Εμφανίζονται 100 (επί συνόλου 305) τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Πληροφορίες για τον τόπο στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΜΑΡΜΑΡΑ Περιφέρεια ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ" .
ΑΒΥΔΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΑΡΜΑΡΑ
Abydus (he Abudos, Abydum, Plin. v. 32: Eth. Abudenos, Abydenus),
a city of Mysia on the Hellespontus, nearly opposite Sestus on the European shore.
It is mentioned as one of the towns in alliance with the Trojans. (Il. ii. 836.)
Aidos or Avido, a modern village on the Hellespont, may be the site of Abydos,
though the conclusion from a name is not certain. Abydus stood at the narrowest
point of the Hellespontus, where the channel is only 7 stadia wide, and it had
a small port. It was probably a Thracian town originally, but it became a Milesian
colony. (Thuc. viii. 61.) At a point a little north of this town Xerxes placed
his bridge of boats, by which his troops were conveyed across the channel to the
opposite town of Sestus, B.C. 480. (Herod. vii. 33.) The bridge of boats extended,
according to Herodotus, from Abydus to a promontory on the European shore, between
Sestus and Madytus. The town possessed a small territory which contained some
gold mines, but Strabo speaks of them as exhausted. It was burnt by Darius, the
son of Hystaspes, after his Scythian expedition, for fear that the Scythians,
who were said to be in pursuit of him, should take possession of it (Strab. p.
591); but it must soon have recovered from this calamity, for it was afterwards
a town of some note; and Herodotus (v. 117) states that it was captured by the
Persian general, Daurises, with other cities on the Hellespont (B.C. 498), shortly
after the commencement of the Ionian revolt. In B.C. 411, Abydus revolted from
Athens and joined Dercyllidas, the Spartan commander in those parts. (Thuc. viii.
62.) Subsequently, Abydus made a vigorous defence against Philip II., king of
Macedonia, before it surrendered. On the conclusion of the war with Philip (B.C.
196), the Romans declared Abydus, with other Asiatic cities, to be free. (Liv.
xxxiii. 30.) The names of Abydus and Sestus are coupled together in the old story
of Hero and Leander, who is said to have swam across the channel to visit his
mistress at Sestus. The distance between Abydus and Sestus, from port to port,
was about 30 stadia, according to Strabo.
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ΑΓΟΡΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Agora (Hagora), a town situated about the middle of the narrow neck
of the Thracian Chersonesus, and not far from Cardia. Xerxes, when invading Greece,
passed through it. (Herod. vii. 58; Scylax, p. 28; Steph. B. s. v.)
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ΑΔΡΑΜΥΤΤΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Adramyteum (Adramuttion, Adramutteion, Atramutteion: Eth. Adramuttenos,
Adramyttenus: Adramiti or Edremit). A town situated at the head of the bay, called
from it Adramyttenus, and on the river Caicus, in Mysia, and on the road from
the Hellespontus to Pergamum. According to tradition it was founded by Adramys,
a brother of Croesus, king of Lydia; but a colony of Athenians is said to have
subsequently settled there. (Strab. p. 606.) The place certainly became a Greek
town. Thucydides (v. 1; viii. 108) also mentions a settlement here from Delos,
made by the Delians whom the Athenians removed from the island B.C. 422. After
the establishment of the dynasty of the kings of Pergamum, it was a seaport of
some note; and that it had some shipping, appears from a passage in the Acts of
the Apostles (xxvii. 2). Under the Romans it was a Conventus Juridicus in the
province of Asia, or place to which the inhabitants of the district resorted as
the court town. There are no traces of ancient remains.
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Lyrnessus (Lurnessos: Eth. Lurnessios or Lurnaios, Aeschyl. Pers.
324).
1. A town often mentioned by Homer (Il. ii. 690, xix. 60, xx. 92, 191), and described
by Stephanus B. (s. v.) as one of the eleven towns in Troas; and Strabo (iii.
p. 612) mentions that it was situated in the territory of Thebe, but that afterwards
it belonged to Adramyttium. Pliny (v. 32) places it on the river Evenus, near
its sources. It was, like Thebe, a deserted place as early as the time of Strabo.
(Comp. Strab. xiii. p. 584; Diod. v. 49.) About 4 miles from Karavaren, Sir C.
Fellows (Journ. of an Exc. in Asia Minor, p. 39) found several columns and old
walls of good masonry; which he is inclined to regard as remnants of the ancient
Lyrnessus.
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ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥ ΘΗΡΕΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΥΣΙΑ
Hadrianutherae (Hadrianou therai), a town of Mysia, on the road from
Ergasteria to Miletopolis, was built by the emperor Hadrian to commemorate a successful
hunt which he had had in the neighbourhood. (Dion Cass. lxix. 10; Spartian, Hadr.
20.) This town, of which we possess coins from the reign of Hadrian onwards, is
identified by Sestini (Viaggi Diversi, p. 135) with the village of Trikala, one
hour and a half from Soma. (Comp. G. Cedren. i. p. 437, ed. Bonn; Aristid. i.
p. 500.) It seems to have been a place of some note; for it was the see of a bishop,
and on its coins a senate is mentioned. (Hierocl. p. 6.)
ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥΠΟΛΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Hadrianopolis (Hadrianoupolis) (Adrianople or Edrene), the most important
of the many towns founded by the emperor Hadrian, was situated in Thrace, at the
point where the river Tonzus joins the Hebrus, and where the latter river, having
been fed in its upper course by numerous tributaries, becomes navigable. From
Ammianus Marcellinus (xiv. 11, xxvii. 4) it would appear that Hadrianopolis was
not an entirely new town, but that there had existed before on the same spot a
place called Uscudama, which is mentioned also by Eutropius (vi. 8). But as Uscudama
is not noticed by earlier writers, some modern critics have inferred that Marcellinus
was mistaken, and that Uscudama was situated in another part of the country. Such
criticism, however, is quite arbitrary, and ought not to be listened to. At one
time Hadrianopolis was designated by the name of Orestias or Odrysus (Lamprid.
Heliog. 7; Nicet. pp. 360, 830; Aposp. Geog. ap. Hudson, iv. p. 42); but this
name seems afterwards to have been dropped. The country around Hadrianople was
very fertile, and the site altogether very fortunate, in consequence of which
its inhabitants soon rose to a high degree of prosperity. They carried on extensive
commerce and were distinguished for their manufactures, especially of arms. The
city was strongly fortified, and had to sustain a siege by the Goths in A.D. 378,
on which occasion the workmen in the manufactories of arms formed a distinct corps.
Next to Constantinople, Hadrianopolis was the first city of the Eastern empire,
and this rank it maintained throughout the middle ages; the Byzantine emperors,
as well as the Turkish sultans, often resided at Hadrianopolis. (Spart. Hadr.
20; Amm. Marc. xxxi. 6, 12, 15; It. Ant. 137, 175, 322; Procop. B. G. iii. 40;
Ann. Comn. x. p. 277; Zosim. ii. 22; Cedren. ii. pp. 184, 284, 302, 454; Hierocl.
p. 635; Nicet. p. 830.)
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ΑΙΝΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Aenus (Ainos: Eth. Ainhiates, Aenius: Enos), a town of Thrace, situated
upon a promontory on the south-eastern side of the PaIns Stentoris, through which
one of the mouths of the Hebrus makes its way into the sea. According to Virgil
(Aen. iii. 18), it was founded by Aeneas when he landed there on his way from
Troy, but there does not seem any more authority for this statement than the similarity
of the names; but its antiquity is attested by the fact of its being mentioned
by Homer (Il. iv. 519). According to Herodotus (vii. 58) and Thucydides (vii.
57), Aenus was an Aeolic colony. Neither of them, however, mentions from what
particular place it was colonised. Scymnus Chius (696) attributes its foundation
to Mytilene; Stephanus Byzant. to Cumae, or, according to Meineke's edition, to
the two places conjointly. According to Strabo, a more ancient name of the place
was Poltyobria. Stephanus says it was also called Apsinthus.
Little especial mention of Aenus occurs till a comparatively late
period of Grecian history. It is mentioned by Thucydides that Aenus sent forces
to the Sicilian expedition as a subject ally of Athens. At a later period we find
it successively in the possession of Ptolemy Philopator, B.C. 222 (Pol. v. 34),
of Philip, king of Macedonia, B.C. 200 (Liv. xxxi. 16), and of Antiochus the Great.
After the defeat of the latter by the Romans, Aenus was declared free. (Liv. xxxviii.
60.) It was still a free city in the time of Pliny (iv. 11).
Athenaeus speaks of the climate of Aenus as being peculiarly ungenial.
He describes the year there as consisting of eight months of cold, and four of
winter.
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ΑΛΩΠΕΚΟΝΝΗΣΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Alopeconnesus (Alopekonnesos), a town on the western coast of the
Thracian Chersonesus. It was an Aeolian colony, and was believed to have derived
its name from the fact that the settlers were directed by an oracle to establish
the colony, where they should first meet a fox with its cub. (Steph. B. s.v.;
Scymnus, 29; Liv. xxxi. 16; Pomp. Mela, ii. 2.) In the time of the Macedonian
ascendancy, it was allied with, and under the protection of Athens. (Dem. de
Coron. p. 256, c. Aristocr. p. 675.)
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ΑΜΑΞΙΤΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Hamaxitus (Hamaxitos), a town on the southwestern coast of Troas,
50 stadia south of Larissa, and close to the plain of Halesion. It was probably
an Aeolian colony, but had ceased to exist as early as the time of Strabo. (Scyl.
p. 36; Thucyd. viii. 101; Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 1. § 13; Strab. x. p. 473, xiii.
pp. 604, 612, 613.) According to Aelian (Hist. An. xii. 5), its inhabitants worshipped
mice, and for this reason called Apollo, their chief divinity, Smintheus (from
the Aeolian smintha, a mouse). Strabo relates the occasion of this as follows:
When the Teucrians fled from Crete, the oracle of Apollo advised them to settle
on the spot where their enemies issued from the earth. One night a number of field-mice
destroyed all their shields, and, recognising in this occurrence the hint of the
oracle, they established themselves there, and called Apollo Smintheus, representing
him with a mouse at his feet. Daring the Macedonian period, the inhabitants were
compelled by Lysimachus to quit their town and remove to the neighbouring Alexandria.
(Comp. Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. v. 33.) No ruins of this town have yet been discovered
(Leake, Asia Minor, p. 273); but Prokesch (Denkwurdigk. iii. p. 362) states that
architectural remains are still seen near Cape Baba, which he is inclined to regard
as belonging to Hamaxitus.
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ΑΝΔΕΙΡΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΡΩΑΣ
Andeira (Andeira: Eth. Andeiranos), as it is written in Pliny (v.
32), a town of the Troad, the site of which is uncertain. There was a temple of
the Mother of the Gods here, whence she had the name Andeirene. (Steph. B. s.
v. Andeira.) As to the stone found here (Strab. p. 610), which, when burnt, becomes
iron, and as to the rest of this passage, the reader may consult the note in Groskurd's
translation of Strabo (vol. ii. p. 590).
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ΑΝΤΑΝΔΡΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Antandrus (Antandros: Eth. Antandrios: Antandro), a city on the coast
of Troas, near the head of the gulf of Adramyttium, on the N. side, and W. of
Adramyttium. According to Aristotle (Steph. B. s. v. Antandros), its original
name was Edonis, and it was inhabited by a Thracian tribe of Edoni, and he adds
or Cimmeris, from the Cimmerii inhabiting it 100 years. Pliny (v. 30) appears
to have copied Aristotle also. It seems, then, that there was a tradition about
the Cimmerii having seized the place in their incursion into Asia, of which tradition
Herodotus speaks (i. 6). Herodotus (vii. 42) gives to it the name Pelasgis. Again,
Alcaeus (Strab. p. 606) calls it a city of the Leleges. From these vague statements
we may conclude that it was a very old town; and its advantageous position at
the foot of Aspaneus, a mountain belonging to Ida, where timber was cut, made
it a desirable possession. Virgil makes Aeneas build his fleet here (Aen. iii.
5). The tradition as to its being settled from Andros (Mela, i. 18) seems merely
founded on a ridiculous attempt to explain the name. It was finally an Aeolian
settlement (Thuc. viii. 108), a fact which is historical.
Antandros was taken by the Persians (Herod. v. 26) shortly after the
Scythian expedition of Darius. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war it
was betrayed by some Mytilenaeans and others, exiles from Lesbos, being at that
time under the supremacy of Athens; but the Athenians soon recovered it. (Thuc.
iv. 52, 75.) The Persians got it again during the Peloponnesian war; but the townspeople,
fearing the treachery of Arsaces, who commanded the garrison there for Tissaphernes,
drove the Persians out of the acropolis, B.C. 411. (Thuc. viii. 108.) The Persians,
however, did not lose the place. (Xen. Hell. i. 1. 25)
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ΑΠΑΜΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Apameia (Medania, Mutania). In Bithynia, was originally called Murleia
(Steph. B. s. v. Apameia), and was a colony from Colophon. (Plin. v. 32.) Philip
of Macedonia, the father of Perseus, took the town, as it appears, during the
war which he carried on against the king of Pergamus, and he gave the place to
Prusias, his ally, king of Bithynia. Prusias gave to Myrlea, which thus became
a Bithynian town, the name of his wife Apameia. The place was on the S. coast
of the Gulf of Cius, and NW. of Prusa. The Romans made Apameia a, colony, apparently
not earlier than the time of Augustus, or perhaps Julius Caesar; the epigraph
on the coins of the Roman period contains the title Julia. The coins of the period
before the Roman dominion have the epigraph Apameon Murleanon. Pliny (Ep. x. 56),
when governor of Bithynia, asked for the directions of Trajan, as to a claim made
by this colonia, not to have their accounts of receipts and expenditure examined
by the Roman governor. From a passage of Ulpian (Dig. 50. tit. 15. s. 11) we learn
the form Apamena: est in Bithynia colonia Apamena.
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ΑΡΙΣΒΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Arisba (Arisbe: Eth. Arisbaios), a town of Mysia, mentioned by Homer
(Il. ii. 837), in the same line with Sextus and Abydus. It was (Steph. B. s. v.
Arisbe) between Percote and Abydos, a colony of Mytilene, founded by Scamandrius
and Ascanius, son of Aeneas; and on the river Seilleis, supposed to be the Moussa-chai;
the village of Moussa may represent Arisba. The army of Alexander mustered here
after crossing the Hellespont. (Arrian. Anab. i. 12.) When the wandering Galli
passed over into Asia, on the invitation of Attalus, they occupied Arisba, but
were soon defeated (B.C. 216) by King Prusias. (Pol. v. 111) In Strabo's time
the place was almost forgotten. There are coins of Arisbe of Trajan's time, and
also autonomous coins.
