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ATLANTIS (Mythical lands) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
(Following URL information in Greek only)
AGCHIALOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
AIMOS (Mountain) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
Haemus or Aemus (ho Aimos, to Aimon oros, or Aimos: Balkan), a large
range of mountains in the north of Thrace, which in its widest sense is said to
extend from the Adriatic in the west to the Euxine in the east. (Anonym. Peripl.
Pont. Eux. p. 13); Amm. Marc. xxi. 10.) Herodotus (iv. 49) does not describe the
extent of the range, though he applies the name to heights west of mount Rhodope,
where the river Cius, a tributary of the Ister, is represented as dividing mount
Haemus into two halves. But most other writers apply the name Haemus, like the
modern Balkan, only to the eastern part of this range from mount Scomius in the
west to the Euxine, where it terminated between the towns of Naulochus and Mesembria.
Its western beginning is about the sources of the rivers Isker and Maritza. (Strab.
vii. pp. 319, 320; Arrian, Peripl. p. 24; Plin. iv. 18.) The range of Haemus is
in no part particularly high, although there was a notion among the ancients,
that from its highest peak both the Adriatic and the Euxine could be seen. (Pomp.
Mel. ii. 2.) But even Strabo (vii. pp. 313 and 317) has refuted this error, which
apparently originated with Theopompus and Polybius, though the last author admitted
that a person might ascend the mountain in one day. Pliny (iv. 18), who estimates
its height at 6000 paces, states that on its summit there existed a town called
Aristaeum. The highest parts of the mountain are described as covered with snow
during the greater part of the year. (Hom. Il. xiv. 227; Theocrit. vii. 76.) Modern
travellers estimate the height of the great Balkan, between Sofia and Keczanlik,
at 3000 feet, and that of the little Balkan at 2000. The northern side of mount
Haemus is less precipitous than the southern one. (Amm. Marc. xxi. 10.) The mountain
has altogether six passes by which it may be crossed without much difficulty,
but the principal one, which was best known to the ancients, is the westernmost,
between Philippopolis and Serdica, and is called by Amm. Marcellinus the pass
of Succi or Succorum angustiae (xxi. 10, xxii. 2, xxvi. 10, xxvii. 4, xxxi. 16);
it now bears the name of Ssulu Derbend, and is sometimes called Porta Trajani.
The people dwelling on and about mount Haemus are generally called
Thracians, but the following tribes are particularly mentioned: the Crobyzi (Herod.
l. c.; Strab. vii. p. 318), the Coralli (Strab. vii. p. 301), the. Bessi, and
some less known tribes. All of them were regarded by the Romans as robbers, and
the Asti in particular are described as pirates infesting the coasts of the Euxine,
until they were transplanted by Philip of Macedonia. The name Haemus seems to
be connected with the Greek cheima, cheimon, and the Sanscrit himan and heman,
according to which it would signify the cold or stormy mountain; but it is possible
also that the name is of Thracian origin. (Comp. Boue in Berghaus, Geogr. Almanach,
1838, pp. 26, foll., and by the same author La Turquie d'Europe, Paris, 1840,
in 4 vols. 8vo.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ATLANTIS (Mythical lands) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
Atlantis (he Atlantis nesos: Eth. Atlantinoi, Procl. ad Plat. Tim.;
Schol. in Plat. Rep. p. 327), the Island of Atlas, is first mentioned by Plato,
in the Timaeus, and the Critias. He introduces the story as a part of a conversation
respecting the ancient history of the world, held by Solon with an old priest
of Sais in Egypt. As an example of the ignorance of the Greeks concerning the
events of remote ages, and in particular of the Athenians respecting the exploits
of their own forefathers, the priest informs Solon that the Egyptian records preserved
the memory of the fact, that 9000 years earlier the Athenians had repelled an
invading force, which had threatened the subjugation of all Europe and Asia too.
