Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/20

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10
ANC—AND

inhabitants. Considerable attention is also paid to the rearing of cattle and sheep, and the vine and the mulberry are grown to some extent. The cultivation of the silk worm has not of late years been very successful, owing to the prevalence of disease in the worm. Chalk, sulphur, and raw petroleum are found, in different parts of the province, but as yet little has been done to utilise those discoveries. The principal towns are Ancona, Jesi, and

Osirno.

Ancona, a city of Italy, and capital of the province of the same name, is pleasantly situated on the Adriatic, 132 miles N.E. of Rome, in a sort of amphitheatre between two hills Monte Ciriaco and Monte Guasco or Conero. The streets are narrow and irregular, but the city contains some fine buildings, among which may be mentioned the cathedral of St Ciriaco (which is said to occupy the site of an ancient and famous temple of Venus), several of the churches, and the citadel. The harbour, one of the best on the Adriatic, is defended by several forts and protected by two moles. On the older of these moles there is a magni ficent triumphal arch of Parian marble, erected in honour of the Emperor Trajan, by whom the mole was built, while the other mole possesses a second arch, of much inferior beauty, dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV. Ancona ceased to be a free port in 1869, and this circumstance, together with the gradual accumulation of mud iu the harbour, and the conversion of a mercantile ship-building yard into a naval arsenal, has had a very unfavourable effect upon the commerce of the place. In 1843 the value of the imports was 1,020,770, and of the exports 428,219; in 1869 the respective amounts had decreased to 585,296, and 157,969. The chief articles imported are coal, hardware, sugar, fish, cottons, woollens, linens, lead, iron, and petro leum; while the chief exports are wheat, maize, wine, raga, liquorice, and manufactured goods; the principal manu factures of the town being silk, paper, tallow, wax, and leather. Ancona has a population of 46,000, many of whom are Jews and Greeks. The city was founded about 380 B.C. by Syracusan exiles, who fled from Sicily in order to escape the tyranny of the elder Dionysius. From its admirable position it rapidly rose in importance as a seaport, and it also became celebrated for its purple dye. The exact time of its subjection to the Romans is un certain, but it was probably about 268 B.C., when the rest of Picenum came under the power of Rome. After the dis solution of the Western Empire, Ancona was plundered by the Goths, Lombards, and Saracens successively, but it always recovered its strength and importance, and eventually became a semi-independent republic, under fhe protection of the Popes. It continued in this posi tion until 1532, when Clement VII. made himself master of it, and incorporated it with the Papal dominion. In 1797 it was taken by the French, who, in 1799, had in turn to surrender to a combined force of Austrians, Rus sians, and Turks, after a long and gallant defence under General Meunier. The French recovered possession of it in 1805, and soon after annexed it to their kingdom of Italy, but the Treaty of Vienna restored it to the Pope iu 1815. In 1832 the French - seized Ancona, in order to check the Austrians, who were then occupying Bologna and the surrounding country; and they retained possession of it until the Austrians evacuated the Papal territory in 1838. In 1860 Ancona was held by a hastily organised body of Belgians and Irishmen under the command of the French general, Lamoriciere. It was here that Lamoriciere retired after his disastrous defeat at Castelfidardo by Cial- dini, when Victor Emanuel determined on invading the Papal States. On the 29th of September (eleven days after Castelfidardo), Lamoriciere capitulated at Ancona with his entire army. In 1861 the city of Ancona, like the rest of the province, became part of the new kingdom of Italy.

ANCUS MARCIUS, the fourth king of the Romans, succeeded Tullus Hostilius about 638 B.C., and reigned until 614. He defeated the Latins and other tribes, enlarged Rome by joining to it the Janiculum, and made the harbour of Ostia. In his reign many of the conquered Latins were incorporated with the Roman state, and not receiving the full franchise, formed, according to Niebuhr, the first elements of the Roman plebs.

ANCYRA. See Angora.

ANDALUSIA, or Andalucia, an extensive region in

the south of Spain, bounded on the N. by New Castile and Estremadura, on the W. by Portugal, on the S. by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and on the E. by the Mediterranean and Murcia. Although no longer officially recognised, yet, like the other ancient divisions of Spain, it is probably better known and oftener referred to, at least in popular language, than the modern provinces which have been formed out of it. These are eight in number Seville, Huelva, Cadiz, Jaen, Cordova, Granada, Almeria, Malaga. It also corresponds to the "four kingdoms" Seville, Jaen, Cordova, and Granada into which the Moors divided the south of Spain, to the still older Roman province of Btztica, and probably, in part at all events, to the Tarshish of the Bible, a famous trading emporium and district belonging to the Phoenicians, who were the earliest known inhabitants of the country. The name Andalusia is said to be a corruption of Vandalusia, from the Vandals, who overran this part of Spain after the downfall of the Roman Empire; other authorities, however, consider that the Moors, who occupied the country after the Vandals, gave it its present name from their term Andalosh, " land of the West." Andalusia has an area of about 33,000 square miles, and in 1867 had a population of 3,200,944. The principal river of Andalusia is the Guadalquivir, the Roman Bcetis, which rises in the mountains of Jaen, and flows in a south-westerly direction to the Mediterranean at San Lucar. Its chief affluents are the Jandula, the Guadiata, and the Huebla on the right, and the Xenil on the left. Among the other rivers of the province are the Tinto, the Guadalete, and the. Guadaljorce. The country is very mountainous; the chief ranges are the Sierras Morena and de Arsohe in the north, the Sierra Susana in the centre, and the Sierras Nevada, de Gador, and Bermeja in the south. There are several peaks of great elevation; among the highest are Mulahacen (11,781 feet) and Picacho de la Veleta (11,597 feet), both in the Sierra Nevada. Many of the mountains abound with metals, as silver, lead, copper, iron, and with coal; while marble and quartz are also found, the former in large quantities, and of a fine quality. Though its soil and climate vary with the elevation of the land, Andalusia must be considered the finest and most delight ful of all the divisions of the peninsula. Some of the higher mountains are covered with perpetual snow, a luxury which is highly prized by the inhabitants of the valleys, where the summer is usually extremely hot, and in winter the snow falls only to melt when it reaches the ground. Here the more common European plants and trees give place to the wild olive, the caper bush, the aloe, the cactus, the evergreen oak, the orange, the lemon, the palm, and other productions of a tropical climate. On the coasts of the Mediterranean, about Marbella and Malaga, the sugar-cane is successfully cultivated; and no inconsiderable quantity of silk is produced in the same region. Agriculture is in a very backward state, and the implements used are of the most primitive description ; nevertheless, owing to the natural richness of the soil, large crops of wheat and other cereals are grown. There are, however, considerable tracts

of land which, from want of water, are neither cultivated nor