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ΑΡΠΑΓΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΥΣΙΑ
Harpageia (ta Harpageia), a district between Priapus and Cyzicus,
about the mouth of the river Granicus in Mysia, whence Ganymede is said to have
been carried off. (Strab. xiii. p. 587.) Thucydides (viii. 107) also mentions
a town Harpagion, which is otherwise unknown. (Comp. Steph. B. s. v. Harpagia.)
ΑΡΤΑΚΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Artace (Artake: Eth. Artakenos, Artakios, Artakeus: Artaki or Erdek),
a town of Mysia, near Cyzicus (Herod. iv. 14), and a Milesian colony. (Strab.
pp. 582, 635.) It was a sea-port, and on the same peninsula on which Cyzicus stood,
and about 40 stadia from it. Artace was burnt, together with Proconnesus, during
the Ionian revolt, in the reign of Darius I. (Herod. vi. 33.) Probably it was
not rebuilt, for Strabo does not mention it among the Mysian towns: but he speaks
of a wooded mountain Artace, with an island of the same name near to it, the same
which Pliny (v. 32) calls Artacaeum. Timosthenes, quoted by Stephanus (s. v. Artake),
also gives the name Artace to a mountain, and to a small island, one stadium from
the land. In the time of Procopius, Artace had been rebuilt, and was a suburb
of Cyzicus. (Bell. Pers. i. 25.) It is now a poor place. (Hamilton, Researches,
vol. ii. p. 97.)
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ΑΣTΑΚΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Astacus (Astakos: Eth. Astakenos, Astakios), a city of Bithynia, on
the gulf of Astacus, and a colony from Megara and Athens. (Strab. p. 563.) Memnon
(Phot. Bibl. 224) says that the first colonists came from Megara, in the beginning
of the seventeenth Olympiad, and those from Athens came afterwards. Mela (i. 19)
calls it a colony of Megara. It appears that this city was also called Olbia;
for Scylax, who mentions the gulf of Olbia and Olbia, does not mention Astacus;
and Strabo, who names Astacus, does not mention Olbia. The mythical story of Astacus
being founded by Astacus, a son of Poseidon and the nymph Olbia, favours the supposition
of the identity of Astacus and Olbia. (Steph. s. v. Astakos.) Astacus was seized
by Doedalsus, the first king of Bithynia. In the war between Zipoetes, one of
his successors, and Lysimachus, the place was destroyed or damaged. Nicomedes
II., the son of Zipoetes, transferred the inhabitants to his city of Nicomedia
(Ismid), B.C. 264. Astacus appears to have been near the head of the gulf of Astacus,
and it is placed by some geographers at a spot called Ovaschik, and also Bashkele.
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ΑΣΣΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Assus (Assos: Eth. Assius and Asseus: Asso), a city of Mysia, on the
gulf of Adramyttium, between Cape Lectum and Antandros. It was situated in a strong
natural position, was well walled, and connected with the sea by a long, steep
ascent. (Strab. p. 610.) The harbour was formed by a great mole. Myrsilus stated
that Assus was a settlement of the Methymnaei. Hellanicus calls it an Aeolic city,
and adds that Gargara was founded by Assus. Pliny (v. 32) gives to Assus also
the name Apollonia, which it is conjectured that it had from Apollonia, the mother
of Attalus, king of Pergamus. That Assus was still a place visited by shipping
in the first century of the Christian aera, appears from the travels of St. Paul.
(Acts, xx. 13.)
The neighbourhood of Assus was noted for its wheat. (Strab. p. 735.)
The Lapis Assius was a stone that had the property of consuming flesh, and hence
was called sarcophagus: this stone was accordingly used to inter bodies in, or
was pounded and thrown upon them. (Steph. B. s. v. Assos; Plin. ii. 96.)
Hermeias, who had made himself tyrant of Assus, brought Aristotle
to reside there some time. When Hermeias fell into the hands of Memnon the Rhodian,
who was in the Persian service, Assus was taken by the Persians. It was the birthplace
of Cleanthes, who succeeded Zeno of Citium in his school, and transmitted it to
Chrysippus.
The remains of Assus, which are very considerable, have often been
described. The name Asso appears to exist, but the village where the remains are
found is called Beriam Kalesi, or other like names. From the acropolis there is
a view of Mytilene. The wall is complete on the west side, and in some places
is thirty feet high: the stones are well laid, without cement. There is a theatre,
the remains of temples, and a large mass of ruins of great variety of character.
Outside of the wall is the cemetery, with many tombs, and sarcophagi, some of
which are ten or twelve feet long. Leake observes, the whole gives perhaps the
most perfect idea of a Greek city that any where exists. (Asia Minor, p. 128;
see also Fellows's Asia Minor, p. 46.)
Autonomous coins of Assus, with the epigraph ASSION, are rare. The
coins of the Roman imperial period are common.
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ΑΣΤΥΡΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Astyra (Astura, Asturon: Eth. Asturenos), a small town of Mysia, in
the plain of Thebes, between Antandros and Adramyttium. It had a temple of Artemis,
of which the Antandrii had the superintendence. (Strab. p. 613.) Artemis had hence
the name of Astyrene or Astirene. (Xen. Hell. iv. 1. 41) There was a lake Sapra
near Astyra, which communicated with the sea. Pausanias, from his own observations
(iv. 35. § 10), describes a spring of black water at Astyra; the water was hot.
But he places Astyra in Atarneus. There was, then, either a place in Atarneus
called Astyra, with warm springs, or Pausanias has made some mistake; for there
is no doubt about the position of the Astyra of Strabo and Mela (i. 19). Astyra
was a deserted place, according to Pliny's authorities. He calls it Astyre. There
are said to be coins of Astyra.
Strabo mentions an Astyra above Abydus in Troas, once an independent
city, but in Strabo's time it was a ruined place, and belonged to the inhabitants
of Abydus. There were once gold mines there, but they were nearly exhausted in
Strabo's time.
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ΑΧΙΛΛΕΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Achilleum (Achilleion), a small town near the promontory Sigeum in the Troad (Herod. v. 94), where, according to tradition, the tomb of Achilles was. (Strab. p. 594.) When Alexander visited the place on his Asiatic expedition, B.C. 334, he placed chaplets on the tomb of Achilles. (Arrian, i. 12.)
ΒΙΣΑΝΘΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Bisanthe (Bisanthe: Eth. Bisanthenos: Rodasto, or Rodostshig), a great
city in Thrace, on the coast of the Propontis, which had been founded by the Samians.
(Steph. B. s. v.; Herod. vii. 137; Pomp. Mela, ii. 2, 6; Ptol. iii. 11. § 6.)
About B.C. 400. Bisanthe belonged to the kingdom of the Thracian prince Seuthes.
(Xen. Anab. vii. 2. 38) At a later period its name was changed into Raedestum
or Raedestus (Hpaideston or Hpaidestos); but when this change took place is unknown.
In the 6th century of our era, the emperor Justinian did much to restore the city,
which seems to have fallen into decay (Procop. De Aedif. iv. 9); but after that
time it was twice destroyed by the Bulgarians, first in A.D. 813 (Simeon Magister,
Leon. Armen. 9, p. 614, ed. Bonn), and a second time in 1206. (Nicetas, Bald.
Fland. 14; Georg. Acropolita, Annal. 13.) The further history of this city, which
was of great importance to Byzantium, may be read in Georg. Pachymeres and Cantacuzenus.
It is generally believed that the town of Resistos or Resisto, mentioned by Pliny
(iv. 18), and in the Antonine Itinerary (p. 176), is the same as Bisanthe; but
Pliny mentions Bisanthe and Resistos as distinct towns. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 25.)
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ΓΑΡΓΑΡΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Gargara or Gargaron, one of the heights of Mount Ida in Troas (Hom. Il. viii.
48, xiv. 292), which continued to bear this name even in the time of Strabo (xiii.;
comp. Plin. v. 32; Macrob. Sat. v. 20; Steph, B. s. v.). Its modern name is said
to be Kazdag. A town of the same name existed from early times upon that height,
or rather on a branch of it forming a cape on the north of the bay of Adramyttium,
between Antandrus and Assus. In the earliest times it is said to have been inhabited
by Leleges, but afterwards to have received Aeolian colonists from Assus, and
others from Miletupolis (Strab.; Mela, i. 18; Ptol.v. 2. 5). The name of this
town is in some authors misspelt Iarganon, as in Ptolemy, and Sagara, as in Hierocles.
The territory round Gargara was celebrated for its fertility (Virg. Georg. i.
103; Senec. Phoen. iv. 608). The modern village of Ine probably occupies the site
of ancient Gargara.
ΓΕΡΓΙΘΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Gergis, Gergithus, Gergithes (Gerpsis, Gerpsithos, Gerpsithes: Eth.
Gerpsithios), a town in Troas, on the north of the river Scamnander, was inhabited,
according to Herodotus (v. 122, vii. 43), by descendants of the ancient Teucrians.
In the time of Xenophon (Hell. iii. 1. § 15) Gergis is called a strong place;
it had an acropolis and strong walls, and was one of the chief towns of the Dardanian
princess Mania. (Comp. Plut. Phoc. 18; Liv. xxxviii. 39; Strab. xiii. p. 589;
Plin. v. 32; Steph. B. s. v.; Athen. vi. p. 256, xii. p. 524.) King Attalus of
Pergamus transplanted the inhabitants of Gergis to a place near the sources of
the Caicus, whence we afterwards find a place called Gergetha or Gergithion, near
Larissa, in the territory of Cyme. (Strab. l. c. 616.) The old town of Gergis
was believed by some to have been the birthplace of the Sibyl, whence coins found
there have the image of the prophetess impressed upon them.
ΔΑΡΔΑΝΙΑ (Αρχαία χώρα) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Dardania (Dardania) or Dardanice, a territory in Mysia, the limits
of which are not very clearly defined. Strabo interprets Homer as placing Dardania
above Ilium, on the Paroreia of Troja; and in another place, after describing
the positions of Abydus, Dardanus, and the places on the coast of the Hellespont
as far as Sigeium, he says, above them lies the Trojan plain, which extends eastward
many stadia, as far as Ida. The Paroreia (mountain tract) is narrow: it extends
on one side south as far as the parts about Scepsis, and north to the Lycians
about Zeleia. Again, when he is describing the places about the promontory of
Lectum, and the river Satnioeis, he says that all these places are adjacent to
Dardania and Scepsis, being a kind of second and lower Dardania. There is really
no historical province Dardania, and all that Strabo says of it is derived from
his interpretation of the Iliad. The Dardani and Dardanii are mentioned in the
Iliad (ii. 819, xv. 425). Aeneas, in the Iliad, is the commander of the Dardani.
Dardanus, a son of Jupiter, settled in Dardania long before Ilium
was built in the plain. He was the ancestor of Priamus; and there were five generations
from Dardanus to Priamus. (Il. xx. 215, &c.) Dardanus was a wanderer into Asia;
and the legend seems to represent a tradition of the Dardani coming. from Europe
and seizing a part of Mysia. Dardanus found the country occupied by Teucri, who
had a king Teucer. According to the authority of Cephalon (Steph. B. s.vv. Arisbe
and Dardanos), Dardanus came from Samothrace and married a daughter of Teucer.
Cephalon and Hellanicus could, not agree about the woman's name.
Strabo mentions a promontory Dardanis or Dardanium, about 70 stadia
south of Abydus: it appears to be the Kephiz Burnu of the Turks, and the Punta
dei Barbieri of the Europeans (Strab.); and probably that which Pliny calls Trapeza.
There was a tradition that the descendants of Aeneas maintained themselves in
part of the inland territory of Dardania, after the war of Troy. Xenophon (Hell.
iii. 1. § 10) speaks of one Zenis a Dardaneus, who had a principality in Mysia,
and Scepsis and Gergitha were two of his strong places; but the territory that
he had was not the old Dardania. Xenophon calls it the Aeolis of Pharnabazus.
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ΔΑΡΔΑΝΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Dardanus, Dardanum (he Dardanos, to Dardanon: Eth. Dardaneus), a city
of the Troad, originally named Teucris. According to the legend told by Mnaseas
(Steph. B. s. v. Dardanos), Dardanus built or settled Dardanus, and named the
country Dardania, which was called Teucris before. This old story of Dardanus
being the founder of the city, is reported by various other authorities. (Apollod.
iii. 12. § 1; Diod. iv. 75; Conon. apud Phot. Narr. 21.) It seems that the city
was sometimes called Dardania as well as the country. Pliny (v. 30) names it Dardanium.
It was situated on the Hellespont, about a mile south of the promontory Dardanis
or Dardanium (Map of the Plain of Troy, by Capt. Graves and T. A. B. Spratt, Esq.,
London Geog. Journal, vol. xii.), and 70 stadia from Abydus. Between Abydus and
Dardanus, says Strabo, is the Rhodius. There are two streams marked in the map:
one nearer Dardanus, which enters the Hellespont close to the promontory of Dardanis;
and another near Sultania, a little north of which is the site of Abydus. Dr.
Forchhammer, in the map referred to, which contains his determination of the ancient
sites, makes the stream at Sultania to be the ancient Rhodius; and this appears
to be right, according to Strabo, who says that it enters the sea opposite to
Cynossema in the Chersonesus. Strabo adds, however, some say that the Rhodius
flows into the Aesepus; but of course the Rhodius must then be a different river
from the stream that enters the sea between Abydus and Dardanus. Homer mentions
the Rhodius (Il. xii. 20).
Strabo observes that the Dardanus of his time, the town on the coast,
was not the old town of Dardanus, or Dardania, which appears from the Iliad to
have been at the foot of Ida. It was an older town than Ilium, and did not exist
in Strabo's time. The later town was an Aeolian settlement, and it is mentioned
among the towns on the Hellespont, which Daurises the Persian took after the burning
of Sardis. (Herod. v. 117.) In another place (vi. 43), Herodotus observes that
Dardanus bordered on the territory of Abydus; which might also be safely inferred
from the passage in the fifth book. It is mentioned by Scylax in his Periplus
of the Troad. In the battle between the Athenians and Peloponnesians in the twenty-first
year of the Peloponnesian War (B.C. 411), the line of the 68 ships of the Peloponnesians
extended from Abydus to Dardanus (Thuc. viii. 104); a statement that can hardly
be correct, for the ships that were outside of the promontory of Dardanis would
be completely separated from the rest. Strabo says that Dardanus was so weak a
place, that the kings, by whom he means Alexander's successors, some of them several
times removed all the people to Abydus, and others moved them back again to their
old place. On this spot L. Cornelius Sulla and Mithridates met, after Sulla had
crossed over from Europe, and here they came to terms about putting an end to
the war, B.C. 84. (Strab. p. 595; Plut. Sulla, c. 24.) It was at that time a free
city, having been declared such by the Romans after the peace with king Antiochus,
B.C. 190, in honour of the Trojan descent of the people. (Liv. xxxvii. 9, 37,
xxxviii. 39.)
