Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/337

ATRAMITAE.

solitudes and its vast height, reaching above the cloods and to the K^tere of the moon. Bat at night, fires were seen blazing on its crests, its valleyB were enlivened with the wanton sports of A^pans and Satyrs, and resonnded with the notes of pipes and fiates and with the cUng of dnims and cymbals. He then aHades to its being the scene of the ad- ventures of Hercnles and Perseus, and adds that the distance to it was immense. On the autborily of the voyage of Polybius, he places it in the extreme S. of Mauretania, near the promontoxy of Hercnles, opposite the island of Ceme. (Comp. vi. 31. s. 36.) Af^er Ptolemy, king of Mauretania, had been de«  posed by Claudius, a war arose with a native chief- tain Aedemcm, and the Roman arms advanced as &r as Mt. Atlas. In spite, however, of this opportunity, and of the resources of five Roman colonies in the province, Pliny insinuates that the Romans of eques- trian rank, who commanded the expedition, were more intent on collecting the rich products of the oonntry, to subserve their luxury, dian on making inquiries in the service of science : they collected, however, some information from the natives, which Pliny repeats. His own oontemporaxy, Suetonius Paufinus, was the first Roman general who crossed the Atlas : — a proof, by the bye, that the Marocco mountains only are referred to, for those of Algeria had been eroded by Roman armies in the Jugur- thine War. He confirmed the accounts of its great height and of the perpetual snow on its summit, and related that its lower slopes were covered with thick woods of an miknown species of tree, some- what like a cjrpress. He also gained some informa- tion respecting the country S. of the Atlas, as fiir as the river Geb. Pliny adds that Juba II. had given a similar account of the Atlas, mentioning especially among its products the medicinal herb eupkorina. Solinus (c 24) repeats the account of Phny almost exactly.

Ptolemy mentions, among the points on the W. eoast of Mauretania Tingitana, a mountain called Atlas Minor ^Aras ixdrrwr) in 6^ long, and 33P ]<y N. lat, between the rivers Duns and Cosa (iv. 1. § 2); and another mountain, called Atlas Major ^Aras fxei^tcv), the southernmost point of the province, S. of the river Sala, in 8^ long, and SeP Zff N. kt. (ib. § 4). These are evidently pro- montories, which Ptolemy regarded, whether rightly or not, as forming the extremities of portions of the chain ; bnt of the inland parts of the range he gives no information. (I^w, Tlraoeb, ^.; Pellissier, Memoiret hittoriqueM ei geographigue^ tur VA Igerie^ in the Exploration^ ^., vol. vi. pp. 316, foil.; Jackson, AeeowU of Marocco^ p. 10; Ritter, Erd- ttmde, vol. L pp. 883, foil.)[ P. S. ]

ATRAMI'TAE. [Adramttae.]

ATRAE or HATRAE CAvfwi, Herodian iu. 28; Steph. Byz. «. v.; rh "Arpo, Dion Cass. Ixvii 31, Ixxxv. 10; Hatra, Amm. xxv. 8; Eih, *ti.rp4voi: Al ITatkrf Joum, Geog, Soc^ vol. ix. p. 467), a strong place, some days* journey in the desert, west of the Tigris, on a small stream, now called the Tkarthar (near Libanae, Steph. B. «. v. iSoroQ. Herodianus (L c) describes it as a place of consi- derable strength, on the precipice of a very steep hiU; and Ammianus (JL, c.) calls it Vetu$ oppidum m media »f^Uudm« potUwn olimque desertum, Zonanw calls it w^Aiv *ApdSuot^, Mannert (v. 2) suggests that perhaps the fiirifidrpa of Ptolemy (v. 18. § 13) represents the same place, it being a

corruption for Bet-atra; but this seems hardly ne-

ATREBATES.

319

cessary: moreover, in some of the later e^ticns of

Ptolemy, the word is spelt fiifAdrpa, The ruins of Al Hoikr^ which are very extensive, and still attest the former grandeur of the city, have been visited by Mr. Layard in 1846, who considers the remains as belonging to the Sassanian period, or, at all events, as not prior to the Parthian dynasty. {Nineveh and its Bemains^ vol. i. p. 110.) Bfr. Ainsworth, who visited Al Sathr in company with Mr. Layard in the spring of 1840, has given a very full and interesting account of its present state, which corresponds exceedingly well with the shoi-t notice of Ammianus. (Ainsworth, Res. vol. ii. c35.) It appears from Dion Cassias (preserved in Sphilinus) that Trajan, having descended the Tigris and Euphrates, and having proclaimed Par- thamaspates king of Ctesiphon, altered Arabia against Atra, but was compelled to retire, owing to the great heat and scarcity of water; and that &p- timiusSeverus, who idso returned by the Tigris from Ctesiphon, was forced to raise the siege of the ci^ after sitting twenty days before it, the machines of war having been burnt by " Greek fire," which Mr. Ainsworth conjectures to have been the bitumen so conunon in the neighbourhood. Its name is sup- posed by Mr. Ainsworth to be derived from the Chaldee Hutra, " a sceptre" — t. e. the seat of go- vernment, [ V. ]

ATRAX C^'^P^^* also *ATpa«£a. Steph. B.; PtoL iii. 13. § 42: Eth. 'ArpdKiot)^ a Perrhaebian town in Thessaly, described by Livy as situated above the river Peneius, at the distance of about 10 miles from Larissa. (Liv. xxxii. 15, comp.zxxvi. 18.) Strabo says that the Peneius passed by the cities of Tricca, Pelinnaeum and Parcadon, on its Irft, on its course to Atrax and Larissa. (Strab. ix. p. 438.) Leake places Atrax on a height upon the left bank of the Peneius, opposite the village of Gunitea. On this height, which is now called SidMro-peliko QHlhipo* WAuror), a place where chippings of iron are found, Leake fbund stones and fragments of ancient pottery, and in one place foundations of an Hellenic walL (Leake, Northern Greece, vd. ilL p. 368, voi. iv. p. 292.)

ATRE'BATES or ATREBATI fATp/^oroi, Streb. p. 194), one of the Belgic nataoos (Caesar, B. G. ii. 4), or a people of Belgium, in the limited sense in which Caesar sometimes uses that term. They were one of the Belgic peojdes rho had sent settlers to Britannia, long before Caesar's time {B. G. V. 12); and their name was retained by the Atre- bates (k Britannia. The Atrebates of Belgium were between the rivers Somme and the Sehdde^ and the position of their chief town Nemetocenna {B. G. viii 46) or Nemetacum, is that of Arras, in the modern French department of Pas de Calais, (m the Scarpe, The Morini were between the Atrebates and the sea. Their country in Caesar's time was marshy and wooded. The name Atrebates is partly preserved in Arras, and in the name of Ariois, one of the ante- revolutionary divisions of France. In the middle- age Latin Artois is caUed Adertisus Pagus. But it Is said that the limits of the Atrebates are not indi- cated by the old province of Artois, bnt by the ex- tent of the old diocese of Arras. Atrecht, the German name of Arras, is stall nearer to the form Atrebates.

In Caesar's Belgic War, b. c. 57, the Atrebates supplied 15,000 men to the native army (£. G. ii. 4), and they were defeated, together with the

Nervii, by Caesar, in the battle on the banks of