This invasion came from the Atlantic Sea, which was at that time navigable. In
front of the strait called the Pillars of Hercules (and evidently, according to
Plato's idea, not far from it), lay an island (which he presently calls Atlantis),
greater than Libya and Asia taken together, from which island voyagers could pass
to other islands, and from them to the opposite continent, which surrounds that
sea, truly so called (i. e. the Atlantic). For the waters within the strait (i.
e. the Mediterranean), may be regarded as but a harbour, having a narrow entrance;
but that is really a sea, and the land which surrounds it may with perfect accuracy
be called a continent (Tim. p. 24, e-25, a.).
The above passage is quoted fully to show the notion which it exhibits,
when rightly understood, that beyond and on the opposite side of the Atlantic
there was a vast continent, between which and the W. shores of Europe and Libya
were a number of islands, the greatest of which, and the nearest to our world,
was that called Atlantis.
In this island of Atlantis, he adds, there arose a great and powerful
dynasty of kings, who became masters of the whole island, and of many of the other
islands and of parts of the continent. And moreover, on this side the Atlantic,
within the Straits, they ruled over Libya up to Egypt, and Europe up to Tyrrhenia.
They next assembled their whole force for the conquest of the rest of the countries
on the Mediterranean; but the Athenians, though deserted by their allies, repelled
the invaders, and restored the liberty of all the peoples within the Pillars of
Hercules. But afterwards came great earthquakes and floods, by which the victors
in the contest were swallowed up beneath the earth, and the island of Atlantis
was engulphed in the sea, which has ever since been unnavigable by reason of the
shoals of mud created by the sunken island. (Tim. p. 25, a-d.)
The story is expanded in the Critias (p. 108, e, foil.), where, however,
the latter part of it is unfortunately lost. Here Plato goes back to the original
partition of the earth among the gods, and (what is of some importance as to the
interpretation of the legend), he particularly marks the fact that, of the two
parties in this great primeval conflict, the Athenians were the people of Athena
and Hephaestus, but the Atlantines the people of Poseidon. The royal race was
the offspring of Poseidon and of Cleito, a mortal woman, the daughter of Evenor,
one of the original earthborn inhabitants of the island, of whose residence in
the centre of the island Plato gives a particular description. (Crit. p. 113,
c-e.) Cleito bore to Poseidon five pairs of twins, who became the heads of ten
royal houses, each ruling a tenth portion of the island, according to a partition
made by Poseidon himself, but all subject to the supreme dynasty of Atlas, the
eldest of the ten, on whom Poseidon conferred the place in the centre of the island,
which had been before the residence of Evenor, and which he fortified and erected
into the capital. We have then a minute description of the strength and magnificence
of this capital; of the beauty and fertility of the island, with its lofty mountains,
its abundant rivers, its exuberant vegetation, its temperate climate, its irrigation
by natural moisture in the winter, and by a system of aqueducts in the summer,
its mineral wealth, its abundance in all species of useful animals; and the magnificent
works of art with which it was adorned, especially at the royal residences. We
have also a full account of the people; their military order; their just and simple
government, and the oaths by which they bound themselves to obey it; their laws,
which enjoined abstinence from all attacks on one another, and submission to the
supreme dynasty of the family of Atlas, with many other particulars. For many
generations, then, as long as the divine nature of their founder retained its
force among them, they continued in a state of unbounded prosperity, based on
wisdom, virtue, temperance, and mutual regard; and, during this period, their
power grew to the height previously related. But at length, the divine element
in their nature was over powered by continual admixture with the human, so that
the human character prevailed in them over the divine; and thus becoming unfit
to bear the prosperity they had reached, they sank into depravity: no longer understanding
the true kind of life which gives happiness, they believed their glory and happiness
to consist in cupidity and violence. Upon this, Jove, resolving to punish them,
that they might be restored to order and moderation, summoned a council of the
gods, and addressed them in words which are lost with the rest of this dialogue
of Plato.
The truth or falsehood, the origin and meaning, of this legend, have
exercised the critical and speculative faculties of ancient and modern writers.
That it was entirely an invention of Plato's, is hardly credible; for, even if
his derivation of the legend from Egypt through Solon, and his own assertion that
the story is strange but altogether true (Tim. p. 20, d.) be set down to his dramatic
spirit, we have still the following indications of its antiquity. First, if we
are to believe a Scholiast on Plato (Repub. p. 327), the victory of the Athenians
over the Atlantines was represented on one of the pepli which were dedicated at
the Panathenaea. Diodorus also refers to this war (iii. 53). Then, the legend
is found in other forms, which do not seem to be entirely copied from Plato.
