Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/61

 802 EOBATANA. Eclatini, or seven-WBlled city " (ii. c. 84 ; compare also Steph. Bys. s. v. Gazaca, who qaotes Qoadratns, an author <i the saoond centniyf for the name of what he ealls " the largest city in Media," and Arrian, who terma it " a Urge Tillage*^. Doling the aera of the Parthian emfure, and its conflicts with the Boman power, Col. BawJinaon proTes, as we think, satiafiuN- torily, that the names Pbraata, Praaspa, Vera, Gaza, and Gazaca are used indi£Eerently for one and the same city. (C(Mnpare, for this portion of the history, Plut Anton.; Dion Cass. xlix. 26— ai; Appian, Eitt. Parth, pp, 77, 80, ed. Schweigh.; Floras, if. 10; and for the names of Gaza and Vera, and the distinction between them, Strab. zi. p. 523.) The next point is to oompare the distances mentioned in ancient authors. Now Stmbo states that Gazaca was 2400 stadia from the Arazes (zi. p. 528), a distance equivalent to about 280 English miles ; while Pliny, in stating that Ecbatana, the capital of Media founded by Saleucus, was 750 miles from Seleuoeia and 20 from the Caspian gates, has evi- dently confounded Ecbatana with Europus (now Ver&min) (vi 14. a. 17). The former measure CoL Bawlinson shows is perfectly consistent with the position of TcMt-i-iSoldm&n, Colonel Bawlinson demonstrates next, that the capital of Media Atro- patene was in the moat ancient periods called Ecbatana — assuming, what is certainly probable, that the dynasty fovmded by Arbaces was different from that whidi, according to Herodotus, com- mennd with Deioces, a oentuxy later. Arbaoes, on the foil of Nineveh, conveyed the treasures he found there to Ecbatana, the seat royal of Media, and it 18 clear that here the Ecbatana of Media Magna ia meant (Died, it 3.) To the same place beloaga the story of Semiramis, also recorded by Diodcnrns, and previoodly mentioned. After £ve generatiaos Artaeus ascends the throne at the same ]4ttce. During hb nign the Cadusians (who are constantly associated with the Atoopatenians in subsequent his- tory) revolt, under the leadership of Parsodes. Colonel Bawlinson hap^ly suggests that this is no other than the Deiooea of Herodotua, Parsodes or Phrazad being an affiliative epithet fhnn hia father Phraortes. (Diod.-i(.c.; Herod, i. 95— 130.) When we examine the narrative of Herodotus, it is clear that he is speaking of some piaoe in Atropatene or Northern Media. Thus he atates that ^the pas- turtt where they Jcept the royal cattle were at the foot of the mountains north of Agbatana, towards the Enxine sea. In this quarter, toward the Sapirea, Media is an elevated country, filled with mountiuns and covered with forests, while the other parte of the province are open and champaign." (Herod. L c. 110.) Colonel Bawlinson then shows that the existing state of Takht'i^Soleimdn bears testimony to the accurate information which Berodotua had obtained. It is dear from his account that the Agbatana of Deioces was believed to be an embattled conical hill, on which was the citadel, and the town was round its base in the plain below. Culonel Bawlinson adds that there is no other position in Azerbdfjin which corresponds with this statement, except Tahht-iSoiemdn, and cites abundant evi- dence from the Zend Avesta, aa compared with the Byzantine and other writers to whom we have al- luded, in reference to pecuUaritiea, too important to have been only imagined, which mark out and de- termine this locality. It is impossible here to state his arguments in thdr fulness; but we may add that from the Zend he obtains the word Var, the ECETBA. not of the fidptt of the Greeks (sea HesydL anl Suidas, s. r.), which is constantly need to denote the Treasure Citadel of Ecbatana; of the Vera of Stiabo; of the Bakroth (i. e. Vara-rdd| river of Vara) of Theophylact, whence we have Bopi^fiar — the keeper of the Baria — the title naed by this emperor Hcn^ cliua in reference to the governor of the fortrm qjT this veiy place. In coodnsion, Cdond Bawlinsoii suggests that the Ecbatana of Pliny and JoBsphas refers to the Treasure Citadel of PerKpdIia; that there are grounds for auppoaing a similar treanuy to have existed in the stroog potataon of the Sjriaa Ecbatana on Mount Camel (HeraA. ju. 62—64; Plin. V. 19. § 17); and Unit,. if thereew wm (» some have supposed) an Assyrian place of the same name (Bidi, KurdUUm, i. p. 153), the oastie of Amadiyih — which, according to Mr. Layard (L y. 161), retains the local name of Ek.badaS'-wfll best suit it (See also «/btima/o/'j£(liieale, on a road from Angora to Tanriom, but it is the only name in whidi the two Itincnriei agree. The pkoe is within the limits of Oalatia, in Asia Minor, and an instance of a name with thi Gallic termination lurigcL. £0. L.] ECDIPPA (*E4dMinra), a maritiroe toam of PSr lestine, identical with the Scripture Acrzib (JcA. six. 29, *ExoC(^ LXX.), in the borders of Asber. Ill ruins were first identified by MaQndroll<(A.i>. 1697) near the aea-shore, about 3 honn north of Aen, which he thus describes : **We passed by an old ftom called Zih, situated on an ascent doae byihe seaaid& This may probably be the old Achaib mendooed is Joshua, xlx. 29 and Judges, L31., called aftenmdi Ecdippa: for St. Jerome plaoea Achzib nine milei distant from Ptolemaia towards Tyn^ to whick account we found the situation of 2ih esactif agreeing. This is one of the places out of which the Ashurites could not expd the Canaanidsh oatifeB.* (JotiTMy, p. 53). Theltiaerarium Hiemolymitsmim plaoea it 12 miles to the north of Ptolemais (ilere), and as many south of AJezandroachene, the modem Iskanderunm, [O. W.] ECETBA CEx^P<^ Dionys., St^ B,: £A. 'Excrpoy^t, Eoetranus), an ancient dty of tfas Volscians, which figures repeatedly in the wbtb of that people with the Bomans, but aabsequently die- appean from history; and its atoation h wholly un> certain. Its name is first mentioned by Diooyshis during the reign of Tarquinius Snpei^us, when, ac* cording to him, the-Eoetrani and Anriatw were the only two Volsdan states which agreed to join the league of the Latins and Hemicaori mider that monarch. (Dionys. iv. 49.) Niebnhr, howanr, con- ceives this statement to belong in reali^ to a moeh kter period (voL u. p. 257). In b.€. 495, aftff the capture of 8uessa Pometia, the "Ecetcam Volsd " are mentioned as scadmg ambaasadon to Borne to sue for peace, whidi they obtained oolj by the cession of a part of their territoiy. This «ai immediate^ occupied by Boman oolonistB, a drcnm- stanoe which the Anruncans are said to have made a pretext for declaring war upon Bome two yean aAai^ warda. (Lit. iL 25; Dionys. vi. 32.) A^un,dari«| the great Volsdan war, snppoaed to have been eoa* ducted by Coridamia, Eoetim apfiaan aa anini|ntai^