NICÆA, (anc. geogr.), the metropolis of Bithynia; situate on the lake Ascanius, in a large and fertile plain; in compass 16 stadia: first built by Antigonus, the son of Philip, and thence called Antigonea; afterwards completed by Lysimachus, who called it Nicæa, after his consort the daughter of Antipater. According to Stephanus, it was originally a colony of the Bottiaz, a people of Thrace, and called Anore; and afterwards called Nicæa. Now Nice in Asia the Less. Famous for the first general council.—A second Nicæa, (Diodorus Siculus,) of Corsica.—A third, of the Hither India, (Arrian); situate on the west side of the Hydaspes, opposite to Buciphalus, on the east side.—A fourth Nicæa, a town of Liguria, at the Maritime Alps, on the east side of the river Paulon near its mouth, which runs between the Varus and Nicæa, (Mela). A colony of the Massilians, (Stephanus); the last town of Italy to the west. Now Nizza or Nice, capital of the county of that name, on the Mediterranean.—A fifth, of Locris, (Strabo); a town near Thermopylæ; one of the keys of that pass. It stood on the Sinus Malicus.
NICANDER of Colophon, a celebrated grammarian, poet, and physician, who lived about the 160th Olympiad, 140 years before Christ, in the reign of
Attalus king of Pergamus, who overcame the Gallo-Greeks. He lived many years in Etolia, of which country he wrote a history. He wrote also many other works, of which only two are now remaining. The one is intitled Theriaca, describing in verse the accidents attending wounds made by venomous beasts, with the proper remedies; the other bearing the title of Alexipharmaca, wherein he treats poetically of poisons and their antidotes. This Nicander is not to be confounded with Nicander of Thyatira.