It is now generally admitted, that the coins of Adria (with the legend .) belong to the city of Picenum; but great difference of opinion has been entertained as to their age. They belong to the class commonly known as Aes Grave, and are even among the heaviest specimens known, exceeding in weight the most ancient Roman asses. On this account they have been assigned to a very remote antiquity, some referring them to the Etruscan, others to the Greek, settlers. But there seems much reason to believe that they are not really so ancient, and belong, in fact, to the Roman colony, which was founded previously to the general reduction of the Italian brass coinage. (Eckhel, vol. i. p. 98; Müller, Etrsuker, vol. 1 p.306; Bǒckh, Metrologie, p. 379; Das Römische Münzwesen, p. 231; Millingen, Numismatique de l'Italie, p. 216.) [ E. H. B. ]
'AMptini or 'ASpcoruH^ 3dao-cra. (The former ex- js t aauu is empkiyed by ScTnmns Chins, 868 ; and €bt kfcter in one instance by Strabo, iv. p. 204.) The LadiM fire^iently termed it Mare Supsrum, the Upper Sea, as opposed to the Tyrrhenian or Lower Sea (Mare Inferam); and the phrase is copied firam tiiem by Polybios and other Greek writers. It appears probahfe indeed that tins was the common or ^t it mt i i^f ex pre ssi on among the Romans, and that tbe WDS of the Adriatic was a mere geographical ^MgxMtian, perhaps borrowed in the first instance bam the Greeks. The nse of Adria or Hadria . for the name of the sea, was certainly a Graedsm, first introdnced by the poets (Hor. Cm-m,l$. 15, in. 3. 5, &c.; Catnll. xxxn. 15), ^MMigfa it is sometimes nsed by prose writers also. (Senee. Ep. 90; Mefa^ iL 2,&c.) According to Herodotus (i. 163) the Phocaeans were the first of the Greeks who diacorered the Adri- ade, or St least the first to explore its recesses, but the Fboeocaas most hare been well acqnmnted with itlo^ befofe, as thej had traded with the Venetians fcr smber from a Tcry early period. It has, indeed, braeoDtended, that 6 'A9pivs in Herodotos (both k tUf fasMge and in it. 33, t. 9) means not the |
improbable that precisely the same expression shooid have come into general nse, as we certainly find it not long after the time of Herodotos, for the sea itsdf.* Hecataeos also (if we can trast to the ac- coracy of Stephanas B. «. v. 'A8^»(ar) appears to have nsed the fall expression kSKkos *ASpias. The natnral liooits of the Adriatic are Tery deariy marked by the contraction of the opposite shores at its entrance, so as to form a kind oi strait, not ex- ceeding 40 G. miles in breadth, between the Acro- ceraanian promontory in Epiras, and the coast of Calabria near Hydrantom, in Italy. This is accord- ingly correctly assnmed both by Strabo and Pliny as the soathem limits of the Adriatic, as it was at an earlier period by Soylax and Poljbias, the latter of whom expressly tells as that Oricus was die first city on the right hand after entering the Adriatic. (Strab.Tii. p.317; Plin.iii.ll. s. 16; Scylax,§14, p. 5, § 27, p. 11 ; PoL viL 19; Mela, ii. 4.) But it appears to have been some time before the appel- lation was received in this definite sense, and the use of the luune both of the Adriatic and cf the Ionian Golf was for some time very vagne and flnctuating. It is probable, that in the earliest times the name of 6 'AHpias was confined to the part of the sea in the immediate neighbonrhood of Adria itself and the moaths of the Padus, or at least to the upper part near the head of the gulph, as in the passages of Herodotos and Hecataeos above cited; but it seems that Hecataeos himself in another passage (op. Steph. B. 8. V. "loTpoi) described the Istrians as dwelling on the Ionian gulf, and Hellamcas (t^, Dion, Hal. i. 28) spoke of the Pados as flowing into the Ionian gulf. In like manner Thucydides (i. 24) describes Epidamnus as a city on the right huid as yon enter the Ionian ga]£ At this period, there- fore, the latter expression seems to have been at least the more common one, as ai^)lied to the whole sea. But very soon after we find the orators Lysias and Isocrates employing the term A'ASpfar in its more extended sense: and Scylax (who most have been nearly ocmtemporary with the latter) ex- pressly tells OS that the Adriatic and Ionian golfs were one and the same. (Lys. Or. e. Diog, § 38, p. 908; Isocr. PhiUpp. § 7; Scyhuc, § 27, p. 11.) From this time no change appears to have taken place in the use of the name, I *A^piat being fami- liariy used. by Greek writers for the modern Adriatic (Theo^.iv. 5. §§ 2, 6; Pseud. Aiistot. de Mirab. §§ 80, 82; Scymn. Ch. 132, 193, &c.; Pol. ii. 17, iii. 86, 87, &c) ontil after the Christian era. But sobseqoently to that date a very singolar change was introduced: for while the name of the Adriatic Gulf {6 *A9plaSj or *A9ptaruchs kSXwos^ became re- stricted to the upper portion of the inland sea now known by the same name, and the lower portion nearer the strait or entrance was commonly known as the ♦ The expressions of Pdybias (iv. 14, 16) cited by Mttller {EtrusheTj i. p. 141) in sopport of this view, certainly cannot be relied on, as the name of 6 'Aiplas was fully established as that of the sea, long before his time, and is repeatedly used by him- self in this sense. But his expressions are singu- larly vague and fluctuating : thus we find within a few pages, 6 Kwrii rov *ASpwy K&Kiros, 6 rod ircands 'ASpiov fufx^s, 6 *A^piaruc6s iarx6s, ^ Kvrh, rhv
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Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/43
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