Rhagae

RHAGAE(Ῥαγαί, Arrian, Anab. 3.30; Strab. xi. pp. 514, 524; Ῥάγεια, Isidor. Char. § 7; ἡ Ῥάγα, Steph. B. s. v.;Ῥάγαια, Ptol. 6.5.4; Rhages, Tobit, 1.14: Eth. Ῥαγηνός), a great town of Media Magna, the capital of the province of Rhagiana, which is first known to us in history as the place to which the Jewish exiles were sent. (Tobit, 1.14, 4.20, 9.2.) It was situated in the eastern part of the country towards Parthia, one day's journey from the Pylae Caspiae (Arrian, Arr. Anab. 3.20) and 10 days' march from Ecbatana (Hamadán). The name of the place is stated by Strabo to have been derived from the frequent earthquakes to which it had been subject, but this is contrary to all probability (Strab. 11. p. 514); he adds, also, that, like many other places in the neighbourhood, it had been built (or rather rebuilt) by the Greeks (p. 524). In later times it appears to have been rebuilt by Seleucus Nicator, who called it Europus. (Strab. l. c.) Still later it appears to have been again rebuilt by one of the house of Arsaces, who named it in consequence Arsacia. (Strab. l. c.;Steph. B. s. v.) In modern times the ancient name has returned; and the ruins of Rhey, which have been visited and described by many travellers, no doubt represent the site of the ancient Rhagae. (Ker Porter, Travels, vol. 1. p. 358.) Pliny mentions a town of Parthia, which he calls Apameia Rhagiane (6.14.17). Some geographers have contended that this is the same as Rhagae; but the inference is rather that it is not.

An important city of ancient Media whose remains, mod. Persian Raï, are still pointed out about five miles southeast of Teheran. The city appears as Ῥάγαι in Arrian's Anab. iii. 20, 2. It is probable, moreover, that on the site of the original city destroyed by earthquake, Seleucos Nicator founded Ῥάγεια or Ῥάγα, called also Εὐρωπός (Strabo, pp. 514, 524; see also Ptolemy, 6, 5, 4). In the Old Persian Inscriptions (bk. ii. 72; iii. 2) Ragā is the name of a province; compare Ῥαγιανὴ Μηδία of Isidor of Charax. As a city, Ragha is twice mentioned in the Avesta, Vd. i. 16; Ys. xix. 18; and also several times by later Persian and Mohammedan writers, being specially connected with the name of Zoroaster (q.v.), apparently as his birthplace. There are a number of allusions to Rages in the Apocryphal Scriptures (Judith, i. 5, 15; Tobit, i. 14; v. 5; vi. 10). The fate of this once prosperous city, which was destroyed in the Parthian wars, rebuilt anew as Assacia under the Arsacid rulers, flourishing later as Rai, but finally in the twelfth century destroyed by the Tartars, and now lying in interesting ruins, affords an instructive lesson taught by the records of the past.