Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography . h, Diod.), can be identified with anydegree of certainty. The coins of i\Iessana are numerous and interest-ing, as illustrating the historical vicissitudes of thecity. There exist:—1. Coins of Zancle,before the timeof Anaxilas, with the name written in old charactersAANKAE, a dialectic form of the name. 2. Coinsof Messana, with the Ionic legend ME22ENION,and types taken from the coins of Samos. Thesemust be referred to the period of Anaxilas imme-diately after his conquest of the city, while theSamian colonists still inhabited it. 3. Coins ofMessana, w
Dictionary of Greek and Roman geography . h, Diod.), can be identified with anydegree of certainty. The coins of i\Iessana are numerous and interest-ing, as illustrating the historical vicissitudes of thecity. There exist:—1. Coins of Zancle,before the timeof Anaxilas, with the name written in old charactersAANKAE, a dialectic form of the name. 2. Coinsof Messana, with the Ionic legend ME22ENION,and types taken from the coins of Samos. Thesemust be referred to the period of Anaxilas imme-diately after his conquest of the city, while theSamian colonists still inhabited it. 3. Coins ofMessana, with the type of a hare, which seems tohave been adopted as the ordinary symbol of thecity, because that animal is said to have been firstintroduced into Sicily by Anaxilas. (Pollux, Otiom. ) These coins, which are numerous, and rangeover a considerable period of time, show the gradualpreponderance of the Doric element in the city ; theruder and earlier ones having the legend in the Ionicform ME22ENION, the latter ones in the Doric. COINS OF MESSANA. n3S MESSAPIA. form ME22ANI0N or MESSANinN. 4. Coinsstruck by the Mamertines, w-ith the name of MA-MEPTINflN. These are very numerous, but incopper only. (Milhngen, Trans, of Roy. Soc. of i. pt. ii. pp. 93—98 ; Eckhel, vol i. pp. 219—224.) [E. H. B.] MESSAPIA (Metro-aTTio), was the name com-monly given by the Greeks to the peninsula formingthe SE. extremity of Italy, called by the RomansCalabria. But tlie usage of the term was veryfluctuating; lapygia and Messapia being used some-times as synonymous, sometimes the latter con-bidered as a part only of the former more generaldesignation. (Pol. iii. 88; Strab. vi. pp. 277, 282.)[This question is more fully discussed under Cala-IJRIA, Vol. I. p. 472.] Tlie same uncertainty pre-vails, though to a less degree, in the use of thename of the people, the SIessapii (Micradmoi), whoare described by Herodotus (vii. 170) as a tribe ofthe lapygians, and appear to be certainly ide
Size: 1581px × 1581px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorsmithwil, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1854
