they lived, and who were supposed to preserve the innocence of a state of nature; and of them, therefore, he speaks collectively by epithets suited to such descriptions, and, among the rest, as άβίος, poor, with scanty means of life (from α and βίος). The people thus described answer to the later notions respecting the Hyperboreans, whose name does not occur in Homer. Afterwards, the epithets applied by Homer to this supposed primitive people were taken as proper names, and were assigned to different tribes of the Scythians, so that we have mention of the Scythae Agavi, Hippemolgi, Galactophagi (and Galactopotae) and Abii. The last are mentioned as a distinct people by Aeschylus, who prefixes a guttural to the name, and describes the Gabii as the most just and hospitable of men, living on the self-sown fruits of the untilled earth ; but we have no Indication of where he placed them (Prom. Solut. Fr. 184). Of those commentators, who take the word in Homer for a proper name, some place them in Thrace, some in Scythia, and some near the Amazons, who in vain urged them to take part in an expedition against Asia (Eustath. ad Il. 1 c. p. 916; Steph. Byz. l. c.); in fact, like the correspondent fabulous people, the Hyporborei, they seem to have been moved back, as knowledge advanced, further and further into the unknown regions of the north. In the histories of Alexander's expedition we are told that ambassadors came to him at Maracanda (Samarkand) from the Abii Scythae, a tribe who had been independent since the time of Cyrus, and were renowned for their just and peaceful character (Arrian. Anab. iv. 1 ; Q. Curt. vii. 6); but the specific name of the tribe of Scythians who sent this embassy is probably only an instance of the attempts made to illustrate the old mythical geography by Alexander's conquests. In these accounts their precise locality is not indicated: Ammianus Marcellmus places them N. of Hyrcania (xxiii. 6). An extended discussion will be found in Strabo of the various opinions respecting the Abii up to his time (pp. 296, 303, 311, 553; Droysen, in the Rhein. Mus. vol. ii. p. 92, 1834).[ P. S. ]
Belleye has written a dissertation in the Transactions of the Academy of Belles Lettres to prove that this Abila is the same with Leucas on the river Chrysorrhoas which at one period assumed the name of Claudiopolis, as we learn from some coins described by Eckhel. The question is much complicated by the circumstance that medals have been preserved of a town in Code-Syria called Abila Leucas, which, as can be demonstrated from the pieces themselves, must have been different from Abila Lysaniae. (Eckhel, vol. iii. pp. 337, 345; Ptol. v. 15. § 22; Plin. v. 18; Antonin. Itiner. pp. 198, 199, ed. Wessel.)[ W. R. ]
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have extended S. and SE. of Damascus as far as the borders of Galilaea, Batanaea, and Trachonitas. Abilene, when first mentioned in history, was governed by a certain Ptolemaeus, son of Mennaeus, who was succeeded, about B.C. 40, by a son named Lysanias. Lysanias was put to death in B.C. 33, at the instigation of Cleopatra, and the principality passed, by a sort of purchase apparently, into the hands of one Zenodorus, from whom it was transferred (B.C. 31) to Herod the Great. At the death of the latter (A. D. 3) one portion of it was annexed to the tetrarchy of his son Philip, and the remainder bestowed upon that Lysanias who is named by St. Luke (iii. 1). Immediately after the death of Tiberius (A.D. 37), Caligula made over to Herod Agrippa, at that time a prisoner in Rome the tetrarchy of Philip and the tetrarchy of Lysanias, while Claudius, upon his accession (A.D. 41), not only confirmed the liberality of his predecessor towards Agrippa, but added all that portion of Judaea and Samaria which had belonged to the kingdom of his grandfather Herod the Great,together (says Josephus) with Abila, which had appertained to Lysanias (Άβιλαν δέ τήν Λυσανίου), and the adjoining region of Libanus. Lastly, in A. D. 53, Claudius granted to the younger Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip with Batanaea and Trachonitis and Abila— Λυσανία δέ αβτη έγεγόνες τετραρχία (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 4. § 4, 7. § 4, xviii. 7. § 10, xix. 5. § 1, xx. 6. § 1, B. J. i. 13. § 1, xx. 4.) Josephus, at first sight, seems to contradict himself, in so far in that in one passage (Ant. xviii. 7. § 10) he represents Caligula as bestowing upon Herod Agrippa the tetrarchy of Lysanias, while in another (Ant. xix. 5. § 1) he states that Abila of Lysanias was added by Claudius to the former dominions of Agrippa, but, in reality, these expressions must be explained as referring to the division of Abilene which took place on the death of Herod the Great. We find Abila mentioned among the places captured by Placidus, one of Vespasian's generals, in A.D. 69 or 70 (Joseph. B. J. iv. 7. § 5), and from that time forward it was permanently annexed to the province of Syria.[ W. R. ]̺
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Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/20
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