ocean, the sea between Great Britain in the west, and Belgiam, Holland, Germany, Den- mark, and Sweden in the east. (Plin. iv. 30 ; PtoL ii. 3. § 5, viii. 3. § 2, 6. § 2.) [L. S.] GERMA'NH (TtpfidMioi, Herod, i. 125), one of the three agricultund tribes of the ancient Persians, according to Herodotus. There has been much dis« pute among the learned who these people were. The probability seems to be, that they were con- nected with Cannania, now Airman. Agatharchides, indeed, calls the Carmania of Diodorus (zviii. 6) and Strabo (xiv. 723) by the name of Germania (Per^. M. E. p. 27). OUiers, with less probability, have connected the Germanii with a people N. of the Oxus, which was sometimes called Erman, and now GERRHA. bears the name Khawarezm, and bavesnppased tht they are the real ancestors of the modern Gennsm; but this is fiuidfuL (Hammer, Wien JaM. n. p. 319 ; Emsii Arddv, L 2. p. 124 ; Adelni^ MUA. i. p. 278.) [v.] GERMIHERA, a place in Dada which, £ram iti position in the Peutinger Table, xnitst be stngfat fer in the valley of the Man», possibly at Szutam^ where there are rains. It is the same as the Gar- migera of the Geographer of Ravenna, and the Z^ /il<Vya of Ptolemy (iii. 8. § 8). [E. B. J.] GERONTHRAE or G£RANTHRA£(rcp^»0K Pans. iu. 21. § 7, 22. § 6; V€p6jSpai, Pans. m. 1 §6; Steph. B. «.tF.; Ttpiv^pai, HieiocL 392, U: Eth. TtpovBpiirqs^ an ancient town of LacoDia,sitn- ated in a commanding poaition upon the sooth-ve^ em face <tf tiie mountain above the plain of ti» Eurotas. It is represented by GkerdH, a nnned town of the middle ages, the name of which is t oorrnptioa of Geronthrae, while its distance from the site of Acriae upon the coast correspoods to the ISO stadia mentioned by Pansanias. We karn from the same writer that Geronthrae poasessed a tonple ind grove of Ares, to whom a yearly festival wss cele- brated, from which women were excluded. Annad the agora there were fountains of potable water. On the acropolis stood a temple of Apolla (Paitt. E 22. §§ 6, 7 ; trrdka verpiya iv r^ Up^ ry tw northern side of the summit <rf^ the cxudd ore tfai remains of a very ancient wall: the podtion of tfae agonlis indicated by the fountains ^ water kmr down the hill. Geronthrae was one of the ancient Achaesn cita which resisted for a long time the Dorian ooDqoenis. It was at length taken and oolunised by the ^• tans, along with Amydae and Pharis. In the timt of the Roman emj^re it belcmged to the Eleotben^ Laoones. (Pans. iii. 2. § 6, 21. § 7, 22. § 6.) At the beginning of the fourtii century of the Chiifitiin era it most have been a market-town of some im- portance, since a Greek translation of the edict d Diocletian, " De Pretiis Bemm Venslium," bss been discovered at GherdkL In the middle ages i( ms the seat of a bishopric, and one of the most importiot places in the valley of the Eurotas. (Leake, Mont, vol. iii. p^ 7, PehpotmeriaeOj pp. 1 49, 362; Boblafo, RechercheSjffc, p. 95; Cjutiua, Pelaponnetot^ ToLil p. 302.) GERONTISARX. [Caspionis TrBBis.] GERRHA, GERRHAEI (T^ Pf^: EA. Fc/S/kuos), a town and people of Aiaiua FeUx, oo tiie Persian gulf (Ptol. vi. 7), between the Aetaeei oa the south, and the Themi on the north. Stnbo*s description is more foil and satisfactory tiun ssibL "When you have sailed along the coast of Anbis 2300 stadia (apparentiy from the month of tlw Persian gulf, to which he assigns a length of 1(^000 stadia), the city of Gerrha lies in a deep gulf, iHieie Chaldaean exiles from Babylon inhabit a salt cosb- try, having houses built of salt, the walls of vbicfa, when they are wasted by the heat of the son, u* repaired by copious applications of sea-water. Hm city is distant 200 stadia from the sea. The land- carriage of goods, especially of spceiy, is coodocted by the Gerrhaeans ; Aristobulos, on the antni^i says that they traffic with Babylon by baiiges, lod then sail up the Euphrates to Thapsacus, wiienM they commence the Iand>carriage in all directiflia- (Strab. xvi. p. 766.) Pliny (vi. 32) describes it » a city of 5 miles in circumiferenoe, with a tonr
 * KK6KX»voi, Bockh, Inecr, na 1334.) On tlie