A Smaller Classical Dictionary Of Biography, Mythology And Geography

PREFACE. present

work

designed to supply a want which

is

our School Classical Literature.

It

still

exists in

has been represented to the editor,

from several quarters, that his Larger Classical Dictionary, though well adapted for the use of the higher forms in the public schools, cluded, both by

its size

and

price,

are therefore obliged to put

obsolete work.

is

ex-

from a great number of schools, which

up with the abridgments of Lempriere's

In consequence of these representations, the editor has

been induced to draw up this Smaller Dictionary.

All names have been

which a young person would be likely to meet with at the commencement of his classical studies; and only those have been omitted which occur in later writers, or in works not usually read in schools.

inserted

The

quantities

serted.

have been carefully marked, and the gonitive

The mythological

from ancient works of

art, for

ful pencil of his friend,

presume too

which the

much on

Roman

cases in-

have been illustrated by drawings editor is indebted to the skill-

Mr. George Scharf.

Dictionary of Greek and to

articles

In

this,

as in the Smaller

Antiquities, care has been taken not

the knowledge of the reader.

It is therefore

hoped that these two works may be used conjointly with advantage, even in schools where Latin and Greek are not taught.

WILLIAM SMITHB

SMALLER CLASSICAL DICTIONARY. ABACAENUM.

ABORIGINES.

ABACAENUM (-i), an

the mere sight of it could reduce a revolted people to submission. ABDERA (-ae and orum), a town of ABAE (-arum), an ancient town of Phocis, Thrace, near the mouth of the Nestus, which on the boundaries of Boeotia; celebrated for flowed through the town. It was colonized an ancient temple and oracle of Apollo, who by Timesius of Clazomenae about B.O. 656, hence derived the surname of Aba&us. and a second time by the inhabitants of Teos ABANTES, the ancient inhabitants of Eu- in Ionia, who settled there after their own town had been taken by the Persians, B.O. 544. boea. They are said to have been of Thracian origin, to have first settled in Phocis, It was the birthplace of Democritus, Protagwhere they built Abae, and afterwards to oras, Anaxarchus, and other distinguished have crossed over to Euboea. The Abantes men ; but its inhabitants, notwithstanding, of Euboea assisted in colonizing several of were accounted stupid, and an "Abderite" was a term of reproach. the Ionic cities of Asia Minor. ABELLA or AVELLA (-ae), a town of ABANTIADSS (-ae), any descendant of but Abas, especially Perseus, great-grandson Campania, not far from Nola, founded by the of Abas, and Acrisius, sou of Abas. A female Chalcidians in Euboea. It was celebrated for descendant of Abas, as Danae and Atalante, its apples, whence Virgil calls it imalif&ra. was called Abantias. ABGARUS, ACBARUS, or AUGARUS (-i), ABARlS (-is), a Hyperborean priest of a name common to many rulers of Edessa, the from the the came about capital of the district of Osrhoene in Mesopocountry Apollo, Caucasus to Greece, while his native land was tamia. Of these rulers one is supposed by visited by a plague. His history is entirely Eusebius to have been the author of a letter mythical : he is said to have taken no earthly written to Christ, which he found in a church food, and to have ridden on an arrow, the at Edessa and translated from the Syriac. of Apollo, through the air. He may per- The letter is believed to be spurious. gift haps be placed about B.O. 570. ABIA (-ae), a town, of Messenia, on the ABAS (-antis). (1) Son of Metanira, was Messenian gulf.

Siculi in Sicily, daris.

W.

ancient town of the of Messaua, and S. of Tyn-

.

changed by Demeter (Ceres) into a lizard, because he mocked the goddess when she had come on her wanderings into the house of his mother, and drank eagerly to quench her thirst (2) Twelfth king of Argos, son of Lynceus and Hypermnestra, grandson of Danaus, and father of Acrisius and Proetus. When he informed his father of the death of Danaus, he was rewarded with the shield of his grandfather, which was sacred to Hera (Juno). This shield performed various marvels, and

ABII, a tribe mentioned by Homer, and apparently a Thracian people. ABILA (-orum), a town of Coele-Syria, afterwards called Claudiopolis, and the capital of the tetrarchy of Abilene (Luke iii. 1). ABN6BA MONS (-ae), the range of hills covered by the Black Forest in Germany, not a single mountain.

ABORIGINES tants, of

(-urn), the original inhabia country, equivalent to the Greek

ABORRHAS,

Amphoterus. Their father was murdered by Phegeus when they were very young but as soon as they had grown up, they slew Phegeus, his wife, and his two sons. They afterwards went to Epirus, where Acarnan found-

Autochthones. But the Aborigines in Italy are not in the Latin writers t)ae original inhabitants of all Italy, but the name of an ancient people who drove the Siculi out of Latium, and there became the progenitors of theLatini. ABORRHAS, a branch of the Euphrates, joining that river on the E. side near Arce-

sium

;

called the

;

ed the state called after him Acarnania. ACARNANIA (-ae), the most westerly province of Greece, bounded on the N. by the Ambracian gulf; on the W. and S.W. by the Ionian sea on the N.E. by Amphilochia, which is sometimes included in Acarnania and on the E. by Aetolia, from which, at a. later time, it was separated by the Achelous. The name of Acarnania does not occur in Homer. In the most ancient times the land was inhabited by the Taphii, Teleboae, and Lelcgcs, and subsequently by the Curetes. At a later time a colony from Argos, said to have been led by AOARNAN, settled in the country. In the seventh century B.O. the Corinthians founded several towns on the coast. The Acarnanians first emerge from obscurity at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, B.O. 431. They were then a rude people, living by piracy and robbery, and they always remained behind the rest of the Greeks in civilization and re-

Araxes by Xenophon.

ABSYRTUS

or APSYRTUS (-i), son of Aeetes, king of Colchis, whom Medea took with her when she fled with Jason. Being pursued by her father, she murdered her brother, cut his body in pieces, and strewed them on the road, that her father might be detained by gathering the limbs of his child. Tomi, the place where this horror was comto have derived its name mitted, was believed " cut." from

;

;

(T