Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/55

 796 DYBRHACfflUM. according to the nsnal practice, was taken from the mother-citj Corinth. (Thnc. i. 24 — ^26.) Hence the Corinthians acquired a right to interfere, which afterwaitis led to important practical consequences. Owing to its favourable position upon the AdriatiC| and fertile territory, it soon acquired considerable wealth, and was thlcklj peopled. The goTemment was a close oligarchy; a single magistrate, similar to the " Cosmopolis " at Opns, was at the head of the administration. The chiefiEi of the tribes formed a kind of council, while the arti* sans and tradesmen in the town were looked upon as slaves belonging to the public. In process of time, probably a little before the Peloponnesian War, in- testine dissensions broke up this oligarchy. The original " archon " remained, but the *^ phylarchs " were replaced by a senate chosen on democratical principles. (Anst. PoL ii. 4. § 13, ill. 11. § 1, iv. 33. § 8, T. 1. § 6, ▼. 3. § 4; MflUer, Dor, vol. ii. p. 160, trans.; Grote, Greece^ vol. iii. p. 546.) The government was Uberal in the admissioo of resident aliens; but all individual dealing with the neigh- bouring Illyrians was forbidden, imd the traffic was earned on by means of an authorised selling agent, or ** Poletes." (Pint. QuaesL Graec. c 29, p. 297 ; Aelian, V. H. ziii. 16.) The trade was not however confined to the inland tribes, but extended across fh>m sea to sea, even before the construction of the Egnatian Way, and an Inscription (Boeckh, Corp. Inter. No. 2056) proclaims the gratitude of Odessus la the Euxine sea towards a citizen of Epidamnus. The dispute respecting this city between Corinth and Corcyra was occasioned by a contest between the oligarchical exiles, who had been driven out by an internal sedition, and the Epidamnian democracy, in which the Corinthians supported the former. The history of this struggle has been fully given by Thu- eydides (jL c), in consequence of its intimate con- nection with the origin of the Peloponnesian War, but we are left in ignorance of its final issue. Nor is anything known of its further history till 312 b. c, when, by the assistance of the Corcyraeans, Glau- cias, king of the lUyrians, made hunself master of Epidamnus. (Diod. xix. 70, 78.) Some years afterwards it was surprised by a party of Illyrian pirates; the inhabitants, on recovering from their first alarm, fell upcm their assailants, wad succeeded in driving them from the walls. (Polyb. ii. 9.) Not long afler, the Illyrians returned with a powerful fieet, and laid siege to the town; but fortunately for the city, the arrival of the Roman consul compelled the enemy to make a hasty retreat Epidamnus from this time placed itself under the protection of the Romans, to whose cause it appears to have constantly adhered, both in the Illyrian and Mace- donian wars. (Polyb. ii. 1 1 ; Liv. xxix. 12, xliv. 30.) At a later period, Dyrrhachium, as it was then called, and a free state (Cic. ad Fam, xiv. 1), be- came the scene of the contest between Caesar and Pompeins. The latter moved from Thessalonica, and threw himself before Dyrrfaachram; the Pom> peians entrenched themselves on the right bank of the Apsus, so effectually that Caesar was obliged to take up his position on the left, and resolved to pass the winter under canvass. This led to a series of pemarkable operations, the result of which was that the great captain, in spite of the consummate ability he displayed in the foce of considerable superiority in numbers and position, was compelled to leave Dyrrha* chium to Pompeius, and try the fortune of war upon ft second field. (Caesar, JB. C7. iiL 42 — 76 ; Appian, DYSPONTIUK B. C. ii. 61 ; Dion Cass. xli. 49 ; Lucan, vi. 29—63.) Dyrrhachium sided with M. Antonius during the last civil wars of the RepubHc, and was aftenraids presented by Augustus to his soldiers (Dion Can. iL 4), when the Illyrian peasants learned the rudi- ments of munidpal law firom the vetenms of the empire. The inhabitants, whose patron deit^ vis Venus (CatulL Carm, xxxiv. 1 1), were, if we maj believe Plautns (^Menaechm, act ii. sc. i. 30 — 40), a vicious and debauched race. The city itself, under the Lower Roman Empire, became the capital of the new province, Epirns Nova (Marquardt, Hand' buck der Rom, Alt p. 1 15), and is mentioned by the Byzantine historians as being still a coosidenblB place in their time (Cedren. p. 703; Nioeph. Callist xvii. 3). Gibbon (Z>0clm«afMiFaZ;, vol. v.- pp.345 — 349; oomp. Le Beau, Jiat JE'mptre, vol. XV. pp. 133 — 145) has told the story of the memo- rable siege, battle, and capture of Dyrrfaachinm,wlMQ the Norman Robert Guiscard defeated the Greeb and their emperor Alexins, A.D. 1081 — 1082. The modem Dvragto refn^sents this place; the sur- rounding country is described as being highly at- tractive, though unhealthy. (^Atbamm^ Snmdia^ und die Oesterreichiach Monlenegriiche GrSne, Jos. Mfiller, Prag. 1844, p. 62.) There are a gnit number of autonomous a»ns belonging to this d^, none however under the name of Epidamnus, bat always with the ^graph ATP, or more nrelv ATPA, — the type^ as on the coins of Corcyra, a cow suckling acalf; ontiie reverse, the gardens of Aldnons. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 155.) [E. B. J.] COIN OF DTBRHACHIUM. DYRTA (tA A^pro, Arrian, iv. 30), a small town in the country of the Aasacani, in the western Panjab, visited by Alexander the Great, [V.] DYSCRUM (A^fltpoi'), a mountain, the situation of which depends upon that of the lake Pnsias and the extent that should be assigned to the Macedonia of Herodotus (v. 17), in his description of the em- bassy sent by Mogabazus to Amyntas I., king of Macedonia. By Macedonia, Herodotus probably meant the kingdom of his own time, or at least that of AmyntaS) who had already made great advances to the Strymon. Prasias will then be the same as the lake Cercinitis, and Dysomm that part of the mountain range towards Sokhii which separates the Strymonic plain from those that extend to Thessa- lonica and the Axius. (Leake, Northern Greece^ vol. iii. p. 210, iv. p. 581.) [E. B. J.] DYSPO'NTIUM (Aucnrrfrrioi' : Eth, Awnrer- Ti«vs), an ancient town, in the territoiy' of Pisa, said to have been founded by a son of Oenamaos, is described by Strabo as situated in the ]dain on the road from Elis to Olympia. It hty north of the Alpheius, not far from the sea, and probably near the modem l^saphidL Being destroyed by the Eleians in their war with the Pisatae [Eua], its inhabitants removed to Apollonia and Epidamnus. (Strab. viu. p. 357 ; Pans. vi. 22. § 4 ; Steph. B. t, v.; Cnrtios, P^oponnuoSf vol iL p. 73.)