Thus Aelian relates at length a very similar story, on the authority
of Theopompus, who gave it as derived from a Phrygian source, in the form of a
relation by the satyr Silenus to the Phrygian Midas; and Strabo just mentions,
on the authority of Theopompus and Apollodorus, the same legend, in which the
island was called Meropis and the people Meropes (Meropis, Meropes, the word used
by Homer and Hesiod in the sense of endowed with the faculty of articulate speech:
Aelian, V. H. iii. 18, comp. the Notes of Perizonius; Strab. vii. p. 299: comp.
Tertull. de Pallio, 2.)
Diodorus, also, after relating the legend of the island in a form
very similar to Plato's story, adds that it was discovered by some Phoenician
navigators who, while sailing along the W. coast of Africa, were driven by violent
winds across the Ocean. They brought back such an account of the beauty and resources
of the island, that the Tyrrhenians, having obtained the mastery of the sea, planned
an expedition to colonize the new land, but were hindered by the opposition of
the Carthaginians. (Diod. v. 19, 20.) Diodorus does not mention the name of the
island; and he differs from Plato by referring to it as still existing. Pausanias
relates that a Carian Euphernus had told him of a voyage during which he had been
carried by the force of the winds into the outer sea, into which men no longer
sail; where he came to desert islands, inhabited by wild men with tails, whom
the sailors, having previously visited the islands, called Satyrs, and the islands
Saturides (i. 23. § 5, 6); whom some take for monkeys; unless the whole narrative
be an imposture on the grave traveller. Another account is quoted by Proclus (ad
Plat. Tim. p. 55) from the Aethiopica of Marcellus, that there were seven islands
in the Outer Sea, which were sacred to Persephone, and three more, sacred to Pluto,
Ammon, and Poseidon; and that the inhabitants of this last preserved from their
ancestors the memory of the exceedingly large island of Atlantis, which for many
ages had ruled over all the islands in the Atlantic Sea, and which had been itself
sacred to Poseidon. Other passages might be quoted, but the above are the most
important.
The chief variations of opinion, in ancient and modern times, respecting
these traditions, are the following. As to their origin, some have ascribed them
to the hypotheses, or purely fictitious inventions of the early poets and philosophers;
while others have accepted them as containing at least an element of fact, and
affording, as the ancients thought, evidence of the existence of unknown lands
in the Western Ocean, and, as some modern writers suppose, indications that America
was not altogether unknown to the peoples of antiquity. As to the significance
of the legend, in the form which it received from the imagination of the poets
and philosophers, some have supposed that it is only a form of the old tradition
of the golden age; others, that it was a symbolical representation of the contest
between the primeval powers of nature and the spirit of art and science, which
plays so important a part in the old mythology; and others that it was merely
intended by Plato as a form of exhibiting his ideal polity: the second of these
views is ably supported by Proclus in his commentary on the Timaeus; and has a
great deal to be said in its favour. As to the former question, how far the legend
may contain an element of fact, it seems impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion.
Those who regard it as pure fiction, but of an early origin, view it as arising
out of the very ancient notion, found in Homer and Hesiod, that the abodes of
departed heroes were in the extreme west, beyond the river Oceanus, a locality
naturally assigned as beyond the boundaries of the inhabited earth. That the fabulous
prosperity and happiness of the Atlantines was in some degree connected with those
poetical representations, is very probable; just as, when islands were actually
discovered off the coast of Africa, they were called the Islands of the Blest.