There are many imperial coins of Dardanus; and the name of the river
Rhodius appears on a medal of Domna. Sestini, Mon. Vet. p. 76. (Cramer, Asia Minor,
vol. i. p. 82.) This seems to show that the stream which flows into the Hellespont
near the cape Dardanis, is the Rhodius, and not the river nearer Abydus; but it
is not decisive. The modern name Dardanelles is generally supposed to be derived
from the name of Dardanus.
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ΔΑΣΚΥΛΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Dascylium (Daskulion, Daskuleion, Dascylus: Eth. Daskulites). Stephanus
B. (s. v.) mentions several Asiatic cities called Dascylium. The only place of
any historical note is the town near the Propontis. Herodotus (iii. 120) mentions
Mitrobates, a Persian, as governor of the nome in Dascylium; and again (iii. 126),
he calls the same man the governor of Dascylium (ton ek Daskuleiou huparchon).
But in vi. 33, he speaks of the Cyziceni submitting to Oebares, son of Megabazus,
the governor in Dascylium. Agesilaus, in one of his campaigns, marched to Phrygia,
and came near Dascylium. (Xen. Hell. iii. 1. 13) Xenophon, who speaks of the Phrygia
of Pharnabazus, seems to place Dascylium in Phrygia (Hell. iv. 1. § 15); but his
narrative is confused, and nothing can be learned from it as to the position of
Daseylium. He says that Pharnabazus had his palace here, and there were many large
villages about it, which abounded with supplies; and there were hunting grounds,
both in enclosed parks and in the open country, very fine. A river flowed round
the place, and it was full of fish. There was also plenty of birds. The governor
spent his winter here; from which fact and the context we seem to learn that it
was in the low country. Alexander, after the battle of the Granicus, sent Parmeno
to take Dascylium (Arrian, Anab. i. 17. § 2); but there is nothing in Arrian which
shows its position. The town does not seem to have been a large place, but it
gave name to a Persian satrapy (ten Daskulitin satrapeian, Thucyd. i. 129), the
extent of which cannot be defined.
Strabo says that, above the lake Dascylitis, there are two large lakes,
the Apolloniatis and the Miletopolitis; and on the Dascylitis is the town of Dascylium.
We must therefore look for Dascylium and its lake between the shores of the Propontis
and the lakes Apolloniatis and Miletopolitis. Strabo also says that the Doliones
are a people about Cyzicus, from the river Aesepus to the Rhyndacus and the lake
Dascylitis; from which we might perhaps conclude that the Dascylitis is east of
the Rhyndacus; and another passage seems to lead to the same conclusion. In Strabo's
time the territory of the Cyziceni extended to the Miletopolitis and the Apolloniatis;
they had also one part of the Dascylitis, and the Byzantines had the other. From
this also we infer that it was east of the Rhyndacus. Mela (i. 19), in express
words, places Dascylos, as he calls it, east of the Rhyndacus. Pliny (v. 32) says
that it is on the coast. Hecataeus, quoted by Strabo, says that a river Odrysses
flows from the west out of the Dascylitis, through the plains of Mygdonia, into
the Rhyndacus. But this description applies to a lake west of the Rhyndacus. Strabo
further says that the lake Dascylitis was also called Aphnitis; and he again mentions
the Aphnitis, but without identifying it with the Dascylitis. Stephanus (s. v.
Aphneion) says that the lake near Cyzicus is Aphnitis, and that it was formerly
called Artynia. There is no lake nearer to Cyzicus than the lake of Maniyas, west
of the Rhyndacus, which is the ancient Miletopolitis. The Rhyndacus flows through
the Apolloniatis.
Leake, in his map of Asia Minor, marks a lake Dascylitis north of
the Apolloniatis, and consequently between it and the shore of the Propontis,
and east of the course of the Rhyndacus after it has flowed from the Apolloniatis.
Some authorities speak of a lake in this part called Diaskilli, or some name like
it; but this seems to require further confirmation. This town Dascylium must have
existed to a late time, for a bishop of Dascylia is mentioned. (Plin. v. 32, ed.
Harduin.)
What we can learn about Dascylium is very unsatisfactory. There is
a river marked in the newest maps, which rises near Broussa, and flows westward
towards the Rhyndacus, but its junction with the Rhyndacus is not marked. It is
called the Lufer Su, or Nifer. Cramer (Asia Minor, vol. i. p. 172) conjectures
that this may be the Odrysses of Hecataeus, though it does not run in the direction
described in Strabo's text; and that it is also the river described by Xenophon.
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ΕΛΛΗΣΠΟΝΤΟΣ (Θαλάσσιο στενό) ΤΣΑΝΑΚΚΑΛΕ
Hellespontus (ho Hellespontos, Horn. Il. ii. 845, Odyss. xxiv. 82;
Helles pontos, -hudor, -porthuos, Aesch. Pers. 722; Hellespontus, Pontus Helles,
Hellespontum Pelagus, Fretum Hellesponticum: Eth. Hellespontios, Hellespontias,
Hellespontis, Steph. B.: The Dardanelles; Golfo di Galippoli; Stambul Denghiz),
the strait which divides Europe from Asia and unites the Propontis with the Aegaean
sea.
The Greeks explained the origin of the name by the well-known legend
of Phryxus and Helle, and in the later poets (Ovid, Her. xviii. 117, 137; Prop.
i. 20. 19; Lucan v.56; Avien. 692) frequent allusion is made to this tradition.
The broad Hellespont of the Homeric poems (Il. vii. 86) - for the
interpretation of Mr. Walpole and Dr. Clarke (Trav. vol. iii. p. 91) of platus
Hellespontos by salt Hellespont is too unpicturesque to be adopted - was probably
conceived to be a wide river, flowing through thickly wooded banks into the sea.
(Comp. Herod. vii. 35; Walpole, Turkey and Greece, vol. i. p. 101; Schlichthorst,
Geogr. Homer. p. 127.)
Herodotus (iv. 85), Strabo (xiii. p. 591), and Pliny (iv. 12, vi.
1) give 7 stadia as the breadth of the Hellespont in its narrowest part. Tournefort
(vol. ii. lett. iv.) and Hobhouse (Albania, vol. ii. p. 805) allow about a mile.
Some modern French admeasurements give the distance as much greater. The Due de
Raguse (Voyage en Turquie, vol. ii. p. 164) nearly coincides with Herodotus.
The bridge, or rather two separate bridges, which Xerxes threw across
the Hellespont, stretched from the neighbourhood of Abydos, on the Asiatic coast,
to the coast between Sestus and Madytus, on the European side; and consisted of
360 vessels in the bridge higher up the stream, and 314 in the lower one. If the
breadth be estimated at a mile or 5280 feet, 360 vessels, at an average of 14
2/3 feet each, would exactly fill up the space. (Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol.
v. p. 26; comp. Rennell, Geog. of Herod. vol. i. p. 158; Kruse, Uber die Schiffbrucken
der Perser, Breslau, 1820; Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage Pittoresque, vol. ii. p.
449; Bahr, ad Herod. vii. 36.) The length of the strait was estimated by Herodotus
(iv. 85) at 400 stadia. This admeasurement of course depends upon the point assigned
by the ancients to the extremity of the Hellespont, a point which is discussed
by Hoblouse (Albania, vol. ii. p. 791). In the later years of the Peloponnesian
War the Hellespont was the scene of the memorable battles of Cynossema and Aegospotami.
In B.C. 334 the Hellespont was crossed by Alexander, with an army
of about 35,000 men. (Arrian, Anab. i. 11; Diod. Sic. xvii. 1.)
The Hellespont issues from the Propontis near Gallipoli, the road
of which is the anchorage for the Ottoman fleet. A little lower, on the Asiatic
side, is Lampsaki, close to which the current sweeps as before, nearly SW. to
the bay of Sestos, a distance of about 20 miles, with an ordinary width of from
2 1/2 to 3 miles. At Sestos the stream becomes narrower, and takes a SSE. direction
as it passes Abydos, and proceeds to the town of Charnak Kal'eh-S&;acute; from
the last point it flows SW. for 3 miles to Point Berber, and from thence onward
in the same direction, but rather increasing in width, for a distance of 9 3/4
miles to the Aegaean sea.
About 1 1/2 miles below the W. point of the bay of Madytus are the
famous castles of the Dardanelles, which give their name to the straits; or the
castles of Anatoli and Rum-ili: Tchannak-Ka'leh-Si, on the Asiatic side, and Kilidu-l-Bahr,
on the European. (Chesney, Exped. Euphrat. vol. i. p. 318.)
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ΖΕΛΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΡΩΑΣ
A town of Troas, at the foot of Mount Ida and on the banks of the
river Aesepus, at a distance of 80 stadia from its mouth. It is mentioned by Homer
(Il. ii. 824, iii. 103), who calls it a holy town. (Comp. Strab. xii. p. 565,
xiii. pp. 585, 587, 603; Steph. B. s. v.) Arrian (Anab. i. 13) mentions it as
the head-quarters of the Persian army before the battle of the Granicus: it existed
in the time of Strabo; but afterwards it disappears. Some travellers have identified
it with the modern Biga, between Bozaegee and Sorricui.
ΘΗΒΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Thebe (Thebe), a famous ancient town in Mysia, at the southern foot
of Mount Placius, which is often mentioned by Homer as governed by Eetion, the
father of Andromache (Il. i. 366, vi. 397, xxii. 479). The town is said to have
been destroyed during the Trojan War by Achilles (Il. ii. 691; Strab. xiii. pp.
584, 585, 612, foll.) It must have been restored after its first destruction,
but it was decayed in the time of Strabo, and when Pliny (v. 32) wrote it had
entirely disappeared. The belief of some of the ancient grammarians (Etym. M.
s. v.; Didym. ad Hom. Il. i. 336; Diac. ad Hesiod. Scut. 49; and Eustath. ad Hom.
Il. ii. 691) that Thebe was only another name for Adramyttium, is contradicted
by the most express testimony of the best writers. Xenophon (Anab. vii. 8. § 7)
places it between Antandrus and Adramyttium, and Strabo, perhaps more correctly,
between Adramyttium and Carina, about 80 stadia to the north-east of the former.
(Comp. Pomp. Mela, i. 18; Steph. B. s. v.) Although this town perished at an early
period, its name remained celebrated throughout antiquity, being attached to the
neighbouring plain (Thebes pedion, Campus Thebanus), which was famed for its fertility,
and was often ravaged and plundered by the different armies, whom the events of
war brought into this part of Asia. (Herod. vii. 42; Xenoph. l. c.; Strab. xiii.
p. 588; Liv. xxxvii. 19.) Stephanus B. (s. v.) mentions another town of this name
as belonging to the territory of Miletus in Asia Minor.
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ΘΥΝΙΑΣ (Νησί) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Thynias (Thunias), a small island in the Euxine at a distance of one
mile from the coast of Thynia or Bithynia; its distance from the port of Rhoe
was 20 stadia, and from Calpe 40. (Plin. vi. 13; Arrian, Peripl. P. E. p. 13.)
The island had only 7 stadia in circumference, and had at first been called Apollonia
from a temple of Apollo which existed in it. (Plin., Arrian, ll. cc.; Apollon.
Rhod. ii. 177, 675; Anon. Peripl. P. E. p. 3.) According to Ptolemy (v. 1. § 15)
it was also called Daphnusia, and obtained its name of Thynias from the Thyni,
who inhabited the opposite coast. The island had a port and a naval station belonging
to Heracleia (Scylax, p. 34; Arrian, l. c.); and Mela (ii. 7) is probably mistaken
in believing that the island contained a town of the same name. (Comp. Strab.
xii. p. 543, where it is called Thynia; Marcian, p. 69; Steph. B. s. v.; Orph.
Argon. 717, where it bears the name Thyneis.) The modern name of the island is
Kirpeh.
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ΙΜΒΡΟΣ (Νησί) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Imbros (Imbros: Eth. Imbrios), an island in the Aegaean sea, off the
SW. coast of the Thracian Chersonesus, and near the islands of Samothrace and
Lemnos. According to Pliny (iv. 12. s. 23), Imbros is 62 miles in circumference;
but this is nearly double its real size. It is mountainous and well wooded, and
its highest summit is 1845 feet above the level of the sea. It contains, however,
several fertile valleys, and a river named Ilissus in antiquity. (Plin. l. c.)
Its town on the northern side was called by the same name, and there are still
some ruins of it remaining. Imbros was inhabited in early times by the Pelasgians,
and was, like the neighbouring island of Samothrace, celebrated for its worship
of the Cabeiri and Hermes, whom the Carians called Imbrasus. (Steph. B. s. v.
Imbros.) Both the island and the city of Imbros are mentioned by Homer, who gives
to the former the epithet of paipaloesse.. (Il. xiii. 33, xiv.281, xxiv. 78, Hymn.
in Apoll. 36.) The island was annexed to the Persian empire by Otanes, a general
of Dareius, at which time it was still inhabited by Pelasgians. (Herod. v. 26.)
It was afterwards colonised by the Athenians, and was no doubt taken by Miltiades
along with Lemnos. It was always regarded in later times as an ancient Athenian
possession: thus the peace of Antalcidas, which declared the independence of all
the Grecian states, nevertheless allowed the Athenians to retain possession of
Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros (Xen. Hell. iv. 8. 15, v. 1. § 31); and at the end
of the war with Philip the Romans restored to the same people the islands of Lemnos,
Imbros, Delos, and Seyros. (Liv. xxxiii. 30.)
The coins of Imbros have the common Athenian emblem, the head of Pallas.
Imbros seems to have afforded good anchorage. The fleet of Antiochus first sailed
to Imbros and from thence crossed over to Sciathus. (Liv. xxxv. 43.) The ship
which carried Ovid into exile also anchored in the harbour of Imbros, which the
poet calls Imbria tellus. (Ov. Trist. i. 10, 18.) The island is still called by
its ancient name.
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ΚΑΡΔΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Cardia (Kardia: Caridia), one of the chief towns of the Thracian
Chersonesus, situated at the head of the gulf of Melas. It was originally a colony
of the Milesians and Clazomenians; but subsequently, in the time of Miltiades,
the place also received Athenian colonists. (Herod. vii. 58, vi. 33, ix. 115;
Scym. Chius, 699; Dem. c. Philip. i. p. 63, de Halon. pp. 87, 88, and elsewhere.)
The town was destroyed by Lysimachus (Paus. i. 9. § 10), and although it was afterwards
rebuilt, it never again rose to any degree of prosperity, as Lysimachia, which
was built in its vicinity and peopled with the inhabitants of Cardia, became the
chief town in that neighbourhood. (Strab. vii. p. 331; Pans. i. 10. § 5, iv. 34.
