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ABANTIAS

Volume 8 · 94 words · 1810 Edition

or ABANTIS, in Ancient Geography, a name of the island Eubœa in the Ægean sea, extending along the coast of Greece, from the promontory Sunium in Attica to Thessaly, and separated from Boeotia by a narrow strait called Euripus. From its length the island was formerly called Macris; afterwards Abantias or Abantis, from the Abantes, a people originally of Thrace, called by Homer Ἀβαντες Κορινθίων, from wearing their hair long behind, having in a battle experienced the inconvenience of wearing long hair before. From cutting their hair before, they were called Abantites or Curetes.