But still, important parts of the legend are thus left unaccounted for; its mythological
character, its derivation from the Egyptian priests, or other Oriental sources;
and, what is in Plato its most important part, the supposed conflict of the Atlantines
with the people of the old world. A strong argument is derived also from the extreme
improbability of any voyagers, at that early period, having found their way in
safety across the Atlantic, and the double draft upon credulity involved in the
supposition of their safe return; the return, however, being generally less difficult
than the outward voyage. But this argument, though strong, is not decisive against
the possibility of such a voyage. The opinions of the ancients may be gathered
up in a few words. Proclus (ad Tim. p. 24) tells us that Crantor, the first commentator
on Plato, took the account for a history, but acknowledged that he incurred thereby
the ridicule of his contemporaries. Strabo (ii. p. 102) barely mentions the legend,
quoting the opinion of Poseidonius, that it was possibly true; and Pliny refers
to it with equal brevity (vi. 31. s. 36). But of far more importance than these
direct references, is the general opinion, which seems to have prevailed more
or less from the time when the globular figure of the earth was established, that
the known world occupied but a small portion of its surface, and that there might
be on it other islands, besides our triple continent. Some statements to this
effect are quoted in the preceding article. Mela expressly affirms the existence
of such another island, but he places it in the southern temperate zone (i. 9.
§ 2). Whether such opinions were founded on the vague records of some actual discovery,
or on old mythical or poetical representations, or on the basis of scientific
hypothesis, can no longer be determined; but, from whatever source, the anticipation
of the discovery of America is found (not to mention other and less striking instances)
in a well-known passage of Seneca's Medea, which is said to have made a deep impression
on the mind of Columbus (Act ii. v. 375, et seq.):
Venient annis saecula series,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet,
et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes;
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.
In modern times the discussion has been carried on with great ingenuity, but with
no certain result. All that has been said, or perhaps that can be said upon it,
is summed up in the Appendix of Cellarius to his great work on ancient geography,
De Novo Orbe, an cognitus fuerit veteribus (vol. ii. p. 251-254), and in Alexander
von Humboldt's Kritische Untersuchungen uber die historische Entwickelung der
geographischen Kenntnisse der neuen Welt, Berlin, 1826.
One point seems to deserve more consideration than it has received
from the disputants on either side; namely, whether the stories of ancient voyagers,
which seem to refer to lands across the Atlantic, may not, after all, be explained
equally well by supposing that the distant regions reached by these adventurers
were only parts of the W. shores of Europe or Africa, the connection of which
with our continent was not apparent to the mariners who reached them after long
beating about in the Atlantic. By the earliest navigators everything beyond the
Straits would be regarded as remote and strange. The story of Euphemus, for example,
might be almost matched by some modern adventures with negroes or apes on the
less known parts of the W. coast of Africa. It is worthy of particular notice,
that Plato describes Atlantis as evidently not far from the Straits, and allots
the part of it nearest our continent to Gadeirus, the twin brother of Atlas, the
hero eponymus of the city of Gades or Gadeira (Cadiz). If this explanation be
at all admissible (merely as the ultimate core of fact round which the legend
grew up), it is quite conceivable that, when improved knowledge had assigned the
true position to the coasts thus vaguely indicated, their disappearance from their
former supposed position would lead to the belief that they had been swallowed
up by the ocean. On this hypothesis, too, the war of the Atlantines and the Greeks
might possibly refer to some very ancient conflict with the peoples of western
Europe.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
DERIS (Ancient city) EAST THRACE
Deris (Deris), a small town in the S. of Thrace, on the bay of Melas.
(Scyl. p. 27.)
EGOS POTAMI (Ancient city) THRAKI
Aegospotami (Aigos pothauoi, Aegos flumen, Pomp. Mel. ii. 2; Plin.
ii. 59: Eth. Aigodpothauites), i.e. the Goat-River, a stream in the Chersonesus,
with, at one time, a town of the same name upon it. It was here that the famous
defeat of the Athenian fleet by Lysander took place, B.C. 405, which put a close
to the Peloponnesian war. There seems, however, to have been no town there at
this time, for it is mentioned as a great error on the part of the Athenian generals,
that they remained at a station where they had no town at hand to supply a market
for provisions. (Plut. Alc. 36; Diod. xiii. 105; Strab. p. 287; comp. Grote, Hist.
of Greece, vol. viii. p. 293.) In later times there must have been a town there,
as the geographers especially mention it (Steph. Byz. s. v.), and there are coins
of it extant.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
KAVILI (Ancient city) THRAKI
Cabyle or Calybe (Kabule, Kalube), a town in the interior of Thrace,
west of Develtus, on the river Tonsus. It was colonised by Philip with rebellious
Macedonians, and afterwards taken by M. Lucullus. (Dem. de Cherson. p. 60; Pol.
xiii. 10; Strab. vii. p. 330; Ptol. iii. 11. § 12; Eutrop. vi. 8; Sext. Ruf. Brev.