§ 6; Appian, B.C. iv. 88; Ptol. iii. 12. § 2; Steph. B. s. v.) Cardia was the
birthplace of king Eumenes (Nep. Eum. 1) and of the historian Hieronymus. (Paus.
i. 9. § 10.)
ΚΕΒΡΗΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Cebrene (KebreWe or Cebren, a town of Mysia, in a district Cebrenia
(KebreWia). There was a river Cebren (KebreW). The Ethnic names are KebreWos,
KebreWeus, and KebreWios (Steph. s. v. KebreWia); but the Ethnic name is properly
KebreWieus, as Strabo has it. Cebrenia was below Dardania, and a plain country
for the most part. It was separated from the Scepsia or territory of Scepsis by
the river Scamander. The people of Scepsis and the Cebrenii were always quarrelling,
till Antigonus removed both of them to his new town of Antigonia, afterwards called
Alexandria Troas. The Cebrenii remained there; but the Scepsii obtained permission
from Lysimachus to go home again. Strabo speaks of a tribe in Thrace called Cebrenii,
near a river Arisbus; but we cannot conclude any thing from this as to the origin
of the Cebrenii. Ephorus, in the first book of his history (quoted by Harpocrat.
s. v. KebreWa), says that the Aeolians of Cumae sent a colony to Cebren. The city
Cebren surrendered to Dercyllidas the Lacedaemonian (Xen. Hell. iii. 1. 17), who
marched from thence against Scepsis and Gergitha. Geographers have differed as
to the position of Cebrenia. Palaescepsis was near the banks of the Aesepus, and
the Scepsis of Strabo's time was 40 stadia lower down than Old Scepsis. Now, Old
Scepsis was higher up than Cebrenia, near the highest part of Ida, and its territory
extended to the Scamander, where Cebrenia began. Again, the territory of the Assii
and the Gargareis was bounded by Antandria (on the east), and the territory of
the Cebrenii, the Neandrieis, and the Hamaxiteis. Thus Cebrenia is brought within
tolerably definite limits. Leake (Asia Minor, p. 274) supposes Cebrenia to have
occupied the higher region of Ida on the west, and its plain to be the fine valley
of - the Mendere as far down as Ene, probably Neandria. This seems to agree with
Strabo's description. Leake also supposes that the town Cebren may be a place
called Kushunlu Tepe, not far from Baramitsh. Dr. E. D. Clarke found considerable
remains at Kushunlu Tepe; but remains alone do not identify a site.
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
ΚΙΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Cius (he Kios or Kios: Eth. Kianos: Kio or Ghio), a city in Bithynia,
at the head of a gulf in the Propontis, called the gulf of Cius, or Cianus Sinus.
Herodotus calls it Cius of Mysia; and also Xenophon (Hell. i. 4. § 7), from which
it appears that Mysia, even in Xenophon's time, extended at least as far east
as the head of the gulf of Cius. According to one tradition, Cius was a Milesian
colony. (Plin. v. 32.) It was at the foot of Mount Arganthonius, and there was
a myth that Hylas, one of the companions of Hercules on the voyage to Colchis,
was carried off by the nymphs, when he went to get water here; and also that Cius,
another companion of Hercules, on his return from Colchis, stayed here and founded
the city, to which he gave his name. (Strab. p. 564.) Pliny mentions a river Hylas
and a river Cius here, one of which reminds us of the name of the youth who was
stolen by the nymphs, and the other of the mythical founder. The Cius may be the
channel by which the lake Ascania discharges its waters into the gulf of Cius;
though Pliny speaks of the Ascanium flumen as flowing into the gulf, and we must
assume that he gives this name to the channel which connects the lake and the
sea. If the river Cius is not identical with this channel, it must be a small
stream near Cius. As Ptolemy (v. 1) speaks of the outlets of the Ascanius, it
has been conjectured that there may have been two, and that they may be the Hylas
and Cius of Pliny; but the plural ekbolai does not necessarily mean more than
a single mouth; and Pliny certainly says that the Ascanius flows into the gulf.
However, his geography is a constant cause of difficulty. The position of Cius
made it the port for the inland parts. Mela calls it the most convenient emporium
of Phrygia, which was at no great distance from it.
Cius was taken by the Persian general Hymees, after the burning of
Sardis, B.C. 499. (Herod. v. 122.) Philip V., of Macedonia, the son of Demetrius
and the father of Perseus, took Cius, which he gave to Prusias, the son of Zelas.
Prusias, who had assisted Philip in ruining Cius, restored it under the name of
Prusias (Prousias, Strab. p. 563; Polyb. xvi. 21, &c.). It was sometimes called
Prusias eprthalassie, or on the sea, to distinguish it from other towns of the
same name (Steph. B. s. v. Prousa; Memnon, ap. Phot. Cod. 224, c. 43), or thalassan.
In the text of Memnon (Hoeschel's ed. of Photius) the reading is Cierus; but Memnon,
both in this and other passages, has confounded Cius and Cierus. But it is remarked
that Cius must either have still existed by the side of the new city, or must
have recovered its old name; for Pliny mentions Cius, and also Mela (i. 19), Zosimus
(i. 35), and writers of a still later date.
There are coins of Cius, with the epigraph Kianon, belonging to the
Roman imperial period; and there are coins of Prusias with the epigraph, Prousieon
ton pros thalassan.
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
ΚΟΛΩΝΑΙ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Colonae (Kolonai) or Colone, a town in the Troad, 140 stadia from
Ilium. (Strab. pp. 589, 604; Thuc. i. 131; Xen. Hell. iii. 1. 13; Paus. x. 14.
§ 1.) According to tradition, Colonae was in early times the residence of a Thracian
prince Cycnus, who possessed the adjoining country and the island of Tenedos,
opposite to which Colonae was situated on the mainland. Colonae was probably one
of the towns from which the inhabitants were removed to supply the population
of Alexandria in Troas. Pliny (v. 30) places it in the interior, and speaks of
it as one of the places that had disappeared.
ΚΡΕΜΑΣΤΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Cremaste (Kremaste), a place mentioned by Xenophon (Hell. iv. 8. §
37). He speaks of the plain near Cremaste, where there are the gold mines of the
Abydeni. If Cremaste was a village, it was probably on a hill above the plain.
As Strabo speaks of gold mines at Astyra, it has been conjectured that Astyra
and Cremaste are either the same place, or two adjacent places. Gold mines belonging
to Lampsacus are mentioned by Pliny (xxxvii. 11) and by Polyaenus (ii. 1. § 26);
and they may be the same as those of Cremaste, if we suppose Cremaste to be between
Abydus and Lampsacus.
ΚΥΖΙΚΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Cyzicus (he Kuzikos: Eth. Kuzikenos) and Cyzicum (Plin. v. 32; Mela,
i. 19), a city on the Propontis in Mysia, on the neck of a peninsula as Mela says.
The peninsula, which projects into the Propontis or sea of Marmora on the south
coast, is joined to the mainland by a sandy isthmus. Crossing this isthmus from
the mainland, a traveller finds on his left the miserable town of Erdek, the ancient
Artace. The site of Cyzicus is near the isthmus on the east side, hi 40° 22? 30?
N. lat. (Hamilton, Researches, &c. vol. ii. p. 103.) The Turks call the ruins
of Cyzicus Bal Kiz, the second part of which seems to be a part of the ancient
name; and Bal is probably a Turkish corruption of the Greek Palaia. (Leake, Asia
Minor, p. 271.) There is a place called Aidinjik near the isthmus, on the mainland
side, where there are many marble fragments which have been brought from the neighbouring
site of Cyzicus.
Strabo (p. 575) says that Cyzicus is an island in the Propontis, which
is joined to the mainland by two bridges, and very fertile: it is about 500 stadia
in circuit, and contains a city of the same name close to the bridges, and two
closed harbours, and shiphouses (neosoikoi) above 200: one part of the city is
on level ground, and the other is close to a hill, which they call Bear Hill (Arkton
oros): there is another hill that lies above the city, a single height called
Dindymon, which contains a temple of Dindymene the mother of the gods, which was
founded by the Argonauts. Stephanus (s. v. Kuzikos) says that the town was also
called Arkton nesos. The junction of the island with the main is attributed to
Alexander by Pliny (v. 32), who does not say how the junction was made. Apollonius
Rhodius, who wrote after Alexander's time, still calls it an island (Argon. i.
936), but he also speaks of an isthmus. He names one of the ports Chytus; the
other was named Panormus, as the Scholiast tells us. It is said that there are
no signs of the bridges. The isthmus is above a mile long, and less than half
a mile broad. It seems probable that moles were pushed out some distance, and
then the opposite shores were connected by bridges. The whole passage is now a
sandy flat. Hamilton (Researches, &c. vol. ii. p. 98) says, we crossed the sandy
isthmus which connects Cyzicus with the mainland; near the south end, many large
blocks of stone, dug up in clearing a neighbouring vineyard, had been collected
into a heap. The east side of the isthmus is now an extensive marsh, covered with
reeds, and probably marks the site of the principal port of Cyzicus, separated
from the sea-shore by a low ridge of sand hills thrown up by the united efforts
of the winds and waves. Near the northern extremity, a long ditch runs from E.
to W. full of water, with a wall of great strength, fortified by towers along
its northern bank; its opening towards the sea is choked up by drifted sand, but
it seems to be the entrance through which the galleys of Cyzicus were admitted
to her capacious port. (Hamilton.)
The ruins of Cyzicus are among cherry orchards and vineyards. There
is a heap of ruins covered with brushwood, where there are many subterraneous
passages, some of which may be explored to the length of more than a hundred feet.
These passages are connected with each other, and appear to be the substructions
of some large buildings. Cyzicus in Strabo's time had many large public buildings
(Strab. p. 575), and it maintained three architects to look after them and the
machinery (organa). It possessed three store-houses, one for arms, one for the
machinery or engines, and one for corn. The masonry of these substructions is
chiefly Hellenic, but in some places the walls are only cased with blocks of stone:
in the roof of one of the vaults is a small square opening, regularly formed with
a keystone, all belonging to the original construction. (Hamilton.) If these substructions
are not those of the public granary, they may belong, as Hamilton suggests, to
the great temple described by Aristides in his oration on Cyzicus (vol. i. p.
237, ed. Jebb); but the extravagant bombast of this wordy rhetorician diminishes
our confidence in what he says. The Agora, he says, contained a most magnificent
temple, and he speaks of the parts below ground being worthy of admiration. Xiphilinus
(Dion Cass. vol. ii. p. 1173, ed. Reimarus) says that the great temple of Cyzicus
was destroyed by an earthquake in the time of Antoninus Pius; but this must be
a mistake, and he means to speak of the great earthquake that destroyed Smyrna
and other cities in the time of Marcus, the successor of Pius. Aristides wrote
a letter on the calamity of the city of Smyrna, addressed to Aurelius and Commodus.
This temple is described by Xiphilinus as of extraordinary dimensions: the columns
were fifty cubits high, and of one stone. The Cyziceni used the white marble of
Proconnesus for building. (Strab. p. 588.) About a mile NE. by N. from these substructions
are the remains of an amphitheatre, built in a wooded valley to the north of the
plain, where are the principal ruins of the city. Many of the pilasters and massive
buttresses have yielded to the influence of time, but seven or eight are still
standing on the west side of the valley, by which the circular form of the building
may be distinctly traced. (Hamilton.) A small stream flows through the middle
of the arena; which circumstance, and the character of the masonry at the upper
end of the building, led Hamilton to suppose that the place was also used as a
Naumachia. On a wooded hill to the east of the city, situated above the ruins,
and near the apex of the city walls, there are only blocks of marble and broken
columns built into the walls of the cottages. The site of the theatre, which faces
the SW., is almost overgrown with luxuriant vegetation. It is very large, and
appears to be of Greek construction, but it is in a very ruined state. Some parts
of the substructions can be traced, but there is not a block of marble to be seen,
nor a single seat remaining in its place. There are vestiges of the city walls
in various parts, but it does not appear easy to trace their whole extent. Hamilton
in one place speaks of heaps of ruins, long walls, and indistinct foundations,
but so overgrown with vegetation that it was impossible to make them out. He only
found one inscription, a Greek one, of the Roman period. On the whole, says Hamilton,
I must say that the loose and rubbly character of the buildings of Cyzicus little
accords with the celebrity of its architects; and although some appear to have
been cased with marble, none of them give an idea of the solid grandeur of the
genuine Greek style. It seems likely that the larger blocks of marble have been
carried away, though there is no large modern town near Cyzicus; but the materials
of many ancient towns near the sea have doubtless been carried off to remote places.
There are quarries of fine marble on the hills about Cyzicus, and near Aidinjik
on the mainland; but granite was much used in the buildings of Cyzicus, and it
is of a kind which is rapidly decomposed. The consequence is, that a rich vegetation
has grown up, which itself destroys buildings and buries them. The sea-sand also
that has been blown up on both sides of the isthmus may have covered the basements
at least of many buildings. It seems likely, then, that excavations would bring
to light many remains of a rich city, of which Strabo says, that in his time it
rivals the first cities of Asia in magnitude, beauty, and its excellent institutions,
both civil and military, and it appears to be embellished in like fashion with
the city of the Rhodii, the Massaliotae, and the Carthaginians of old.
The origin of this town seems unknown. A people called Doliones or
Dolieis (Steph. s. v. Doliones) once lived about Cyzicus, but Strabo says that
it was difficult to fix their limits. Conon (Narrat. 41, apud Phot.) has a story
of Cyzicus being settled by Pelasgi from Thessaly, who were driven from Thessaly
by Aeolians. Their king and leader was Cyzicus, a son of Apollo, who gave his
name to the peninsula which he occupied; for it may be observed that it seems
somewhat doubtful, if we look at all the authorities, whether Cyzicus was considered
by the Greeks to have been originally an island or a peninsula. If it was originally
a peninsula, we must suppose that a canal was cut across it, and afterwards was
bridged. This king Cyzicus was killed by Jason on the voyage to Colchis, and after
the death of Cyzicus, perhaps some time after according to the legend, Tyrrheni
seized the place, who were driven out by Milesians. Cyzicus was reckoned among
the settlements of Miletus by Anaximenes of Lampsacus, and also Artace on the
same island or peninsula. (Strabo, p. 635.) Cyzicus is not mentioned in the Iliad.
The Cyziceni are said to have surrendered to the Persians after the
conquest of Miletus. (Herod. vi. 33.) The place afterwards became a dependency
on Athens; for it revolted from the Athenians, who recovered it after the battle
of Cynossema (B.C. 411),--at which time it was unwalled, as Thucydides observes
(viii. 107). These scanty notices of Cyzicus, and the fact of its having no fortifications
near the close of the Peloponnesian War, seem to show that it was still an inconsiderable
city. The Athenians, on getting the place again, laid a contribution on the people.
