Rhodanusia

RHODANU´SIA Pliny (Plin. Nat. 3.4) mentions Rhoda in Gallia Narbonensis as a colony of the Rhodii He places it on the coast east of Agathe (Agde), and says that it gave the name to the Rhodanus. [RHODANUS] Hieronymus, in his Prologue to the Second Epistle to the Galatians, copies Pliny. This may be the place which Stephanus (s. v. Ῥοδανουσία) names Rhodanusia, and calls a city in Massalia;b y which the Massiliotic territory must be meant. The passage in Strabo (4. p. 180) τὴν δὲ Ῥόην Ἀγαθὴν τοῖς, in which he intends to speak of one of the Massiliotic settlements, is corrupt. Casaubon (Comment. in Strab. p. 83) sometimes thought that we ought to read τὴν δὲ Ῥόδην καὶ Ἀγαθὴν τοῖς. Groskurd (Strab. Transl. 1. p. 310) thinks that Pliny has called this place Rhoda because he con founded it with Rhode or Rhodus in Iberia, which he does not mention. He observes that Scymnus (5.208), Stephanus, and Sidonius Apollinaris (1.5) rightly name it Rhodanusia; and he has no doubt that Strabo wrote it so. But it is by no means certain that Strabo did write it so. Groskurd's argument is this: there never was a town Rhoda in Gallia, and Strabo mentions the Iberian Rhode or Rhodus. Since then Strabo is acquainted with both places, he has not made a mistake like Pliny; rather must we with Vossius (Note on Mela, 2.6) alter the corrupt Ῥόην into Ῥοδανουσίαν; and Koray is mistaken in rejecting Ῥόην altogether as not genuine. We know nothing of this Gallic Rhode or Rhodanusia. The place is gone and has left no trace.