9; Plin. iv. 18; Steph. B. s. v.) Cabyle is probably the same as the town of Goloe
mentioned by Anna Comnena (x. pp. 274, 281), and is generally identified with
the modern Golewitza or Chalil-Ovasi.
KYNOS SIMA (Ancient location) EAST THRACE
Cynossema (Kunos sema, or Kunossema), that is, the Dog's Tomb, a promontory
on the eastern coast of the Thracian Chersonesus, near the town of Madytus; it
was believed to have derived its name from the fact that Hecuba, who had been
metamorphosed into a dog, was buried there. (Eurip. Hec. 1275; Thucyd. viii. 102;
Strab. p. 595; Plin. iv. 18; Mela, ii. 2; Ov. Met. xiii. 569)
KYPASSIS (Ancient city) EAST THRACE
Cypasis (Kupasis), a commercial town in Thrace, on the east of the
Hebrus, on the Bay of Melas. (Scylax, p. 27; Steph. Byz. s. v.)
MAKARES ISLANDS (Mythical lands) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
Fortunatae Insulae (hai ton Makaron nesoi, the Islands of the Blessed),
one of those geographical names whose origin is lost in mythic darkness, but which
afterwards came to have a specific application, so closely resembling the old
mythical notion, as to make it almost impossible to doubt that that notion was
based, in part at least, on some vague knowledge of the regions afterwards discovered.
In the present case, the opinion embodied in the name will be more fitly discussed
under Oceanus: it is enough to say here that the earliest Greek poetry places
the abode of the happy departed spirits far beyond the entrance of the Mediterranean,
at the extremity of the earth, and upon the shores of the river Oceanus, or in
islands in its midst; and that Homer's poetical description of the place may be
applied almost word for word to those islands in the Atlantic, off the W. coast
of Africa, to which the name was given in the historical period (Od. iv. 563,
foll.): There the life of mortals is most easy; there is no snow, nor winter,
nor much rain, but Ocean is ever sending up the shrilly breathing breezes of Zephyrus,
to refresh men. (Comp. Pind. Ol. ii. 128.) Their delicious climate, and their
supposed identity of situation, marked out the Canary Islands, the Madeira group,
and the Azores, as worthy to represent the islands of the Blest. In the more specific
sense, however, the name was applied to the two former groups; while, in its widest
application, it may even have included the C. de Verde islands; its extension
being, in fact, adapted to that of maritime discovery.
The Romans first became acquainted with these islands at the close
of the civil wars of Marius and Sulla. Plutarch relates that, when Sertorius was
at or near Gades (Cadiz), about B.C. 82, he found certain sailors lately returned
from the Atlantic islands, which were also called the islands of the Blest; who
described them as two in number, separated by a very narrow strait, and distant
from Africa 10,000 stadia (1000 geographical miles, an enormous exaggeration,
if the Canaries are meant). Watered moderately by rare showers, and refreshed
by gentle and moist breezes, chiefly from the west, they not only rendered an
abundant return to the cultivator, but produced spontaneously food enough for
their indolent inhabitants. The climate was temperate at all seasons of the year;
and, in short, such were their natural advantages, that even the barbarians identified
them with that Elysian Plain and those Abodes of the Happy which had been sung
by Homer, and the fame of which had reached to them. Enchanted by these accounts,
Sertorius was seized with the desire of fixing his abode in the islands, and living
there in peace; but, as the Cilician pirates of his fleet preferred the plunder
of better known countries, he was compelled to abandon the design. (Plut. Sertor.
8; Flor. iii. 22.) However, the discovery must have been speedily followed up,
if at least the writer Sebosus, whom Pliny quotes in his account of the islands
(vi. 32. s. 37), be the same who is mentioned by Cicero (ad Att. ii. 14). Strabo
speaks of them in a very cursory way; and the later geographers differ somewhat
as to their number and names. The following table exhibits their statements, as
compared with one another, and with the modern names, the order (after the first)
being from E. to W.