The next year (B.C. 410) the Cyziceni had the same ill luck. Mindarus the Spartan
admiral was there with his ships, and Pharnabazus the Persian with his troops.
Alcibiades defeated Mindarus, and the Cyziceni, being deserted by the Peloponnesians
and Pharnabazus, again received the Athenians, and again had to part with their
money. We learn from the notice of this affair in Xenophon (Hell. i. 1. § 16)
that Cyzicus had a port at this time. After the defeat of the Athenians at Aegospotami,
Cyzicus seems to have come again under the Lacedaemonians; but as the peace of
Antalcidas (B.C. 387) gave all the cities in Asia to the Persian king, Cyzicus
was among them.
Cyzicus appears to have obtained its independence after the time of
Alexander, but the notices of it are very scanty. Attalus I. of Pergamum, the
father of Eumenes, married a woman of Cyzicus, named Apollonias, who was distinguished
for her good sense (Polyb. xxiii. 18); and we read of the Cyziceni sending twenty
ships to join the fleet of Athenaeus, the brother of Attalus II., King of Pergamum.
(Polyb. xxxiii. 11.) We know nothing of the fortunate circumstances which gave
this town the wealth that it had, when Mithridates attempted to take it B.C. 74.
It is probable that it had become one of the outlets for the products of the interior
of the Asiatic peninsula, and it is said to have been well administered. The Cyziceni
sustained a great loss in a fight with Mithridates at Chalcedon, and soon after
the king attacked Cyzicus. He posted his troops on the mainland opposite to the
city, at the foot of the mountain range of Adrasteia; and with his ships he blockaded
the narrow passage that separated the city from the main. The strength of the
walls, which had been built in the interval since the Peloponnesian war, and the
abundant stores of the citizens enabled them to hold out against the enemy. The
Roman commander L. Lucullus was in the neighbourhood off Cyzicus, and he cut off
the supplies of Mithridates, whose army suffered from famine, and was at last
obliged to abandon the siege with great loss. (Plut. Lucull. c. 9, &c.; Appian,
Mithridat. c. 72, &c.; Strab. p. 575; Cic. pro Arch c. 9) The Romans rewarded
Cyzicus by making it a Libera Civitas, as it was in Strabo's time, who observes
that it had a considerable territory, part of it an ancient, possession and part
the gift of the Romans. He adds that they possessed on the Troad the parts beyond
the Aesepus about Zeleia; and also the plain of Adrasteia, which was that part
of the mainland that was opposite to Cyzicus. They had also part of the tract
on the Lake Dascylitis, and a large tract bordering on the Doliones and Mygdones,
as far as the Lake Miletopolitis and the Apolloniatis. Strabo (p. 587) speaks
of a place at the common boundary of the territory of Priapus and Cyzicus, from
which it appears that the possessions of these two towns bordered on one another,
on the coast at least, in the time of Strabo. Indeed Priapus, according to some
authorities, was a colony of Cyzicus. It appears that the greatest prosperity
of Cyzicus dates from the time of the defeat of Mithridates. It possessed a large
tract on the south side of the Propontis, and there were no other large cities
on this side of the Propontis in the Roman period, except Nicomedia and Nicaea.
The produce of the basin of the Rhyndacus would come down to Cyzicus. Tacitus
(Ann. iv. 36) says that Tiberius (A.D. 25) deprived Cyzicus of its privilege of
a free city (Dion Cass. liv. 7, 23; Sueton. Tib. c. 37) for not paying due religious
respect to the memory of Augustus, and for ill treating some Roman citizens. This
shows that Strabo must have written what he says of Cyzicus being Libera before
the revocation. The effect of the revocation of this privilege would be to place
Cyzicus altogether and immediately under the authority of the Roman governor of
Asia. Cyzicus, however, continued to be a flourishing place under the empire,
though it suffered from the great earthquake which has been already mentioned.
In the time of Caracalla it received the title of Metropolis. It also became a
bishop's see under the later empire.
Cyzicus produced some writers, a list of whom is given in a note on
Thucydides (viii. 107) by Wasse. (Cramer, Asia Minor, i. 47, note.) It had also
some works of art, among which Cicero (Verr. ii. 4. c. 60) mentions paintings
of Ajax and Medea, which the dictator Caesar afterwards bought. (Plin. viii. 38.)
At some period in their history the Cyziceni conquered Proconnesus, and carried
off from there a statue of the Meter Dindymene. It was a chryselephantine statue;
but the covering of the face, instead of being plates of ivory, was made of the
teeth of the hippopotamus. (Paus. viii. 46. § 4.) Cyzicus also produced a kind
of unguent or perfume that was in repute, made from a plant which Pliny calls
Cyzicena amaracus (Plin. xiii.; Paus. iv. 36. § 5); but Apollonius, quoted by
Athenaeus (xv. p. 688), speaks of it as made from an Iris. It was also noted for
its mint, which produced the gold coins or stateres called Cyziceni (Kuzikenoi),
which had a wide circulation. The Cyzicenus had on one side a female head, and
[p. 742] on the other a lion's head. (Hesychius, s. v. Kuzikenoi; Suidas, s. v.
Kuzikenoi stateres.) The head is supposed to be that of Cybele. The value of the
coin was 28 Attic drachmae. (Dem. in Phorm. p. 914.) The autonomous coins of Cyzicus
are said to be rare, but there is a complete series of imperial coins. It does
not appear where the Cyziceni got their gold from, but it is not improbable that
it was once found on the island or on the neighbouring mainland. Pliny (xxxvi.
15) says that there was in his time a temple at Cyzicus, in which the architect
had placed a golden thread along all the joinings of the polished stone. The contrast
between the gold and the white marble would probably produce a good effect. The
passage of Pliny contains something more about Cyzicus, and the story of the fugitivus
lapis, which was once the anchor of the Argonautae. The stone often ran away from
the Prytaneum, till at last they wisely secured it with lead.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΚΥΨΕΛΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Cypsela (Kupsela), a town on the river Hebrus in Thrace, which was
once an important place on the via Egnatia. It is the same as the modern Ipsala,
or Chapsylar, near Keshan. (Strab. pp. 322, 329; Ptol. iii. 11. § 13; Steph. Byz.
s. v.; Ann. Comn. vii. p. 204; Liv. xxxi. 16, xxxviii. 40, 41; Mela, ii. 2; Plin.
iv. 18.)
ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥΠΟΛΗ (Πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
ΛΑΜΠΩΝΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Lamponeia or Lamponeium (Lamponeia, Lamponion an Aeolian town in the south-west
of Troas, of which no particulars are known, except that it was annexed to Persia
by the satrap Otanes in the reign of Darius Hystaspis. It is mentioned only by
the earliest writers. (Herod. v. 26; Strab. xiii.; Steph. B. s. v.)
ΛΑΜΨΑΚΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Lampsakenos: Eth. Lampsakenos. Sometimes also called Lampsacum (Cic.
in Verr. i. 2. 4; Pomp. Mela, i. 19), was one of the most celebrated Greek settlements
in Mysia on the Hellespont. It was known to have existed under the name of Pityusa
or Pityussa before it received colonists from the Ionian cities of Phocaea and
Miletus. (Strab. xiii. p. 589; Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. v. 40; Hom. Il. ii. 829
; Plut. de Virt. Mul. 18.) It was situated, opposite to Callipolis, in the Thracian
Chersonesus, and possessed an excellent harbour. Herodotus (vi. 37) relates that
the elder Miltiades, who was settled in the Thracian Chersonesus, made war upon
the Lampsaceni, but that they took him by surprise, and made him their prisoner.
Being threatened, however, by Croesus, who supported Miltiades, they set him free.
During the Ionian revolt, the town fell into the hands of the Persians. (Herod.
v. 117.) The territory about Lampsacus produced excellent wine, whence the king
of Persia bestowed it upon Themistocles, that he might thence provide himself
with wine. (Thucyd. i. 138; Athen. i. p. 29; Diod. xi. 57; Plut. Them. 29; Nepos,
Them. 10; Amm. Marc. xxii. 8.) But even while Lampsacus acknowledged the supremacy
of Persia, it continued to be governed by a native prince or tyrant, of the name
of Hippocles. His son Aeantides married Archedice, a daughter of Pisistratus,
whose tomb, commemorating her virtues, was seen there in the time of Thucydides
(vi. 59). The attempt of Euagon to seize the citadel, and thereby to make himself
tyrant, seems to belong to the same period. (Athen. xi. p. 508.) After the battle
of Mycale, in B.C. 479, Lampsacus joined Athens, but revolted after the failure
of the great Athenian expedition to Sicily; being, however, unfortified, it was
easily reconquered by a fleet under Strombichides. (Thuc. viii. 62.) After the
time of Alexander the Great, the Lampsaceni had to defend their city against the
attacks of Antiochus of Syria; they voted a crown of gold to the Romans, and were
received by them as allies. (Liv. xxxiii. 38, xxxv. 42, xliii. 6; Polyb. xxi.
10.) In the time of Strabo, Lampsacus was still a flourishing city. It was the
birthplace of many distinguished authors and philosophers, such as Charon the
historian, Anaximenes the orator, and Metrodorus the disciple of Epicurus, who
himself resided there for many years, and reckoned some of its citizens among
his intimate friends. (Strab. 1. c.; Diog. Laert. x. 11.) Lampsacus possessed
a fine statue by Lysippus, representing a prostrate lion, but it was removed by
Agrippa to Rome to adorn the Campus Martius. (Strab. l. c.) Lampsacus, as is well
known, was the chief seat of the obscene worship of Priapus, who was believed
to have been born there of Aphrodite. (Athen. i. p. 30; Pans. ix. 31. § 2; Apollon.
Rhod. i. 983 ; Ov. Fast. vi. 345; Virg. Georg. iv. 110.) From this circumstance
the whole district was believed to have derived the name of Abarnis or Aparnis
(aparneisthai), because Aphrodite denied that she had given birth to him. (Theophr.
Hist. Plant. i. 6, 13.) The ancient name of the district had been Bebrycia, probably
from the Thracian Bebryces, who had settled there. (Comp. Hecat. Fragm. 207; Charon,
Fragm. 115, 119; Xenoph. Anab. vii. 8. § 1; Polyb. v. 77; Plin. iv. 18, v. 40;
Ptol. v. 2. § 2; Steph. B. s. v.) The name of Lamsaki is still attached to a small
town, near which Lampsacus probably stood, as Lamsaki itself contains no remains
of antiquity. There are gold and silver staters of Lampsacus in different collections
; the imperial coins have been traced from Augustus to Gallienus.
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
ΛΑΡΙΣΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΡΩΑΣ
A place on the coast of Troas, about 70 stadia south of Alexandria
Troas, and north of Hamaxitus. It was supposed that this Larissa was the one mentioned
by Homer (Il. ii. 841), but Strabo (xiii. p. 620) controverts this opinion, because
it is not far enough from Troy. (Comp. Steph. B. s. v.) The town is mentioned
as still existing by Thu cydides (viii. 101) and Xenophon (Hellen. iii 1. § 13;
comp. Scylax, p. 36; Strab. ix. p. 440, xiii. p. 604). Athenaeus (ii. p. 43) mentions
some hot springs near Larissa in Troas, which are still known to exist a little
above the site of Alexandria Troas.
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
ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Lysimachia (Lusimachia or Lusimacheia). An important town on the north-western
extremity of the Thracian Chersonesus, not far from the Sinus Melas. It was built
by Lysimachus in B.C. 309, when he was preparing for the last struggle with his
rivals; for the new city, being situated on the isthmus, commanded the road from
Sestos to the north and the mainland of Thrace. In order to obtain inhabitants
for his new city, Lysimachus destroyed the neighbouring town of Cardia, the birthplace
of the historian Hieronymus. (Strab. ii. p. 134, vii. p. 331; Paus. i. 9. § 10;
Diod xx. 29; Polyb. v. 34; Plin. H. N. iv. 18.) Lysimachus no doubt made Lysimachia
the capital of his kingdom, and it must have rapidly risen to great splendour
and prosperity. After his death the city fell under the dominion of Syria, and
during the wars between Seleucus Callinicus and Ptolemy Euergetes it passed from
the hands of the Syrians into those of the Egyptians. Whether these latter set
the town free, or whether it emancipated itself, is uncertain, at any rate it
entered into the relation of sympolity with the Aetolians. But as the Aetolians
were not able to afford it the necessary protection, it was destroyed by the Thracians
during the war of the Romans against Philip of Macedonia. Antiochus the Great
restored the place, collected the scattered and enslaved inhabitants, and attracted
colonists from all parts by liberal promises. (Liv. xxxiii. 38, 40; Diod. Exc.
de Virt. et Vit. p. 574.) This restoration, however, appears to have been unsuccessful,
and under the dominion of Rome it decayed more and more. The last time the place
is mentioned under its ancient name, is in a passage of Ammianus Marcellinus (xxii.
8). The emperor Justinian restored it and surrounded it with strong fortifications
Procop. de Aed. iv. 10), and after that time it is spoken of only under the name
of Hexamilium (Hexamilion; Symeon, Logoth. p. 408). The place now occupying the
place of Lysimachia, Ecsemil, derives its name from the Justinianean fortress,
though the ruins of the ancient place are more numerous in the neighbouring village
of Baular.
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ΜΑΔΥΤΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Madytus (Madutos: Eth. Madutios), an important port town in the Thracian
Chersonesus, on the Hellespont, nearly opposite to Abydos. (Liv. xxxi. 16, xxxiii.
38; Mela, ii. 2; Anna Comn. xiv. p. 429; Steph. Byz. s. v.; Strab. vii. p. 331.)
Ptolemy (iii. 12. § 4) mentions in the same district a town of the name of Madis,
which some identify with Madytus, but which seems to have been situated more inland.
It is generally believed that Maito marks the site of the ancient Madytus.
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ΜΙΛΗΤΟΠΟΛΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Miletopolis, a town in the north of Mysia, at the confluence of the
rivers Macestus and Rhyndacus, and on the west of the lake which derives its name
from it. (Strab. xii. p. 575, xiv. p. 681; Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. v. 32, 40.)
Some modern geographers, as D'Anville and Mannert, have identified Miletopolis
with the modern Beli Kessr or Balikesri, but this place is situated too far S.
Leake, too, seems to place Miletopolis too far SW. of the lake, and identifies
it with Minias, which others regard as the site of the ancient Poemanenum. The
most probable view is, that the site of Miletopolis is marked by the modern Moalitsh
or Muhalitsch, or by the place Hamamli, near which many ruins of an ancient town
are found. (Hamilton, Researches, &c., vol. i. p. 81. &c., vol. ii. p. 91.)
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ΜΥΣΙΑ (Αρχαία χώρα) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Mysia (Musia: Eth. Musos, Mysus), the name of a province in the north-west
of Asia Minor, which according to Strabo (xii. p. 572) was derived from the many
beech-trees which grew about Mount Olympus, and were called by the Lydians musoi.
