Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/139

AMISU& tlwi wttfad byaCiqppiMioffMm king; ud tUidhr, by AthfmnpJfB and some Athenians, who duBgvd ill nuM to PeirMeos. But Scjnmiis a( ClMt(f>.T. 101) caDs it a ooknj of Pbocua, and ti prior dale to Henclda, which was probablj bnikd wbcai m. c. 559. Bsool-Rochette coodudBs, bsk kfaa« sMois do nMon for his oondosion, that tUi gtllHiwit by Phocaca was posterior to the Mi- Uu settlsBMBt. (iTiitotrs da Cohmet GrecqueSf tcLib. p. 334.) However this may be, Amisos heme Uw ooot flourishing Greek settlement on the north ooast of the Eoxine after Sinope. The time ndndes that, becsnse Amisns is not bj Harodotas or Xenophon, the date of the A***— *t«ti i rtt l finH i t is posterior to the time of the AnaJbatit ; a condosian which is by no means wrwry. Phitareh (UictdL 19) says that it was settled ij the Athsnians at the time of their great- at power, and when they were masters of the sea. lbs place loat the name of Peiiaeeos, and became a rii^ trading town nnder the kings of Pontos. Eupator made Amisos his residence AMMOKITAE. 12$ altarnately with Sinope, and he added a part to the t0«n, whicii was called Eapatoria ( Apptsn. Mithrid, 7% hot it was separated from the rest by a wall, and probably oontahied a difbrent popdation from that of old AnoisQs. Thb new quarter oontained the lesideDoe of the king. The strength of the piaee was prared by the resistance which it made to the Boman conmiander L. Lneollns (b. a 71) in the war. (Plot. Z^cofS. 15, &o.) The Tyrannio was one of those who fen into tiie hands of lAicoIlns when the place vnu captnied. Pbaniaees, the son of Mithridates, sobeeqoently ov<er to Amisos from BosporoSf and Anusos iken and cmelly dealt irith. (Dion zfiL4€.) The dictator Caesar defeated Pbar- ia a battle near Zeleia (Appian. B. C. ii. 91), sad restofcd the phwe to freedom. M. Antonios, sstfi Stnbo, **" gave it to kings ;" bat it was again leaened horn a tfnmt Strston, and made fi«e, after the battle of Actiom, by Angustos Caesar; and now, adds SaabO) it is wdl ordered. Strabo does not state the name of the king to whom Antonios gave It has been aasomed that it was Po- L, who had the kingdom of Pontos at least as la B.C. 96. It does not appear who Strston was. The fiMt of Amisos bemg a free dty onder the empire appears from the epigraph on a coin of the otT, and from a letter of the yoonger Pliny to Txajaa (z. 93), in which he calls it *" libera et ibrienta,*' and speaks of it as baring its own laws by the frTonr of Trajan. Aiaisiis, in Strabo's time, possessed a good terri- tey, wfakfa indnded Themiscna, the dwdJing-pkoe sftheABUSQnSyaadSideiis.4i^ [6. L.] OOnr OF AMBUB. AHITERNUH CAj«*T«f»w, Stiab.; ^AfiJ^^tpwOy DienxB.: Aqi^teminns), a dty of the Sabines of gnat antiquity. It was sitoated in the opper yalley of the liver Atemos, from which, according to Vairo (L. X. ▼. 28), it derived its name, and at tho foot of 1^ loftiest groap of the Apemiines, now known as the Qnm SoMto dJUUia, Its rains are stUl visible at 8cm ViUorino^ a village about 5 miles N. of AquHa, According to Cato and Varro (ap, Dionys. L 14, iL 49), this elevated and nigged moantain district was the original dweUing-pboe of the Sabines, fitxn whence they first b^;an to turn their srms against the Aborigines in the neighbour- hood of Bea^ Virgil also mentions Amitemnm among the most powufbl cities of the Sabines: and both Strabo and Pliny enumerate it among the cities still inhabited by that people. Ptolemy, on the contrary, assigns it to the Vestini, whose territory it most certainly have adjoined. (Virg. ^en. vii. 7 10 ; SiL Ital. viii. 416; Stisb. v. p. 228; Plin. iii. 12. 8. 17; Ptol. iii. 1. § 59.) Livy speaks of Ami- temnm as captored by the Bomans in b. c. 293 from the Samnites (x. 39), but it seems impossible that the Sabine dty can be the one meant; and either the name is oorrapt, or there most have been some obscure place of the same name in Samniom. Stnbo speaks of it as having sufiiared severely from the Social and Civil Wars, and being in his time much decayed; hot it was subseqoently reoolonised, probably in the time of Augustus (Lib. Colon, p. 228; Zompt, de Coiomisy p. 356. not.)^ and be- came a place of considerable importance under the Boman em]»re, as is proved by the existing ruins, among which those of the amphitheatre are th^ most conspicuous. These are situated in the broad and level valley of the Atemos, at the foot of the hill on which stands the village ofS. Vittorino ; but some remains of polygonal walls are said to exist on that hill, which probably belong to an earlier period, and to the ancient Sabine dty. It continued to be an episcopal see as bite as the eleventh century, but its complete decline dates from the feondation of the neighbouring dty of AquUa by tho emperor Frede< ric II., who remoived thither the inhaUtants of Ami- teraum, as well as several other neighbouring towns. (Bomanelli, vol iii. p. 330; GiusUniani, Diz. Geogr. vol. L p. 230; Craven, Abrmzl, voL i pp 217 — ^219.) Numerous inscripticms have been dis- covered there, of which the most important is a fi-agment of an ancient calendar, whicL is one of the most valuable relics of the kind that have been pre- served to us. It has been repeatedly published; among others, by Fqggini (JFatt. Rom. Reliquiaef Bomae, 1779), and by Ordli (Inscr. vol. iL c. 22). Amiteraum was the birthplace of the historian Sallust (Hienm. Chron.) [E. H. B.] AMMONI'TAE CA^/iayrrai,LXX. and Joseph.), the descendants of Ben-ammi, the son of Lot by bis incestuous connection with his younger daughter ((rea. xix. 38). They exterminated the Zamzum- mims and occupied their country (^DeuL ii. 20, 21), which lay to the north of Moab between the Araon {Moid)) and the Jabbok {Zerka)j the eastern part of the district now called Belka, [Amorites]. Their country was not possessed by the Israelites (^DeuL il 19), but was conterminous with the tribe of Gad. (Joahuaf xiiL 25, properly explained by Beland, Palaett, p. 105.) Their capital was Babbath or Babbah, afterwards called Philadelphia, now Ammdn. They were constantly engaged in con- federations with other Bedooin trib^ against the Israelites {Ps. Ixxxiii. 6 — 8), and were subdued by Jephthah (Jvdgu xL), Saul (1 5am. xL, xiv. 47), A • • ^ I -•