Orēum, one of the principal towns of Eubœa. Livy, bk. 28, ch. 6.
Orga, or Orgas, a river of Phrygia, falling into the Mæander. Strabo.—Pliny.
Orgessum, a town of Macedonia. Livy, bk. 31, ch. 27.
Orgetŏrix, one of the chief men of the Helvetii, while Cæsar was in Gaul. He formed a conspiracy against the Romans, and, when accused, he destroyed himself. Cæsar.
Orgia, festivals in honour of Bacchus. They are the same as the Bacchanalia, Dionysia, &c., which were celebrated by the ancients to commemorate the triumph of Bacchus in India. See: [Dionysia].
Oribăsus, a celebrated physician, greatly esteemed by the emperor Julian, in whose reign he flourished. He abridged the works of Galenus, and of all the most respectable writers on physic, at the request of the emperor. He accompanied Julian into the east, but his skill proved ineffectual in attempting to cure the fatal wound which his benefactor had received. After Julian’s death, he fell into the hands of the barbarians. The best edition of his works is that of Dundas, 4to, Leiden, 1745.——One of Actæon’s dogs, ab ὀρος, mons, and (βαινω, scando. Ovid, Metamorphoses.
Orĭcum, or Orĭcus, a town of Epirus, on the Ionian sea, founded by a colony from Colchis, according to Pliny. It was called Dardania, because Helenus and Andromache, natives of Troy or Dardania, reigned over the country after the Trojan war. It had a celebrated harbour, and was greatly esteemed by the Romans on account of its situation, but it was not well defended. The tree which produces the turpentine grew there in abundance. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 136.—Livy, bk. 24, ch. 40.—Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 89.—Cæsar, Civil War, bk. 3, ch. 1, &c.—Lucan, bk. 3, li. 187.
Oriens, in ancient geography, is taken for all the most eastern parts of the world, such as Parthia, India, Assyria, &c.
Origen, a Greek writer, as much celebrated for the easiness of his manners, his humility, and modesty, as for his learning and the sublimity of his genius. He was surnamed Adamantus, from his assiduity; and became so rigid a christian that he made himself a eunuch, by following the literal sense of a passage in the Greek testament, which speaks of the voluntary eunuchs of Christ. He suffered martyrdom in his 69th year, A.D. 254. His works were excellent and numerous, and contained a number of homilies, commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, and different treatises, besides the Hexapla, so called from its being divided into six columns, the first of which contained the Hebrew text, the second the same text in Greek characters, the third the Greek version of the Septuagint, the fourth that of Aquila, the fifth that of Symmachus, and the sixth Theodotion’s Greek version. This famous work first gave the hint for the compilation of our Polyglot Bibles. The works of Origen have been learnedly edited by the Benedictine monks, though the whole is not yet completed, in 4 vols., folio, Paris, 1733, 1740, and 1759. The Hexapla was published in 8vo, at Lipscomb, 1769, by Carl Friedrich Bahrdt.
Orīgo, a courtesan in the age of Horace. Horace, bk. 1, satire 2, li. 55.