Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/507

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ORCISTUS. through the ravine into the lower or northern plain, which is " the other Orchomenian plain " of Pau- sanias (viii. 13. § 4). After passing the ravine, at the distance of 3 stadia from Orchomenus, the road divides into two. One turns to the left along the northern side of the OrchomenLin acropolis to Ca- phyae, the other crosses the torrent, and passes under Mt. Trachy to the tomb of Aristocrates, be- yond which are the fountains called Teneiae (Te- yflai). Seven stadia further is a place called Amilus ('A/uiAos). Here, in ancient times, the road divided into two, one leading to Stymphalus and the other to Pheneus. (Paus. viii. 13. § 4, seq.) The above-mentioned fountains are visible just be- yond Trachy, and a little further are some Hellenic ruins, which are those of Amilus. (Dodwell, Clas- sical Tour, vol. ii. p. 425, seq. ; Leake, Morea, vol. iii. p. 99, seq. ; Boblaye, Recherches, ^c. p. 149 ; Curtius, Peloponnesos, vol. i. p. 219, seq.) 3. A town in Thessaly. [See above, p. 487.] 4. A town in Euboea near Carystus. (Strab. ix. p. 416.) ORCISTUS, a town in the north-east of Phrygia, near the borders of Galatia. It was the see of a bishop {Geogr. Sacr. p. 256; Concil. Chalced.; Tab. Peuiing). It is placed by Col. Leake (^Asia Minor, p. 71), on the authority of an inscription found there by Pococke, at Alekiam, and, perhaps more cor- rectly, by Hamilton (^Researches, i. p. 446) about 3 or 4 miles to the south-east of the village of Alekiam, where considerable remains of antiquity are found. [L. S.] ORDESUS. [IsiACORUM Portus.] ORDESUS. [Odessus.] ORDESSUS ("OpSeo-o-os, Herod, iv. 48), an af- fluent of the Ister, which the commentators usually identify with the Sereth. (Schafarik, Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 506.) [E. B. J.] ORDOVICES ('OpSoJiVes, Ptol. ii. 3. § 18), a people on the W. coast of Britannia Romana, op- posite to the island of Mona. They occupied the NV. portion of Wales, or that lying between Car- digan Bay and the river Dee, viz., Montgomei-y- shire, Merionethshire, Caernarvonshire, Denbigh- shire, and Flintshire. (Camden, p. 777; Tac. Ann. xii. .33, Agric. 18.) [T. H. D.] ORESCII (^Opp-haKioi), a people of Macedonia or Thrace, known only from their coins. These have been by some writers referred to the Orestae ; but it is more probable, as suggested by Leake, that they were one of the Thracian tribes who worked the silver mines of Pangaeum; a circumstance which will account for our finding silver coins of large size and in considerable numbers struck by a people so obscure that their name is not mentioned by any ancient author (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 213, Numismata Ilellenica, p. 81.) The coins in question, one of which is annexed, closely resemble in style and fabric those of the Bisaltae and Edoni in the same neighbourhood. [E. H. B.] ORETUM GERMANORUM. 491 COIN OF ORESCII. ORESTAE ('OpeVrai, Hecat. ap. Steph. B. s. v.; Thuc. ii. 80 ; Polyb. xviii. 30 ; Strab. vii. p. 326, ix. p. 434; Plin. iv. 17), a people who are shown by Thucydides {I. c.) to have bordered upon the Macedonian Paravaei, and who partly, perhaps, as having been originally an Epirote tribe (Steph. B. s. V. terms them a Molossian tribe), were united with the other Epirots, under their prince Antiochus, in support of the expedition of Cnemus and the Ara- braciots against Acarnania. Afterwards they were incorporated in the Macedonian kingdom. In the peace finally granted to Philip, b c. 196, by the Romans, the Orestae were declared free, because they had been the first to revolt. (Liv. xxxiii. 34.) Okestis ("OpeffTis. Ptol. iii. 13. §§ 5, 22; Steph. B. s. v.; Liv. xxvii. 33, xxxi. 40) or Orestls ('OpecTTios, Strab. vii. p. 326), was the name given to the district which they occupied, which, though it is not named by Livy and Diodorus among the countries which entered into the composition of the Fourth ]Iacedonia, was probably included in it, be- cause the greater part, at least, of Orestis was situ- ated to the E. of Pindus. This subdivision of Upper Macedonia is represented by the modern districts of Grdmista, Anaselitza, and Kastoria. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 305, vol. iv. pp. 121 — 124.) [E. B.J.] ORESTHA'SIUJI (^OpiaOdawv, Paus.; 'Ope- (Tdeiov, Thuc; 'Opfffrftov, Her., Eur.), a town in the south of Arcadia, in the district ofMaenalia, a little to the right of the road, leading from Jlegalopolis to Pallantium and Tegea. Its inhabitants were re- moved to Megalopolis on the foundation of the latter city. Its territory is called Oresthis by Thucydides (iv. 134), and in it was situated Ladoceia, which became a suburb of ]Iegalopolis. [Ladoceia.] Leake places Oresthasium at or near the ridge of Tzimbaru, and conjectures that it may have occu- pied the site of tlie village of Marmara or Marmii- ria, a name often attached in Greece to places where ancient wrought or sculptured stones have been found. (Paus. viii. 44. § 2, comp. viii. 3. § 1, 27. § 3, 39. § 4 ; Herod, ix. 1 1 ; Plut. Arist. 10 ; Thuc. v. 64; Eurip. Orest. 1642, Electr. 1274: Steph. B. s. v.; Leake, Peloponnesiaca, p. 247.) ORESTHIS. [Ouestilvsiuji.] ORE'STIS. [Okestae.] OKE'STIAS. [Hadrianopolis, No. 1.] ORETA'NI ('np-nrayoi, Ptol. ii. 6. § 59), a powerful people in the S. of Hispania Tanaconensis, inhabiting the territory E. of Baetica, as iar as Car- thago Nova, and spreading to the N. beyond tlie river Anas. The Baetis flowed through their country in its earliest course. (Polyb. x. 38, xi. 30; Strab. iii. pp. 152, 156; Plin. iii. 3. s. 4; Liv. xxi. 11, XXXV. 7.) Thus they inhabited the E. part of Granada, the whole of Mancha. and the W. jiart of Murcia. Their chief city was Castulo, now Cazlona. ['l'- H. D.] ORE'TUM GERMANO'RUM (^CiptiTov Tfpfia- vuv, Ptol. ii. 6. § 59). Germani was another name for the Oretani (" Oretani, qui et Germani nomi- nantur," Plin. iii. 3. s. 4), and Oretum was one of their towns; probably the Orisia of Artemidorus, quoted by Steph. B. (.?. v.), and the Oria of Strabo (iii. p. 152). It has been identified with Granatula, a village near Almnyro, where there is a hermitage still called De Onto, and clase by several ruins, a Roman bridge, &c. (Morales, Ant. p. 8, b., p. 76, a.; Florez, £sp. S. vii. p. 255; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. K p. 152.) [T.H.D.]