Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/387

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

BA6ADANIA. way still be traced within the limits of Bavag; and subterranean ranlts of Boman construction, and mosaics, have also been discovered. The Romans brought water to Bavay from FlorisieSf on the op- posite side Off the Sambref a distance of 10 miles. The water is said to have been brought under the bed of the Sombre. [G. L.] BAGADA'NIA (BayaHaifia, BayaZaovla, Steph.

  1. . V. : £th. BayaSdwts^f a large elevated phun in

Cappadocia between Aigaeus and Taurus, a cold r^icNi which hardly produces a fruit tree (Strab. p. 73): it was a pastoral country. In Gasaubon's edition the name is Bagadania, in lib. ii. (p. 73); bat in the other passage (p. 539), he has the reading Gabadania, evidently a transcriber's blunder. This ].]ain lay, according to Strabo, at the base of Taurus ; and prc]i>ably it is the tract S£. of Argaeus. [G. L.] BAGAZE. [Libya.] BAGE (Btfyq: EiJl Bayriy6s a Lydian town in the valley of the Hermus on ^e right bank of the river, and nearly opposite to Sirghie^ a Turkish village between Kvia and Temsher. (See the map in Hamilton's Asia Minor,) The site was identi- fied from an inscription found by Eeppel. There are coins of Bage with the epigraph Baeyrivvy. (Cramer, AHa Mm. vol. i. p. 435.) [G. L.] BAGISARA (Ba7f(rapa; Arrian, Indie, 26. § 2), a place on the sea coast of Gcdiosia in the territoiy of the Icthyophagi. [V.] BAGISTANUS MONS (fpos Boyfcrravoi', Diod. iL 13; Steph. B.), a mountain on the confines of Media, at which Semirarois is said to have halted her army on her march from Babylon to Ecbatana in Media Magna. The description of Diodoms (vi 13)isverycnrious: — ** Semiramis," he says, "having accomplished her labours (at Babylon) marched upon Media with a vast army; but when she had arrived at the mountain called Bagistanon, she encamped near it, and prnpared a Paradise, whose circum> ferenoe was twelve stadia, and which being in the plain, had a great spring, from which all the plants could be watered. The mountain itself is sacred to Zeas, and has abrupt rocks on the side towards the garden, rising to seventeen stadia in height Having cat away the lower part of the rock, slie caused her own portrait to be sculptured there, tt^ether vrith those of a hundred attendant guards. She engraved also the following inscription in Syrian (Assyrian) letters: — ' Seminmis having piled up one upon the other the trap^nng of the beasts of burthen which accompanied her, ascended by these means from the plain to the top of the rock.' " In another place Diodoms (xrii. 1 10), describing the march of Alex- ander the Great from Susa to Ecbatana, states that he visited Bagistane, having turned a little out of his coarse, in order to see a most delightiul district abounding in fruits and in all other things apper- taining to luxury. Thence he passed on through ■ome plains which rear abundance of horses, and are called (though incorrectly) by Arrian (vii. 13) the Nisaean plains, where he halted thirty days. Stephanas B. speaks of a city of Media called Bagis- tana; and Isid. Charax (op. Hudson, p. 6) of a town called Baptana seated on the mountams, where there was a statae and pilar of Semiramis. The district around he calls Cambadene. The geography of this neighbourhood has been of late years very carefiillyin- irestigated, chiefly by Col. Rawlinson (^Joum. Geogr. Soe, ToL ix. 1839), and by C. Masson (J. R. Aa. Soc vol. xiL pt. 1. 1849). Both travcUers assert that they have been able to verify every position and BAGISTANUS MONS. 3G9 almost every Ime of measurement in the route of Isidorus. Col. Rawlinson pdnts out the coincidence between the name Bagistanon and the Persian Bag- histdn — which signifies a place d[ gardens, and of which BoH&n applied to some sculptures in the neighbourhood is a corruption — and conjectures that the Baptana of Isidorus may be a yet further cor- ruption of the same name. Mr. Masson (p. 108) states that BisUun is the name now popularly used for the locality. Behistun^ the form which Cd. Raw- linson has adopted in his Memdr on the Cuneiform Inscriptions (^As. Jowm, voL x.) is derived by Mr. Masson from Bekist-tanj the Place of Paradise or Delight — a more natural derivation, however, would make it come from Bagistanon or BagMstdn. Mr. Masson in his memoir has pointed out very clearly that the rocks in the neighbourhood contain remains of four distinct periods. 1. On the upper part of the principal mass of rock, the whole sur- face of which has been scarped away, are the re- mains of the heads of three colossal figures, and above them are traces of characters. The heads are in basso-rillevo, and, according to Mr. Masson, who is we believe the only traveller who has de- scribed them, of very early workmanship. 2. At the N. extremity of Bagistanon, in a nook or retiring angle of the hill, high upon the rock, and almost inaccessible, is a group of thirteen figures, the one on the extreme left representing the king, and carved on the face of the rock, which is cut away horizontally, so as to allow a place to stand on. About the figures are tablets with inscriptions in the Cunttform character. These figures and inscrip- tions, we now know, refer to Dardus the son of Hystaspes and his victories. 3. Still further to the N., of much later workmanship, is a group composed originally of five or six figures, but now much mutilated, riBpreswting a penon to whom a Victory is presenting a wreath as trampling on a prostrate enemy. Over it is a Greek inscription in which the name Gotarzes may be detected. Rawlinson and Masson concur in supposing that this Gotarzes was an Arsadd prince, who fought a great battle near this spot with Meherdates. (Joseph. AfU, xx. 3. § 4 ; Tac. Ann. xi. 8.) It is worthy of remark that Tacitus {Ann, xii. 13) states that Gotarzes took up his position on Mt. Sambulos. There is every reason to suppose that Mt. Sambulos is the same as Bagistanon, it being a generic name for the range of which the latter formed one projecting portion. If so, Baghistan might have acquired its name, aa that part traditionally connected with the labours of Semiramis. Tadtus says Mt. Sambulos was sacred to Hercules, probably meaning Jupiter; it is called by Pliny (vi. 27) Mons Cambalidus, in a passage (" super Chosicos ad septentrionem Mesobatene sub monte Cambalido "), which seems to prove that there is a connection between the names Mesobatene, Baptana or Batana in Iddorus, and the present Mah-Subaddn. Diodoms, too (2. c), in describing Alexander's march,speaks of Sambea,a place abound- ing with the necessaries of life, which is, no doubt, the Mons Cambalidus of Pliny, the Cambadene of Isidore, and the present Kirm&nshah. 4. Is a comparatively modem inscription in Arabic, record- ing a grant of land in endowment of the adjacent caravanserai. A peculiar interest attaches to the rock of Baghis- tan or Behistun^ owing to the successfrd inter|)rcta- tion within the last few years by CoL Rawlinson of the Cundform inscriptions, which are on the tablets B B