Others more plausibly connect the name with the Celtic moese, a marsh or swamp,
according to which Mysia would signify a marshy country. This supposition is supported
by the notion prevalent among the ancients that the Mysians had immigrated into
Asia Minor from the marshy countries about the Lower Danube, called Moesia, whence
Mysia and Moesia would be only dialectic varieties of the same name. Hence, also,
the Mysians are sometimes mentioned with the distinctive attribute of the Asiatic,
to distinguish them from the European Mysians, or Moesians. (Eustath. ad Dion.
Per. 809; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 1115.)
The Asiatic province of Mysia was bounded in the north by the Propontis
and the Hellespont, in the west by the Aegean, and in the south by Mount Temnus
and Lydia. In the east the limits are not accurately defined by the ancients,
though it was bounded by Bithynia and Phrygia, and we may assume the river Rhyndacus
and Mount Olympus to have, on the whole, formed the boundary line. (Strab. xii.
pp. 564, &c., 571.) The whole extent of country bearing the name of Mysia, was
divided into five parts : - 1. Mysia Minor (Musia he mikra, that is, the northern
coast-district on the Hellespont and Propontis, as far as Mount Olympus; it also
bore the name of Mysia Hellespontiaca, or simply Hellespontus, and its inhabitants
were called Hellespontii (Ptol. v. 2. §§ 2, 3, 14; Xenoph. Ages. i. 14) ; or,
from Mount Olympus, Mysia Olympene (Musia he Olumpene (Strab. xii. p. 571). This
Lesser Mysia embraced the districts of Morene, Abrettene and the Apian plain (Apias
pedion; Strab. xii. pp. 574, 576.) 2. Mysia Major (Musia e megale), forming the
southern part of the interior of the country, including a tract of country extending
between Troas and Aeolis as far as the bay of Adramyttium. The principal city
of this part was Pergamum, from which the country is also called Mysia Pergamene
(Musia he Pergamene; Strab. l. c.; Ptol. v. 2. §§ 5, 14.) 3. Troas (he Troas),
the territory of ancient Troy, that is, the northern part of the western coast,
from Sigeium to the bay of Adramyttium. 4. Aeolis the southern part of the coast,
especially that between the rivers Caicus and Hermus. 5. Teuthrania (he Tenthrania),
or the district on the southern frontier, where in ancient times Teuthras is said
to have formed a Mysian kingdom. (Strab. xii. p. 551.)
These names and divisions, however, were not the same at all times.
Under the Persian dominion, when Mysia formed a part of the second satrapy (Herod.
iii. 90), the name Mysia was applied only to the north-eastern part of the country,
that is, to Mysia Minor; while the western part of the coast of the Hellespont
bore the name of Lesser Phrygia, and the district to the south of the latter that
of Troas. (Scylax, p. 35.) In the latest times of the Roman Empire, that is, under
the Christian emperors, the greater part of Mysia was contained in the province
bearing the name of Hellespontus, while the southern districts as far as Troas
belonged to the province of Asia. (Hierocl. p. 658.)
The greater part of Mysia is a mountainous country, being traversed
by the north-western branches of Mount Taurus, which gradually slope down towards
the Aegean, the main branches being Mount Ida and Mount Temnus. The country is
also rich in rivers, though most of them are small, and not navigable; but, notwithstanding
its abundant supply of water in rivers and lakes, the country was in ancient times
less productive than other provinces of Asia Minor, and many parts of it were
covered with marshes and forests. Besides the ordinary products of Asia Minor,
and the excellent wheat of Assus (Strab. xv. p. 725), Mysia was celebrated for
a kind of stone called lapis assius (sarkophagos), which had the power of quickly
consuming the human body, whence it was used for coffins (sarcophagi), and partly
powdered and strewed over dead bodies. (Dioscorid. v. 141 ; Plin. ii. 98, xxxvi.
27; Steph. B. s. v. Assos.) Near the coasts of the Hellespont there were excellent
oyster beds. (Plin. xxxii. 21; Catull. xviii. 4; Virg. Georg. i. 207; Lucan ix.959;
comp. Theophrast. Hist. Plant. i. 6. 13.) The country of Mysia was inhabited by
several tribes, as Phrygians, Trojans, Aeolians, and Mysians;. but we must here
confine ourselves to the Mysians, from whom the country derived its name. Mysians
are mentioned in the Iliad (ii. 858, x. 430, xiii. 5), and seem to be conceived
by the poet as dwelling on the Hellespont in that part afterwards called Mysia
Minor. Thence they seem, during the period subsequent to the Trojan, War, to have
extended themselves both westward and southward. (Strab. xii. p. 665.) Herodotus
(vii. 74) describes them as belonging to the same stock as the Lydians, with whom
they were always stationed together in the Persian armies (Herod. i. 171), and
who probably spoke a language akin to theirs. Strabo (vii. pp. 295, 303, xii.
pp. 542, 564, &c.) regards them as a tribe that had immigrated into Asia from
Europe. It is difficult to see how these two statements are to be reconciled,
or to decide which of them is more entitled to belief. As no traces of the Mysian
language have come down to us, we cannot pronounce a positive opinion, though
the evidence, so far as it can be gathered, seems to be in favour of Strabo's
view, especially if we bear in mind the alleged identity of Moesians and Mysians.
It is, moreover, not quite certain as to whether the Mysians in Homer are to be
conceived as Asiatics or as Europeans. If this view be correct, the Mysians must
have crossed over into Asia either before, or soon after the Trojan War. Being
afterwards pressed by other immigrants, they advanced farther into the country,
extending in the south-west as far as Pergamum, and in the east as far as Catacecaumene.
About the time of the Aeolian migration, they founded, under Teuthras, the kingdom
of Teuthrania, which was soon destroyed, but gave the district in which it had
existed its permanent name. The people which most pressed upon them in the north
and east seem to have been the Bithynians.
In regard to their history, the Mysians shared the fate of all the
nations in the west of Asia Minor. In B.C. 190, when Antiochus was driven from
Western Asia, they became incorporated with the kingdom of Pergamus; and when
this was made over to Rome, they formed a part of the province of Asia. Respecting
their national character and institutions we possess scarcely any information;
but if we may apply to them that which Posidonius (in Strab. vii. p. 296) states
of the European Moesians, they were a pious and peaceable nomadic people, who
lived in a very simple manner on the produce of their flocks, and had not made
great advances in [p. 390] civilisation. Their language was, according to Strabo
(xii. p. 572), a mixture of Lydian and Phrygian, that is, perhaps, a dialect akin
to both of them. Their comparatively low state of civilisation seems also to be
indicated by the armour attributed to them by Herodotus (vii. 74), which consisted
of a common helmet, a small shield, and a javelin, the point of which was hardened
by fire. At a later time, the influence of the Greeks by whom they were surrounded
seems to have done away with everything that was peculiar to them as a nation,
and to have draw n them into the sphere of Greek civilisation. (Comp. Forbiger,
Handbuch der alten Geographie, vol. ii. p. 110, &c.; Cramer, Asia Minor, i. p.
30, &c.; Niebuhr, Lect. on Anc. Hist. vol. i. p. 83, &c.)
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Placus (Plakos), a woody mountain of Mysia, at the foot of which Thebe is said
to have been situated in the Iliad (vi. 397, 425, xxii. 479); but Strabo (xiii.
p. 614) was unable to learn anything about such a mountain in that neighbourhood.
ΝΕΑΝΔΡΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Neandreia, Neandrium, Neandrus (Neandreia, NeandrioW, Neandros: Eth.
Neandreus or Neandrieus), a town in Troas, probably founded by Aeolians; in the
time of Strabo it had disappeared, its inhabitants, together with those of other
neigh-bouring places, having removed to Alexandreia. (Strab. xiii. pp. 604, 606.)
According to Scylax (p. 36) and Stephanus Byz. (s. v.), Neandreia was a maritime
town on the Hellespont ; and Strabo might perhaps be supposed to be mistaken in
placing it in the interior above Hamaxitus ; but he is so explicit in his description,
marking its distance from New Ilium at 130 stadia, that it is scarcely possible
to conceive him to be in the wrong. Hence Leake (Asia Minor, p. 274), adopting
him as his guide, seeks the site of Neandreia in the lower valley of the Scamander,
near the modern town of Ene.
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ΝΙΚΑΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Nikaia; Eth. Nikaieus or Nikaeus: lshnik. One of the most important
towns of Bithynia, of which Strabo (xii. p. 565) even calls it the metropolis,
was situated on the eastern shore of lake Ascania or Ascanius, in a wide and fertile
plain, which, however, was somewhat unhealthy in summer. The place is said to
have been colonised by Bottiaeans, and to have originally borne the name of Ancore
(Steph. B. s. v.) or Helicore (Geogr. Min. p. 40, ed. Hudson); but it was subsequently
destroyed by the Mysians. A few years after the death of Alexander the Great,
Antigonus, probably after his victory over Eumenes, in B.C. 316, rebuilt the town,
and called it, after himself, Antigoneia. (Steph. B. l. c.; Eustath. ad Horn.
II. ii. 863). Not long after Lysimachus, having made himself master of a great
part of Asia Minor, changed the name of Antigoneia into Nicaea, in honour of his
wife Nicaea, a daughter of Antipater. (Steph. B., Eustath., Strab., ll. cc.) According
to another account (Memnon, ap. Phot. Cod. 224. p. 233, ed. Bekker), Nicaea was
founded by men from Nicaea near Thermopylae, who had served in the army of Alexander
the Great. The town was built with great regularity, in the form of a square,
measuring 16 stadia in circumference; it had four gates, and all its streets intersected
one another at right angles, so that from a monument in the centre all the four
gates could be seen. (Strab. xii. pp. 565. &c.) This monument stood in the gymnasium,
which was destroyed by fire, but was restored with increased magnificence by the
younger Pliny (Epist. x. 48), when he was governor of Bithynia.
Soon after the time of Lysimachus, Nicaea became a city of great importance,
and the kings of Bithynia, whose era begins in B.C. 288 with Zipoetes, often resided
at Nicaea. It has already been mentioned that in the time of Strabo it is called
the metropolis of Bithynia; an honour which is also assigned to it on some coins,
though in later times it was enjoyed by Nicomedeia. The two cities, in fact, kept
up a long and vehement dispute about the precedence, and the 38th oration of Dion
Chrysostomus was expressly composed to settle the dispute. From this oration,
it appears that Nicomedeia alone had a right to the title of metropolis, but both
were the first cities of the country. The younger Pliny makes frequent mention
of Nicaea and its public buildings, which he undertook to restore when governor
of Bithynia. (Epist. x. 40, 48, &c.) It was the birthplace of the astronomer Hipparchus
and the historian Dion Cassius. (Suid. s. v. Hipparchos.) The numerous coins of
Nicaea which still exist attest the interest taken in the city by the emperors,
as well as its attachment to the rulers; many of them commemorate great festivals
celebrated there in honour of gods and emperors, as Olympia, Isthmia, Dionysia,
Pythia, Commodia, Severia, Philadelphia, &c. Throughout the imperial period, Nicaea
remained an important place; for its situation was particularly favourable, being
only 25 miles distant from Prusa (Plin. v. 32), and 44 from Constantinople. (It.
Ant. p. 141.) When the last mentioned city became the capital of the Eastern Empire,
Nicaea did not lose in importance; for its present walls, which were erected during
the last period of the Empire, enclose a much greater space than that ascribed
to the place in the time of Strabo. In the reign of Constantine, A.D. 325, the
celebrated Council of Nicaea was held there against the Arian heresy, and the
prelates there assembled drew up the creed called the Nicene. Some travellers
have believed that the council was held in a church still existing; but it has
been shown by Prokesch (Erinneirungen, iii. p. 234) that that church was built
at a later period, and that the council was probably held in the now ruined mosque
of Orchan. In the course of the same century, Nicaea suffered much from an earthquake;
but it was restored in A.D. 368 by the emperor Valens. During the middle ages
it was for a long time a strong bulwark of the Greek emperors against the Turks,
who did not conquer it until the year 1078. During the first crusade, in 1097,
it was recovered from them by the Christians, but in the peace which was afterwards
concluded it was ceded to the Turks. In the 13th century, when Constantinople
was the capital of the Latin empire, Theodore Lascaris made Nicaea the capital
of Western Asia; in the end, however, it was finally conquered and incorporated
with the Ottoman empire by Orchan. Many of its public buildings were then destroyed,
and the materials used by the conquerors in erecting their mosques and other edifices.
The modern Isnik is a very poor place, of scarcely more than 100 houses, while
in Pococke's time, there still existed about 300. The ancient walls, with their
towers and gates, are in tolerably good preservation their circumference is 14,800
feet, being at the base from 15 to 20 feet in thickness, and from 30 to 40 feet
in height; they contain four large and two small gates. In most places they are
formed of alternate courses of Roman tiles and large square stones, joined by
a cement of great thickness. In some places have been inserted columns and other
architectural fragments, the ruins of more ancient edifices. These walls seem,
like those of Constantinople, to have been built in the fourth century of our
era. Some of the towers have Greek inscriptions. The ruins of mosques, baths,
and houses, dispersed among the gardens and cornfields, which now occupy a great
part of the space within the Greek fortifications, show that the Turkish town,
though now so inconsiderable, was once a place of importance; but it never was
so large as the Greek city, and it seems to have been almost entirely constructed
of the remains of the Greek Nicaea, the walls of the ruined mosques and baths
being full of the fragments of Greek temples and churches. On the north-western
parts of the town, two moles extend into the lake and form a harbour; but the
lake in this part has much retreated, and left a marshy plain. Outside the walls
remnants of an ancient aqueduct are seen.
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ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Nicomedeia (Nikomedeia: Eth. Nikomedeus: Isnikmid or Ismid), the capital
of Bithynia, situated on the north-eastern coast of the Sinus Astacenus, a part
of the Propontis. The town of Astacus, a little to the south-east of Nicomedeia,
was destroyed, or greatly damaged, by Lysimachus; and some time after, B.C. 264,
Nicomedes I. built the town of Nicomedeia, to which the inhabitants of Astacus
were transferred (Steph. B. s. v.; Strab. xii. p. 563; Paus. v. 12. §5; Euseb.
