Tarsa, a Thracian, who rebelled under Tiberius, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 4, ch. 50.
Tarsius, a river of Troas. Strabo.
Tarsus, now Tarasso, a town of Cilicia, on the Cydnus, founded by Triptolemus and a colony of Argives, or, as others say, by Sardanapalus, or by Perseus. Tarsus was celebrated for the great men it produced. It was once the rival of Alexandria and Athens in literature and the study of the polite arts. The people of Tarsus wished to ingratiate themselves into the favour of Julius Cæsar by giving the name of Juliopolis to their city, but it was soon lost. Lucan, bk. 3, li. 225.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 13.—Strabo, bk. 14.
Tartărus, (plural, a, orum), one of the regions of hell, where, according to the ancients, the most impious and guilty among mankind were punished. It was surrounded by a brazen wall, and its entrance was continually hidden from the sight by a cloud of darkness, which is represented three times more gloomy than the obscurest night. According to Hesiod it was a separate prison, at a greater distance from the earth than the earth is from the heavens. Virgil says that it was surrounded by three impenetrable walls, and by the impetuous and burning streams of the river Phlegethon. The entrance was by a large and lofty tower, whose gates were supported by columns of adamant, which neither gods nor men could open. In Tartarus, according to Virgil, were punished such as had been disobedient to their parents, traitors, adulterers, faithless ministers, and such as had undertaken unjust and cruel wars, or had betrayed their friends for the sake of money. It was also the place where Ixion, Tityus, the Danaides, Tantalus, Sisyphus, &c., were punished, according to Ovid. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 720.—Silius Italicus, bk. 13, li. 591.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 11.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, fable 13.——A small river of Italy, near Verona. Tacitus, Histories, bk. 3, ch. 9.
Tartessus, a town in Spain near the columns of Hercules, on the Mediterranean. Some suppose that it was afterwards called Carteia, and it was better known by the name of Gades, when Hercules had set up his columns on the extremity of Spain and Africa. There is also a town called Tartessus, in a small island formed by the river of the same name, near Gades in Iberia. Tartessus has been called the most distant town in the extremities of Spain, by the Romans, as also the place where the poets imagined the sun unharnessed his tired horses. Silius Italicus, bk. 3, lis. 399 & 411; bk. 10, li. 538.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 6.—Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 19.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 416.—Strabo, bk. 3.
Taruana, a town of Gaul, now Terrouen in Artois.
Lucius Taruntius Spurina, a mathematician who flourished 61 years B.C. Cicero, de Divinatione, bk. 2, ch. 47.
Tarus, a river of Gaul, falling into the Po.
Tarusates, a people of Gaul, now Turcan. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 3, chs. 23 & 27.
Taruscum, a town of Gaul.