ANCALITES
Eth.
ANCALITES a people in Britain, inhabiting the hundred of
Henly, a locality which, probably, preserves their name. Caesar alone mentions them. Gale and Horsely reasonably suppose that they were a section of the Attrebates of Ptolemy. They were the most western Britons with which Caesar came in contact. (
Caes. Gal. 5.21.) [
R.G.L]
ANCHI´ALE (
Ἀγχιάλη, Ἀγχιάλεια, Ἀγχιάλος: Eth.
Ἀγχιαλεύς), a town of Cilicia, which Stephanus (s. v.
Ἀγχιάλη) places on the coast, and on a river Anchialeus. One story which he reports, makes its origin purely mythical.
The other story that he records, assigns its origin to Sardanapalus, who is said to have built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. Strabo also places Anchiale near the coast. [
ANAZARBUS] Aristobulus, quoted by Strabo (p. 672), says that the tomb of Sardanapalus was at Anchiale, and on it a relief in stone (
τύπον λίθινον) in the attitude of a man snapping the fingers of his right hand.
He adds, “some say that there is an inscription in Assyrian characters, which recorded that Sardanapalus built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day, and exhorted the reader to eat, drink, and so forth, as everything else is not worth That--, the meaning of which the attitude of the figure showed.” In the text of Strabo, there follow six hexameter Greek verses, which are evidently an interpolation in the text.
After these six verses, the text of Strabo proceeds: “Choerilus, also, mentions these matters; and the following verses also are generally circulated.” The two hexameters which then follow, are a paraphrase of the exhortation, of which Strabo has already given the substance in prose. Athenaeus (xii. p. 529) quotes Aristobulus as authority for the monument at Anchiale; and Amyntas as authority for the existence of a mound at Ninus (
Nineveh), which was the tomb of Sardanapalus, and contained, on a stone slab, in Chaldaic characters, an inscription to the same effect as that which Strabo mentions; and Athenaeus says that Choerilus paraphrased it in verse.
In another passage, Athenaeus (p. 336) quotes the six hexameters, which are interpolated in Strabo's text, but he adds a seventh.
He there cites Chrysippus as authority for the inscription being on the tomb of Sardanapalus; but he does not, in that passage, say who is the Greek paraphrast, or where the inscription was. Athenaeus, however (p, 529), just like a mere collector who uses no judgment, gives a third story about a monument of Sardanapalus, without saying where it was; the inscription recorded that he built Tarsus and Anchiale in one day, “but now is dead;” which suggests very different reflections from the other version. Arrian (
Arr. Anab. 2.5), probably following Ptolemy, says, that Alexander marched in one day from Anchiale to Tarsus.
He describes the figure on the monument as having the hands joined, as clapping the hands; he adds, that the former magnitude of the city was shown by the circuit and the foundations of the walls.
This description does not apply to the time of Arrian, but to the age of Alexander, for Arrian is merely copying the historians of Alexander.
It seems hardly doubtful that the Assyrians once extended their power as far, at least, as Anchiale, and that there was a monument with Assyrian characters there in the time of Alexander; and there might be one also to the same effect at Nineveh. (See
Cic. Tusc. Disp. 5.3. 5;
Plb. 8.12; and as to the passage of Strabo, Groskurd's Translation and Notes, vol. iii. p. 81.) Leake (
Asia Minor, p. 214) observes, that a little west of Tarsus, and between the villages
Kazalu and
Karaduar, is a river that answers to the Anchialeus; and he observes that “a large mound, not far from the Anchialeus, with some other similar tumuli near the shore to the westward, are the remains, perhaps, of the Assyrian founders of Anchiale, which probably derived its temporary importance from being the chief maritime station of the Assyrian monarchs in these seas.”
[
G.L]