Ckron. Ol. 129. 1). The founder of the new city made it the capital of his kingdom,
and in a short time it became one of the largest and most flourishing cities,
and continued to prosper for more than six centuries. Pliny, in his letters to
the emperor Trajan, mentions several public buildings of the city, such as a senate-house,
an aqueduct, a forum, a temple of Cybele, &c., and speaks of a great fire, during
which the place suffered much (Epist. x. 42, 46). Respecting its rivalry with
Nicaea, see NICAEA. According to Pliny (v. 43), Nicomedeia was 62 1/2 miles to
the south-east of Chalcedon, while according to others it was only 60 or 61 miles
distant (It. Ant. pp. 124, 140; It. Hieros. p. 572; Tab. Peut.) Under the Roman
Empire Nicomedeia was often the residence of the emperors, such as Diocletian
and Constantine, especially when they were engaged in war against the Parthians
or Persians. (Aurel. Vict. de Caes. 39; Nicephor. vii. in fin.) The city often
suffered from earthquakes, but owing to the munificence of the emperors it was
always restored (Amm. Marc. xvii. 7; Philostorg. iv. p. 506). It also suffered
much from an invasion of the Scythians (Amm. Marc. xxii. 9, 12, 13). The orator
Libanius (Orat. 62, tom. iii. p. 337, ed. Reiske) mourns the loss of its thermae,
basilicae, temples, gymnasia, schools, public gardens, &c., some of which were
afterwards restored by Justinian (Procop. de Aed. v. 1; comp. Ptol. v. 1. § 3,
viii. 17. § 4; Hierocl. p. 691). From inscriptions we learn that in the later
period of the empire Nicomedeia enjoyed the honour of a Roman colony (Orelli,
Inscript. No. 1060). The city is also remarkable as being the native place of
Arrian, the historian of Alexander the Great, and as the place where Hannibal
put an end to his chequered life. Constantine breathed his last at his villa Ancyron,
near Nicomedeia (Cassiod. Chron. Const.; Philostorg. ii. p. 484). The modern Ismid
still contains many interesting remains of antiquity, respecting which see Pococke,
vol. iii. p. 143, &c.; Description de l'Asie Mizneure, tom. i.; comp. Rasche,
Lexic. Rei Num. iii. 1. p. 1435, &c.
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ΟΦΡΥΝΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΡΩΑΣ
Ophrynium (Ophruneion), a small town in the north of Troas, near lake
Pteleos, and between Dardanus and Rhoeteum, with a grave sacred to Ajax. (Herod.
vii. 43; Xenoph. Anab. vii. 8. § 5, where it is called Ophrunion; Strab. xiii.
p. 595.) It is probably the modern Fren-Kevi. (Comp. Rasche, Lexic. Rei Num. iii.
2. p. 136.)
ΠΑΙΣΟΣ (Ομηρική πόλη) ΜΥΣΙΑ
Paesus (Paisos), an ancient town on the coast of Troas, at the entrance
of the Propontis, between Lampsacus and Parium. (Hom. Il. ii. 828, v. 612; Herod,
v. 117.) At one period it received colonists from Miletus.; but in Strabo's time
(xiii. p. 589) the town was destroyed, and its inhabitants had transferred themselves
to Lampsacus, which was likewise a Milesian colony. The town derived its name
from the small river Paesus, on which it was situated, and now bears the name
Beiram-Dere.
ΠΑΚΤΥΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Pactye (Paktue, Herod. vi. 36; Strab. vii. p. 331), a town of the Thracian Chersonese,
on the coast of the Propontis, 36 stadia from Cardia, whither Alcibiades retired
after the Athenians had for the second time deprived him of the command. (Diod.
xxii. 74; Nepos, Alc. 7; cf. Plin. iv. 18; Scyl. p. 28.) Perhaps St. George.
ΠΑΡΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Parium (Parion: Eth. Parianos), a coast-town of Mysia, on the Hellespont,
on the west of Priapus, in the district called Adrasteia, from an ancient town
which once existed in it (Strab. xiii. p. 588). Pliny, (v. 40) is mistaken in
stating that Homer applied the name of Adrasteia to Parium, and the only truth
that seems to lie at the bottom of his assertion is that a town Adrasteia did
at one time exist between Priapus and Parium, and that on the destruction of Adrasteia
all the building materials were transferred to Parium. According to Strabo, Pariumt
was a colony of Milesians, Erythraeans, and Parians ; while Pausanias (ix. 27.
§ 1) calls it simply a colony of Erythrae. According to the common traditions,
it had received its name from Parius, a son of Jason. (Eustath. ad Hom. Od. v.
125, ad Dion. Per. 517; Steph. B. s. v.)
The harbour of Parium was larger and better than that of the neighbouring
Priapus; whence the latter place decayed, while the prosperity of the former increased.
In the time of Augustus, Parium became a Roman colony, as is attested by coins
and inscriptions. It contained an altar constructed of the stones of an oracular
temple at Adrasteia which had been removed to Parium; and this altar, the work
of Hermocreon, is described as very remarkable on account of its size and beauty.
Strabo and Pliny (vii, 2) mention, as a curiosity, that there existed at Parium
a family called the Ophiogenes (Ophiogeneis), the members of which, like the Libyan
Psylli, had it in their power to cure the bite of a snake by merely touching the
person that had been bitten. Parium is also mentioned in Herod. v. 117; Xenoph.
Anab. vii. 2. § 7, 3. § 16; Ptol. v. 2. § 2; Appian, Mithrid. 76; Mela, i. 19;
Polyaen. vi. 24. The present town occupying the site of Parium bears the name
of Kemer or Kamares, and contains a few ancient remains. The walls fronting the
sea still remain, and are built of large square blocks of marble, without mortar.
There are also ruins of an aqueduct, reservoirs for water, and the fallen architraves
of a portico. The modern name Kamares seems to be derived from some ancient subterraneous
buildings (kamarai) which still exist in the place. (Walpole, Turkey, p. 88; Sestini,
Num. Vet. p. 73.)
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ΠΕΡΙΝΘΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Perinthus (he Perinthos, Ptol. iii. 11. § 6, viii. 11. § 7; Xenoph.
Anab. vii. 2. § 8: Eth. Perinthios), a great and flourishing town of Thrace, situated
on the Propontis. It lay 22 miles W. of Selymbria, on a small peninsula (Plin.
iv. 18) of the bay which bears its name, and was built like an amphitheatre, on
the declivity of a hill (Diod. xvi. 76.) It was originally a Samian colony (Marcian,
p. 29; Plut. Qu. Gr. 56), and, according to Syncellus (p. 238), was founded about
B.C. 599. Panofka, however (p. 22), makes it contemporary with Samothrace, that
is about B.C. 1000. It was particularly renowned for its obstinate defence against
Philip of Macedon (Diod. xvi. 74-77; Plut. Phoc. 14). At that time it appears
to have been a more important and flourishing town even than Byzantium; and being
both a harbour and a point at which several main roads met, it was the seat of
an extensive commerce (Procop. de Aed. iv. 9). This circumstance explains the
reason why so many of its coins are still extant; from which we learn that large
and celebrated festivals were held here (Mionnet, i. p. 399-415; Eckhel, Doctr.
Num. vol. iv. p. 445; Morell. Spec. Rei Num, tab. xiii. 143). According to Tzetzes
(Chil. iii. 812), it bore at an early period the name of Mygdonia and at a later
one, but not before the fourth century of our era, it assumed the name of Heracleia;
which we find sometimes used alone, and sometimes with the additions H. Thraciae
and H. Perinthus. (Procop. l. c. and B. Vand. i. 12; Zosim. i. 62; Justin, xvi.
3 ; Eutrop. ix. 15; Amm. Marc. xxii. 2;. Itin. Ant. pp. 175, 176, 323; Jorn. de
Regn. Succ. p. 51, &c. On the variations in its name, see Tzschucke, ad Melam,
ii. 2, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 102, seq.) Justinian restored the old imperial palace,
and the aqueducts of the city. (Procop. l. c.) It is now called Eski Eregli, and
still contains some ancient ruins and inscriptions.
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ΠΕΡΚΩΤΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΥΣΙΑ
Percote (Perkote: Eth. Perkosios), an ancient town of Mysia, on the
Hellespont, between Abydos and Lampsacus, and probably on the little river Percotes.
(Hom. Il. ii. 835, xi. 229; Xenoph. Hellen. v. 1. § 23.) Percote continued to
exist long after the Trojan War, as it is spoken of by Herodotus (v. 117), Scylax
(p. 35), Apollonius Rhodius (i. 932), Arrian (Anab. i. 13), Pliny (v. 32), and
Stephanus Byz. (s. v.). Some writers mention it among the towns assigned to Themistocles
by the king of Persia. (Plut. Them. 30; Athen. i. p. 29.) According to Strabo
(xiii. p. 590) its ancient name had been Percope. Modern travellers are unanimous
in identifying its site with Bergaz or Bergan, a small Turkish town on the left
bank of a small river, situated on a sloping hill in a charming district. (Sibthorpe's
Journal, in Walpole's Turkey, i. p. 91; Richter, Wallfahrten, p. 434.)
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ΠΙΟΝΙΑΙ (Αρχ. Πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
(Pionia: Eth. Pionita), a town in the interior of Mysia, on the river Satnioeis,
to the northwest of Antandrus, and to the north-east of Gargara. (Strab. xiii.) Under the Roman dominion it belonged to the jurisdiction of Adramyttium (Plin. v. 32), and in the ecclesiastical notices it appears as a bishopric of
the Hellespontine province. (Hierocl.; Sestini)
ΠΙΤΥΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΥΣΙΑ
Pityeia (Pitueia: Eth. Pitueus), a town of Mysia, on the coast of
the Propontis, between Parium and Priapus. It is mentioned even in the time of
Homer. (Il. ii. 829; comp. Apollon. Rhod. i. 933; Strab. xiii. 588; Steph. B.
s. v.) It is said to have derived its name from the firs which grew there in abundance,
and is generally identified with the modern Shamelik.
ΠΟΙΜΑΝΗΝΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Poemanenus (Poimanenos), a town in the south of Cyzicus, and on the
south-west of lake Aphnitis, which is mentioned only by very late authors. It
belonged to the territory of Cyzicus, was well fortified, and possessed a celebrated
temple of Asclepius. (Steph. B. s. v. Poimaninon; Nicet. Chon. Chron. p. 296;
Concil. Constant. III. p. 501 ; Concil. Nicaen. II. p. 572; Hierocl. p. 662, where
it is called Poemanentus.) Its inhabitants are called Poemaneni (Poimanenoi, Plin.
v. 32). Hamilton (Researches, ii. p. 108, &c.) identifies it with the modern Maniyas,
near the lake bearing the same name.
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ΠΡΟΚΟΝΝΗΣΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Proconnesus (Prokunnesos, or Prokonnesos in Zosim. ii. 30, and Hierocl.
p. 662), an island in the western part of the Propontis, between Priapus and Cyzicus,
and not, as Strabo (xiii. p. 589) has it, between Parium and Priapus. The island
was particularly celebrated for its rich marble quarries, which supplied most
of the neighbouring towns, and especially Cyzicus, with the materials for their
public buildings; the palace of Mausolus, also, was built of this marble, which
was white intermixed with black streaks. (Vitruv. ii. 8.) The island contained
in its south-western part a town of the same name, of which Aristeas, the poet
of the Arimaspeia, was a native. (Herod. iv. 14; comp. Scylax, p. 35; Strab. l.
c.) This town, which was a colony of the Milesians (Strab. xii. p. 587), was burnt
by a Phoenician fleet, acting under the orders of king Darius. (Herod. vi. 33.)
Strabo distinguishes between old and new Proconnesus; and Scylax, besides Proconnesus,
notices another island called Elaphonesus, with a good harbour. Pliny (v. 44)
and the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (ii. 278) consider Elaphonesus only as
another name for Proconnesus; but Elaphonesus was unquestionably a distinct island,
situated a little to the south of Proconnesus. The inhabitants of Cyzicus, at
a time which we cannot ascertain, forced the Proconnesians to dwell together with
them, and transferred the statue of the goddess Dindymene to their own city. (Paus.
viii. 46. § 2.) The island of Proconnesus is mentioned as a bishopric in the ecclesiastical
historians and the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. The celebrity of its marble
quarries has changed its ancient name into Mermere or Marmora; whence the whole
of the Propontis is now called the Sea of Marmora.
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ΠΡΟΠΟΝΤΙΣ (Θάλασσα) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Propontis (Propontis: Sea of Marmora), the sea between Thrace. and
Asia Minor, forming an intermediate sea between the Aegean and the Euxine, with
the latter of which it communicates through the narrow strait of the Thracian
Bosporus, and with the former through the Hellespont. Its ancient name Propontis
describes it as the sea before the entrance of the Pontus or Euxine; while its
modern name is derived from the island of Marmora, the ancient Proconnesus, near
the western entrance of the sea. (Appul. de Mund. p. 6; Steph. B. s. v. Propontis.)
The first authors who mention the Propontis under this name are Aeschylus (Pers.
876), Herodotus (iv. 85), and Scylax (pp. 28, 35); and Herodotus seems even to
have made an accurate measurement of this sea, of which he states the length,
to be 1400 stadia, and the breadth 500. Later writers such as Strabo (ii. p. 125)
and Agathemerus (ii. 14), abandoning the correct view of their predecessor, state
that the breadth of the Propontis is almost equal to its length, although, assuming
the Propontis to extend as far as Byzantium, they include in its length a portion
of the Thracian Bosporus. Modern geographers reckon about 120 miles from one strait
to the other, while the greatest breadth of the Propontis from the European to
the Asiatic coast does not exceed 40 miles. The form of the Propontis would be
nearly oval, were it not that in its south-eastern part Mt. Arganthonius with
the promontory of Poseidion forms two deep bays, that of Astacus and that of Cius.
The most important cities on the coasts of the Propontis are: Perinthus, Selymbria,
Byzantium, Chalcedon, Astacus, Cius, and Cyzicus. In the south-west there are
several islands, as Proconnesus, Ophiusa, and Alone; at the eastern extremity,
south of Chalcedon, there is a group of small islands called Demonnesi while one
small island, Besbicus, is situated in front of the bay of Cius. (Comp. Polyb.
iv. 39, 42; Strab. xii. p. 574, xiii. pp. 563, 583; Ptol. v. 2. § 1, vii. 5. §
3, viii. 11. § 2, 17. § 2; Agath. i. 13; Dionys. Per. 137; Pomp. Mela, i. 1, 3,
19, ii. 2, 7; Plin. iv. 24, v. 40; Kruse, Ueber Herodots Ausmessung des Pontus
Euxinus, &c., Breslau, 1820.)
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ΠΡΟΥΣΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Prusa (Prousa: Eth. Prousaeus), generally with the addition of epi
or pros toi Olumpoi, to distinguish it from another place of the same name, was
situated at the northern foot of Mount Olympus, in Mysia. Pliny (v. 43) states
that the town was built by Hannibal during his stay with Prusias, which can only
mean that it was built by Prusias, whose name it bears, on the advice of Hannibal.
According to the common text of Strabo (xii. p. 564), it was founded by one Prusias,
who waged war against Croesus, for whom Stephanus B. (s. v.) substitutes Cyrus.
