RHINOCOLURA, or Rhinocorura ; but the first Reading is the most correct. This Word signifies the cutting of the Nostrils, a because the ancient Inhabitants Diodor. Sicul. l. 1. c. 60.of this City were thus mutilated. Diodorus Siculus relates the Matter thus : Actisarus King of Ethiopia, being desirous to clear his Kingdom of the Robbers that very much infested it, and yet not being willing to put them to Death, he apprehended as many of them as he could, slit their Noses, and banish’d them into a desart and barren Place, where they built them a City, which, because of their Slit-Noses, was call’d Senec. de Ira, l. 3. c. 20.Rhinocolura. Seneca says, it was a King of Persia, probably Cambyses, who made them undergo this ignominious Punishment.
Near the City of Rhinocolura there is a River which several have taken to be the Josh. xv. 4. 47. Isai. xxvii. 12. 1 Samuel xxx. 9, 10, 21. Amos vi. 14.River of Egypt. But we take the River of Egypt to be no other than the Nile ; and the Stream that runs near Rhinocolura, we think to be the Brook Besor, or the River of the Wilderness, which is spoke of elsewhere Hieron. in Vita S. Hilar.in the Scripture. This City of Rhinocolura is ascribed sometimes to Syria, and sometimes to Palestine, to which indeed it formerly belong’d, and sometimes to Egypt1, upon which it afterwards depended. Its Bishop was a Suffragan of Pelusium. ‘Tis said,2 it was at Rhinocolura that the World was divided by Noah among his three Sons. ‘Tis unknown what the ancient Name of Rhinocolura was, I mean the Hebrew Name that this Place was known by, before the Grecians gave it the Name of Rhinocolura, and before the Story of the Slit-Noses was invented. St. Hilarion, a famous Anchorite or Hermit of this Country, dwelt a long time at Flacidia a City in the Neighbourhood of Rhinocolura.
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