From this table it will be seen that, besides Autolala, which he expressly
distinguishes from the Fortunatae, Ptolemy only reckons six islands as belonging
to the group, instead of seven, which is the actual number. Pliny also gives the
number as six
| SEBOSUS ap. Plin. l. c. | JUBA, ap. Plin. l. c. | PTOLEMAEUS, IV. 6. § § 33, 34. | MODERN NAMES |
| Junonia | Purpurariae | Heras, he kai Autolala | Madeira, &c. |
| Junonia Minor | Aprositos | Lanzarote | |
| Junonia | Heras | Fuerteventura | |
| Planaria | Canaria | Kanaria | Gran Canaria |
| Convallis | Nivaria | Pintonaria, e Kentouria | Tenerife |
| Capraria | Capraria | Kaspeiria | Gomera |
| Palma | |||
| Pluvialia | Ombrios | Plouitala | Ferro |
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
SALMYDISSOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
Salmydessus (Halmudissos etoi Saimudessos, Ptol. iii. 11. § 4; Halmydessos,
Plin. iv. 11. s. 18; Mela, ii. 2. § 5), a coast-town or district of Thrace, on
the Euxine, about 60 miles NW. from the entrance of the Bosporus, probably somewhere
in the neighbourhood of the modern Midjeh. The eastern offshoots of the Haemus
here come very close to the shore, which they divide from the valley of the Hebrus.
The people of Salmydessus were thus cut off from communication with the less barbarous
portions of Thrace, and became notorious for their savage and inhuman character,
which harmonised well with that of their country, the coast of which was extremely
dangerous. Aeschylus (Prom. 726)1 describes Salmydessus as the
rugged jaw of the sea, hostile to sailors, step-mother of ships; and Xenophon
(Anab. vii. 5. § 12, seq.) informs us, that in his time its people carried on
the business of wreckers in a very systematic manner, the coast being marked out
into portions by means of posts erected along it, and those to whom each portion
was assigned having the exclusive right to plunder all vessels and persons cast
upon it. This plan, he says, was adopted to prevent the bloodshed which had frequently
been occasioned among themselves by their previous practice of indiscriminate
plunder. Strabo, (vii. p. 319) describes this portion of the coast of the Euxine
as desert, rocky, destitute of harbours, and completely exposed to the north winds;
while Xenophon (l. c.) characterises the sea adjoining it as full of shoals. The
earlier writers appear to speak of Salmydessus as a district only, but in later
authors, as Apollodorus, Pliny, and Mela, it is mentioned as a town.
Little is known respecting the history of this place. Herodotus (iv.
93) states that its inhabitants, with some neighbouring Thracian tribes, submitted
without resistance to Darius when he was marching through their country towards
the Danube. When the remnant of the Greeks who had followed Cyrus the Younger
entered the service of Seuthes, one of the expeditions in which they were employed
under Xenophon was to reduce the people of Salmydessus to obedience; a task which
they seem to have accomplished without much difficulty. (Anab. l. c.)
1 In this passage the poet, strangely enough, places Salmydessus
in Asia Minor near the Thermodon.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
THEODOSSIOUPOLI (Ancient city) THRAKI
Theodosiopolis (also called Apri), a town in the SE. of Thrace, on
the road from Cypsela to Byzantium, a short distance to the E. of the source of
the river Melas. Ammianus (xxvii. 4. § 12) mentions it by the latter name as one
of the two chief towns of Europa, the designation in his time of the SE. division
of Thrace.
TYLI (Ancient city) THRAKI
Tyle (Tule, Polyb. iv. 46), a town of Thrace, on the coast of the Euxine, where
the Gauls established a seat of government (basileion). and which Reichard identifies
with Kilios. Steph. B. (p. 670) calls it Tulis, and places it on the Haemus.
