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Feography-History: Ancient - Dictionaries

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DICTIONARY

OF

ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY,

EXPLAINING

The Local Appellations in SACRED, GRECIAN,
and ROMAN HISTORY;

EXHIBITING

The Extent of Kingdoms, and Situations of Cities, &c.

And illuftrating

The Allufions and Epithets in the Greek and Roman Poets.

The Whole established by proper Authorities, and defigned for
the USE OF SCHOOLS.

By ALEXANDER MAC BEAN, M. A.

Πολλῶν δ' ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄρεα, καὶ νόον ἔγνω.

BR

HOMER.

W-YORK

LONDON,

Printed for G. ROBINSON, in Pater Nofter-Row; and T. CADELL,
in the Strand. 1773.

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L

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THE neceffity of Geography to historical, political, and commercial knowledge, has been proved too often to be proved again. The curiofity of this nation is fufficiently awakened, and no books are more eagerly received than those which enlarge or facilitate an acquaintance with diftant countries.

But as the face of the world changes in time by the migration of nations, the ravages of conqueft, the decay of one empire, and the erection of another; as new inhabitants have new languages, and new languages give new names; the maps or defcriptions of a later age are not eafily applied to the narrations of a former: thofe that read the Ancients muft ftudy the ancient geography, or wander in the dark, without diftinct views or certain knowledge.

Yet though the Ancients are read among us, both in the original languages and in tranflations, more perhaps than in any other country, we have hitherto had very little af fistance in ancient Geography. The treatife of Dr. Wells is too general for ufe, and the Claffical Geographical Dictionary, which commonly paffes under the name of Eachard, is little more than a catalogue of naked names.

A more ample account of the old world is apparently wanting to English literature, and no form feemed equally commodious with that of an alphabetical feries. In effect, however fyftematically any book of General Geography may be written, it is feldom ufed otherwife than as a Dictionary. The ftudent wanting fome knowledge of a

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new place, feeks the name in the index, and then by a fecond labour finds that in a Syftem which he would have found in a Dictionary by the first.

As Dictionaries are commodious, they are likewife fallacious he whose works exhibit an apparent connexion and regular fubordination cannot easily conceal his ignorance, or favour his idlenefs; the completeness of one part will fhow the deficiency of another: but the writer of a Dictionary may filently omit what he does not know; and his ignorance, if it happens to be difcovered, flips away from cenfure under the name of forgetfulness.

This artifice of Lexicography I hope I fhall not often be found to have used. I have not only digested former Dictionaries into my alphabet, but have confulted the ancient Geographers, without neglecting other authors. I have in fome degree enlightened ancient by modern Geography, having given the fituation of places from later obfervation. Names are often changing, but place is always the fame, and to know it exactly is always of importance: there is no ufe of erring with the ancients, whofe knowledge of the globe was very imperfect; I have therefore ufed ancient names and modern calculations. The longitude is reckoned from London to the eaft and weft.

A work like this has long been wanted: I would willingly flatter myself that the want is now fupplied; and that the English ftudent will for the future more eafily understand the narratives of ancient hiftorians, the reasonings. of ancient ftatesmen, and the defcriptions of ancient poets.

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CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHICAL

DICTIONARY,

A

A B.

ARASSUS, a town of Pifidia,in the Hither Afia, Artemidorus, quoted by Strabo; thought to be the Ariaffus of Ptolemy. AASAR, a town of Palestine, in the tribe of Juda; a hamlet in Jerome's time, fituate between Azotus and Afcalon.

ABA, Abas or Abus, Pliny; Abos, Strabo; a mountain of Armenia the Greater, fituate between the mountains Niphates and Nibarus; from Abos, according to Strabo, rose the Araxes and Euphrates, the former running weftward, the latter eaftward.

ABA. See AвÆ.

ABACENA, a town of the Medes, Ptolemy. Another of Caria, in the Hi. ther Afia, Pliny.

ABACÆNUM, Diodor. Siculus, Stephanus; Abacana, orum, Ptolemy, a town of Sicily, whofe ruins are fuppofed to be thofe lying near Tripi, a citadel on a high and fteep mountain, not far from Meffana. The inhabitants were called Abacanini, Stephanus.

AB or Aba, a town of Phocis in Greece, near Helicon; famous for an oracle of Apollo, older than that at Delphi, and for a rich temple, plundered and burnt by the Perfans, Strabo.

A B

ABEA. See ABEA. ABORTE, Pliny; a people dwelling on the river Indus.

ABALA, a town of the Troglodyte on the Red Sea, Pliny. Hence Abalites or Avalites, a bay of that fea. Alfo a port in the fouth of Italy, Appian.

ABALLABA, now Appleby, a town in Westmoreland, remarkable only for its antiquity, having been a Roman ftation, Notitia Imperii. W. Long. 1° 4′ Lat. 55° 38'. ABALITES. See AVALITES. ABALUS, fuppofed by the ancients to be an island of the German ocean, called by Timæus, Bafilia," and by Xenophon Lampfacenus, Baltia; now the peninsula of Scandinavia. Here, according to Pliny, fome imagined amber dropt from the

trees.

ABANA, (Bible)otherwife Amana, a river of Phoenicia, which rifing from mountHermon, washes the fouth and weft fides of Damafcus, and falls into the Phoenician fea, to the north of Tripolis, called Chryforrhoas by the Greeks.

ABANTA, a town near mount Parnaffus, where ftood a temple of Apollo, Phavorinus. ABANTIAS, or Abantis, a name of the inland Euboea, in the Egean fea, exB tending

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