Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography/Cerata
CERATA. [Attica, p. 322, a.]
CERAUNI′LIA (Κεραυνιλία, a town of Samnium or Apulia, mentioned by Diodorus (xx. 26) as taken by the Romans in the Second Samnite War, B.C. 311. The name is otherwise wholly unknown, as well as that of Cataracta (Καταράκτα) which accompanies it; Niebuhr suggests (Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 245) that it may be the same with the Cesaunia which appears in the epitaph of Scipio Barbatus; but this is mere conjecture. Italian antiquaries identify it with the modern town of Cerignola in Apulia. (Romanelli, vol. ii. p. 259.) [ E. H. B. ]
CERAU′NII MONTES (τὰ Κεραύνια ὄρη), a range of mountains belonging to the system of Caucasus, at its E. extremity; but its precise relation to the main chain is variously stated. Strabo makes it the name of the E. portion of the Caucasus, which overhangs the Caspian and forms the N. boundary of Albania, and in which he places the Amazons (xi. pp. 501, 504). Mela seems to apply the name to the whole chain which other writers call Caucasus, confining the latter term to a part of it. His Ceraunii are a chain extending from the Cimmerian Bosporus till they meet the Rhipaean mountains; overhanging, on the one side, the Euxine, the Maeotis, and the Tanaïs, and on the other the Caspian; and containing the sources of the Rha (Volga); a statement which, however interpreted, involves the error of connecting the Caucasus and Ural chians. (Mela, i. 19. § 13, iii. 5. § 14.) Pliny gives precisely the same representation, with the additional error of making the Ceraunii (i. e. the Caucasus of others) part of the great Taurus chain. (Plin. v. 27, vi. 10. s. 11.) He seems to apply the name of Caucasus to the spurs which spread out both to the NE. and SE. from the main chain near its E. extremity, and which he regarded as a continuous range, bordering the W. shore of the Caspian (vi. 9. s. 10). Eustathius also seems to regard them as a chain running northwards from the Caucasus. (Comment. ad Dion. Perieg, 389.) Ptolemy uses the name for the E. part of the chain, calling the W. portion Caucasii M., and the