ZIRYNTHOS (Ancient city) THRAKI
ADES (Mythical lands) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
According to the belief current among the Greeks, the world
of the dead, or the abode of Hades, with its wide doors, was in the depths of
the earth. In the Odyssey, its entrance and outer court were on the western side
of the river Oceanus, in the ground sacred to Persephone, with its grove of barren
willows and poplars. Here was the home of the Cimmerians, veiled in darkness and
cloud, where the sun never shines. This court, and indeed the lower world in general,
is a meadow of asphodel, an unattractive weed of dreary aspect usually planted
on graves. The actual abode of the subterranean powers is Erebus (Erebos), or
the impenetrable darkness. In later times entrances to the lower world were imagined
in other places where there were cavernous hollows which looked as if they led
into the bowels of the earth. Such places were Hermione and the promontory of
Taenarum in the Peloponnesus, Heraclea on the Euxine, and Cumae in Italy, where
the mythical Cimmerii were also localized. The lower world of Homer is intersected
by great rivers--the Styx, Acheron ("river of woe"), Cocytus ("river
of wailing"), a branch of the Styx, Phlegethon and Pyriphlegethon ("rivers
of fire"). The last two unite and join the waters of the Acheron. In the
post-Homeric legend, these rivers are represented as surrounding the infernal
regions, and another river appears with them, that of Lethe, or oblivion. In the
waters of Lethe the souls of the dead drank forgetfulness of their earthly existence.
The lower world once conceived as separated from the upper by these rivers, the
idea of a ferryman arose. This was Charon , the son of Erebus and of Nyx, a gloomy,
sullen old man, who took the souls in his boat across Acheron into the realm of
shadows. The souls were brought down from the upper world by Hermes, and paid
the ferryman an obolus, which was put for this purpose into the mouths of the
dead. Charon had the right to refuse a passage to souls whose bodies had not been
duly buried. In Homer it is the spirits themselves who refuse to receive any one
to whom funeral honours have not been paid. At the gate lies the dog Cerberus,
son of Typhaon and Echidna. He is a terrible monster with three heads, and mane
and tail of snakes. He is friendly to the spirits who enter, but if any one tries
to escape he seizes him and holds him fast.
The ghosts of the dead were in ancient times conceived as incorporeal
images of their former selves, without mind or consciousness. In the Odyssey the
seer Tiresias is the only one who has retained his consciousness and judgment,
and this as an exceptional gift of Persephone. But they have the power of drinking
the blood of animals, and having done so they recover their consciousness and
power of speech. The soul, therefore, is not conceived as entirely annihilated.
The ghosts retain the outer form of their body, and follow, but instinctively
only, what was their favourite pursuit in life. Orion in Homer is still a hunter,
Minos sits in judgment, as when alive. Perhaps the punishments inflicted in Homer
on Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus (Ixion, the Danaides, Pirithous, and others
belong to a later story) should be regarded in this light. The penalties inflicted
on them in the upper world may be merely transferred by Homer to their ghostly
existence; for the idea of a sensible punishment is not consistent with that of
an unconscious continuance in being. It must be remembered, at the same time,
that Homer several times mentions that the Erinyes punish perjurers after death.
It must be concluded, then, that the ancient belief is, in this instance, found
side by side with the later and generally received idea that the dead, even without
drinking blood, preserved their consciousness and power of speech. Connected with
it is the notion that they have the power of influencing men's life on earth in
various ways. The most ancient belief knows nothing of future rewards of the righteous,
or, indeed, of any complete separation between the just and the unjust, or of
a judgment to make the necessary awards. The judges of the dead are in the later
legend Minos, Rhadamanthys, Aeacus, and Triptolemus. It was a later age, too,
which transferred Elysium and Tartarus to the lower world--Elysium as the abode
of the blessed, and Tartarus as that of the damned. In the earlier belief these
regions had nothing to do with the realm of Hades. The name Tartarus (Tartaros)
was in later times often applied to the whole of the lower world. The spirits
of those who had lived a life of average merit were imagined as wandering on the
asphodel meadow.
In general it must be said that the ancient ideas of a future
life were always subject to considerable changes, owing to the influence of the
doctrines taught in the mysteries, and the representations of poets, philosophers,
sculptors, and painters. The general tendency was to multiply the terrors of Hades,
especially at the gates and in Tartarus. The Greek beliefs on the subject found
their way to Rome through the instrumentality of the poets, especially Vergil;
but they did not entirely supplant the national traditions.
This text is cited Sep 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
AGCHIALOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
A town of Thrace, on the Black Sea, near the border of Mysia.
AIMOS (Mountain) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
The modern Balkans. A lofty range of mountains separating Thrace
and Moesia. The pass over them most used in antiquity was in the western part
of the range, called Succi or Succorum Angustiae, also Porta Traiani (Sulu Derbend),
between Philippopolis and Serdica. The fabulous origin of the range is that Haemus
and his wife Rhodope were changed into mountains for daring to call themselves
Zeus and Here.
EGOS POTAMI (Ancient city) THRAKI
A small river in the Thracian Chersonesus, on which was a town of the same name. Here the Athenians were totally defeated by the Spartan admiral Lysander in B.C. 405, practically terminating the Peloponnesian War, and leading to the capture of Athens.
HYPERBOREANS (Mythical lands) ANCIENT GREEK WORLD
(Huperboreoi, lit. "dwellers beyond the north wind").
A people of Greek legend, whose existence was denied by some of the ancients,
while others endeavoured to define their position more precisely. They were said
to dwell far in the North, where the sun rose and set only once a year--a fancy
due, perhaps, to some dim report of the long arctic summer day. The fruits of
the earth ripened quickly with them; they lived in unbroken happiness, knowing
no violence or strife, and reached the age of a thousand years; any who were weary
of life casting themselves from a sacred rock into the sea. The myth is connected
with the worship of the god of light, Apollo, who during the dark winter was supposed
to visit them, as his priestly people, in a chariot drawn by swans; returning
to Delphi for the summer. There was a tradition in Delos that in earlier times
they used to send to that island the first-fruits of their harvests by way of
Dodona, Thessaly, and Euboea.
This text is cited Sep 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
KYNOS SIMA (Ancient location) EAST THRACE
A promontory in the Thracian Chersonesus near Madytus, so called because it was supposed to be the tomb of Hecuba, who had been previously changed into a dog.
SALMYDISSOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
(Salmudessos), called Halmydessus (Halmudessos), also in later
times Midja or Midjeh. A town of Thrace, on the coast of the Euxine, south of
the promontory Thynias. The name was originally applied to the whole coast from
this promontory to the entrance of the Bosporus; and it was from this coast that
the Black Sea obtained the name of Pontus Axinos, or inhospitable.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ZIRYNTHOS (Ancient city) THRAKI
A town of Thrace, in the territory of Aenos, with a temple of Apollo and a cave of Hecate, who are hence called Zerynthius and Zerynthia respectively.
AGCHIALOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
A town of Bulgaria.
SALMYDISSOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
MYRIOPHYTON (Ancient city) THRAKI
SALMYDISSOS (Ancient city) THRACE AT PONTOS
KAVILI (Ancient city) THRAKI
On the right bank of the river Tonzos (modern Tundza) near the city
of Yambol, a settlement of the Bronze Age (2d millennium B.C.). The Thracian city
was conquered by the Macedonians in 342-341 (Dem. 8.44; 10.15). It was an economic
and trade center of the state of the Thracian king Seuthes III (323-311 B.C.)
(Theopomp. fr. 246; Harp. s.v.; Strab. 7.320; Steph. Byz. 346.1). It was conquered
by Rome in 72 B.C. (Eutr. 6.10), and it became a city in the Roman province of
Thracia. The territory of the city included the middle reaches of the river Tonzos.
In A.D. 378 a battle was fought between the Romans and the West Goths nearby (Amm.
Marc. 31.15.5). It was a rest stop on the road to Adrianopolis (Edirne) and Anchialus
(Pomorie). In the 4th c. it was the seat of a bishop but disappeared in the 6th
c.
In the 3d c. B.C. the city minted its own coins. There was an agora,
a temple of Artemis-Hekate-Phosphorion and a temple of Apollo (IG Bulg. III/2,
n. 1731). In A.D. 145 immigrants from Perinthos erected votive inscriptions to
Herakles Agoraios. Excavations have uncovered a large basilica of late antique
date and parts of the defense wall. The finds from Kabyle are in the Regional
Museum of Yambol.
V. Velkoy, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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