As no such Prusias is known in the age of Croesus or Cyrus, various conjectures
have been made upon the passage of Strabo, but without success. At all events,
it is acknowledged by Dion Chrysostomus (Orat. xliii. p. 585), who was a native
of the town, that it was neither very ancient nor very large. It was, however,
as Strabo remarks well governed, continued to flourish under the Roman emperors
(Plin. Epist. x. 85), and was celebrated for its warm baths, which still exist,
and bore the name of the royal waters. (Athen. ii. p. 43; Steph. B. s. v. Therma.)
Under the Greek emperors it suffered much during the wars against the Turks (Nicet.
Chon. pp. 186, 389); when at last it fell into their hands, it was for a time
the capital of their empire under the name of Brusa or Broussa, which it still
bears, for it still is one of the most flourishing towns in Asia Minor. (Browne's
Travels in Walpole's Turkey, vol. ii. p. 108; Sestini, Mon. Vet. p. 70; Hamilton,
Researches, i. p. 71, &c.)
Ptolemy (v. 1. § 13) and Pliny (v. 43) mention a town of the same
name on the river Hyppius or Hypius, in Bithynia, which, according to Memnon (cc.
29, 42, 49), had formerly been called Cierus (Kieros), and had belonged to the
territory of Heracleia, but had been taken by Prusias, who changed its name. But
there seems to be some confusion here between Cierus and Cius, the latter of which
is known to have received the name of Prusias from the king of that name. (Strab.
xii. pp. 563, 566)
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ΡΟΙΤΕΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΡΩΑΣ
Rhoeteum (to Hpoiteion or Rhoition akron), a promontory, or rather
a rocky headland, running out in several points in Mysia or Troas, at the entrance
of the Hellespont, north of Ilion; it contained a small town of the same name
situated on an eminence. The place is very often mentioned by the ancients. (Herod.
vii. 43 ; Scylax, p. 35 ; Strab. xiii. p. 595; Steph. B. s. v.; Pomp. Mela, i.
18; Plin. v. 33; Thucyd. iv. 52, viii. 101; Apollon. Rhod. i. 929; Tryphiod. 216;
Virg. Aen. vi. 595; Liv. xxxvii. 37.) The promontory is now called Intepeh, and
the site of the ancient town is believed to be occupied by Paleo Castro, near
the village of It-ghelmes. (Richter, Wallfahrten, p. 475; Leake, Asia Minor, p.
275.)
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ΣΗΛΥΜΒΡΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Selymbria (Selubrie, Herod. vi. 33; Selubria, Xen. Anab. vii. 2. §
15, &c.; Strab. vii. p. 319; Ptol. iii. 11. § 6; Selumbria, Dem. de Rhod. lib.
p. 198, Reiske), a Thracian town on the Propontis, 22 miles east from Perinthus,
and 44 miles west from Constantinople (Itin. Hier. p. 570, where it is called
Salamembria), near the southern end of the wall, built by Anastasius Dicorus for
the protection of his capital. (Procop. de Aed. iv. 9).
According to Strabo (l. c.), its name signifies the town of Selys;
from which it has been inferred that Selya was the name of its founder, or of
the leader of the colony from Megara, which founded it at an earlier period than
the establishment of Byzantium, another colony of the same Grecian state. (Scymn.
714.) In honour of Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor Arcadius, its name was changed
to Eudoxiupolis (Hierocl. p. 632), which it bore for a considerable time; but
its modern name, Silivri, shows that it subsequently resumed its original designation.
Respecting the history of Selymbria, only detached and fragmentary
notices occur in the Greek writers. In Latin authors, it is merely named (Mela,
ii. 2. § 6; Plin. iv. 11. s. 18, xxix. 1. s. 1; in the latter passage it is said
to have been the birthplace of Prodicus, a disciple of Hippocrates). It was here
that Xenophon met Medosades, the envoy of Seuthes (Anab. vii. 2. § 28), whose
forces afterwards encamped in its neighbourhood (Ib. 5. § 15). When Alcibiades
was commanding for the Athenians in the Propontis (B.C. 410), the people of Selymbria
refused to admit his army into the town, but gave him money, probably in order
to induce him to abstain from forcing an entrance. (Xen. Hell. i. 1. 21) Some
time after this, however, he gained possession of the place through the treachery
of some of the townspeople, and, having levied a contribution upon its inhabitants,
left a garrison in it. (Ib. 3. § 10; Plut. Alcib. 30.) Selymbria is mentioned
by Demosthenes (l. c.) in B.C. 351, as in alliance with the Athenians; and it
was no doubt at that time a member of the Byzantine confederacy. According to
a letter of Philip, quoted in the oration de Corona (p. 251, R.), it was blockaded
by him about B.C. 343; but Professor Newman considers that this mention of Selymbria
is one of the numberous proofs that the documents inserted in that speech are
not authentic. (Class. Mus. vol. i. pp. 153, 154.)
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ΣΗΣΤΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Sestus (Sestos: Eth. Sestios), the principal town of the Thracian
Chersonesus, and opposite to Abydus, its distance from which is variously stated
by ancient writers, probably because their measurements were made in different
ways; some speaking of the mere breadth of the Hellespont where it is narrowest;
others of the distance from one city to the other; which, again, might be reckoned
either as an imaginary straight line, or as the space traversed by a vessel in
crossing from either side to the other, and this, owing to the current, depended
to some extent upon which shore was the starting point. Strabo (xiii. p. 591)
states that the strait is 7 stadia across near Abydus; but that from the harbour
of Abydus to that of Sestus, the distance is 30 stadia.1 (On
this point the following references may be consulted: Herod. vii. 34; Xen. Hell.
iv. 8. 5; Polyb. xvi. 29; Scyl. p. 28; Plin. iv. 11. s. 18. Ukert (iii. 2. § 137,
note 41) has collected the various statements made by the moderns respecting this
subject.)
Owing to its position, Sestus was for a long period the usual point
of departure for those crossing over from Europe to Asia; but subsequently the
Romans selected Callipolis as the harbour for that purpose, and thus, no doubt,
hastened the decay of Sestus, which, though never a very large town, was in earlier
times a place of great importance. According to Theopompus (ap. Strab. l. c.),
it was a well-fortified town, and connected with its port by a wall 200 feet in
length (skelei diplethroi). Dercyllidas, also, in a speech attributed to him by
Xenophon (Hell. iv. 8. § 5), describes it as extremely strong.
Sestus derives its chief celebrity from two circumstances,- the one
poetical the other historical. The former is its connection with the romantic
story of Hero and Leander, too well known to render it necessary to do more than
merely refer to it in this place (Ov. Her. xviii. 127; Stat. Silv. i. 3. 27, &c.);
the latter is the formation (B.C. 480) of the bridge of boats across the Hellespont,
for the passage of the army of Xerxes into Europe; the western end of which bridge
was a little to the south of Sestus (Herod. vii. 33). After the battle of Mycale,
the Athenians seized the opportunity of recovering the Chersonesus, and with that
object laid siege to Sestus, into which a great many Persians had hastily retired
on their approach, and which was very insufficiently prepared for defence. Notwithstanding
this, the garrison held out bravely during many months; and it was not till the
spring of B.C. 478 that it was so much reduced by famine as to have become mutinous.
The governor, Artayctes, and other Persians, then fled from the town in the night;
and on this being discovered, the inhabitants opened their gates to the Athenians.
(Herod. ix. 115, seq.; Thuc. i. 89.) It remained in their possession till after
the battle of Aegospotami, and used to be called by them the corn-chest of the
Piraeeus, from its giving them the command of the trade of the Euxine. (Arist.
Rhet. iii. 10. § 7.) At the close of the Peloponnesian War (B.C. 404), Sestus,
with most of the other possessions of Athens in the same quarter, fell into the
hands of the Lacedaemonians and their Persian allies. During the war which soon
afterwards broke out between Sparta and Persia, Sestus adhered to the former,
and refused to obey the command of Pharnabazus to expel the Lacedaemonian garrison;
in consequence of which it was blockaded by Conon (B.C. 394), but without much
result, as it appears. (Xen. Hell. iv. 8. 6) Some time after this, probably in
consequence of the peace of Antalcidas (B.C. 387), Sestus regained its independence,
though only for a time, and perhaps in name merely; for on the next occasion when
it is mentioned, it is as belonging to the Persian satrap, Ariobarzanes, from
whom Cotys, a Thracian king, was endeavouring to take it by arms (B.C. 362?).
He was, however, compelled to raise the siege, probably by the united forces of
Timotheus and Agesilaus (Xen. Ages. ii. 26; Nep. Timoth. 1); the latter authority
states that Ariobarzanes, in return for the services of Timotheus in this war,
gave Sestus and another town to the Athenians2 , from whom it is said to have
soon afterwards revolted, when it submitted to Cotys. But his successor, Cersobleptes,
surrendered the whole Chersonesus, including Sestus, to the Athenians (B.C. 357),
who, on the continued refusal of Sestus to yield to them, sent Chares, in B.C.
353, to reduce it to obedience. After a short resistance it was taken by assault,
and all the male inhabitants capable of bearing arms were, by Chares' orders,
barbarously massacred. (Diod. xvi. 34.)
After this time we have little information respecting Sestus. It appears
to have fallen under the power of the Macedonians, and the army of Alexander the
Great assembled there (B.C. 334), to be conveyed from its harbour in a Grecian
fleet, from Europe to the shores of Asia. By the terms of the peace concluded
(B.C. 197) between the Romans and Philip, the latter was required to withdraw
his garrisons from many places both in Europe and in Asia; and on the demand of
the Rhodians, actuated no doubt by a desire for free trade with the Euxine, Sestus
was included in the number. (Liv. xxxii. 33.) During the war with Antiochus, the
Romans were about to lay siege to the town (B.C. 190); but it at once surrendered.
(Liv. xxxvii. 9.) Strabo mentions Sestus as a place of some commercial importance
in his time; but history is silent respecting its subsequent destinies. According
to D'Anville its site is occupied by a ruined place called Zemenic; but more recent
authorities name it Jalowa (Mannert, vii. p. 193). (Herod. iv. 143; Thuc. viii.
62; Polyb. iv. 44; Diod. xi. 37; Arrian, Anab. i. 11. § § 5, 6; Ptol. iii. 12.
§ 4, viii. 11. § 10; Steph. B. s. v.; Scymn. 708; Lucan ii.674.)
1 Lord Byron, in a note referring to his feat of
swimming across from Sestus to Abydus, says:--The whole distance from the place
whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were
carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards
of 4 English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. This corresponds
remarkably well with the measurements given by Strabo, as above.
2 There is much obscurity in this part of Grecian history, and
the statement of Nepos has been considered inconsistent with several passages
in Greek authorities, who are undoubtedly of incomparably greater weight than
the unknown compiler of the biographical notices which pass under the name of
Nepos. (See Diet. Biogr. Vol. III. p. 1146, a.)
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ΣΙΓΕΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΡΩΑΣ
Sigeum (Sigeion or he Sigeias akra), a promontory in Troas, forming
the north-western extremity of Asia Minor, at the entrance of the Hellespont,
and opposite the town of Elaeus, in the Thracian Chersonesus. Near it the naval
camp of the Greeks was said to have been formed during the Trojan War. (Herod.
v. 65, 94; Thucyd. viii. 101; Strab. xiii. pp. 595, 603; Pomp. Mela, i. 18; Plin.
v. 33; Ptol. v. 2. § 3; Serv. ad Aen. ii. 312.) This promontory is now called
Yenisheri.
Near the promontory was situated the town of Sigeum, which is said
to have been an Aeolian colony, founded under the guidance of Archaeanax. of Mytilene,
who used the stones of ancient Troy in building this new place. But some years
later the Athenians sent troops under Phrynon and expelled the Mytileneans; and
this act of violence led to a war between the two cities, which lasted for a long
time, and was conducted with varying success. Pittacus, the wise Mytilenean, is
said to have slain Phrynon in single combat. The poet Alcaeus also was engaged
in one of the actions. The dispute was at length referred to Periander, of Corinth,
who decided in favour of the Athenians. (Strab. xiii. p. 599; Herod. v. 95; Steph.
B. s. v.; Diog. Laert. i. 74.) Henceforth we find the Pisistratidae in possession
of Sigeum, and Hippias, after being expelled from Athens, is known to have retired
there with his family. (Herod. v. 65). The town of Sigeum was destroyed by the
inhabitants of Ilium soon after the overthrow of the Persian empire, so that in
Strabo's time it no longer existed. (Strab. xiii. p. 600; Plin. v. 33.) A hill
near Sigeum, forming a part of the promontory, was believed in antiquity to contain
the remains of Achilles, which was looked upon with such veneration that gradually
a small town seems to have risen around it, under the name of Achilleum. This
tomb, which was visited by Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Germanicus,
is still visible in the form of a mound or tumulus.
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ΣΚΗΨΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Scepsis (Skepsis: Eth. Skepsios), a town in the SE. of Mysia, on the
river Aesepus, 150 stadia to the SE. of Alexandria Troas, and not far from Dicte,
one of the highest points of Mount Ida. It was apparently a place of the highest
antiquity; for it was believed to have been founded immediately after the time
of the Trojan War, and Demetrius, a native of the place, considered it to have
been the capital of the dominions of Aeneas. (Strab. xiii. p. 607). The same author
stated that the inhabitants were transferred by Scamandrius, the son of Hector,
and Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, to another site, lower down the Aesepus, about
60 stadia from the old place, and that there a new town of the same name was founded.
The old town after this was distinguished from the new one by the name of Palaescepsis.
For two generations the princes of the house of Aeneas maintained themselves in
the new town; but the form of government then became an oligarchy. During this
period, colonists from Miletus joined the Scepsians, and instituted a democratic
form of government. The descendants of the royal family, however, still continued
to enjoy the regal title and some other distinctions. (Strab. l. c. comp. xiii.
p. 603; xiv. p. 635; Plin. v. 2; Steph. B. s. v.) In the time of Xenophon (Hell.
iii. 1. § 15), Scepsis belonged to Mania, a Dardanian princess; and after her
death it was seized by Meidias, who had married her daughter; but Dercyllidas,who
had obtained admission into the town under some pretext, expelled Meidias, and
restored the sovereign power to the citizens. After this we hear no more of Scepsis
until the time of the Macedonian supremacy, when Antigonus transferred its inhabitants
to Alexandria Troas, on account of their constant quarrels with the town of Cebrene
in their neighbourhood. Lysimachus afterwards allowed them to return to their
ancient home, which at a later time became subject to the kings of Pergamum. (Strab.
xiii. p. 597.) This new city became an important seat of learning and philosophy,
and is celebrated in the history of the works of Aristotle. Strabo (xiii. p. 608)
relates that Neleus of Scepsis, a pupil of Aristotle and friend of Theophrastus,
inherited the library of the latter, which also contained that of Aristotle. After
Neleus' death the library came into the hands of persons who, not knowing its
value, and being unwilling to give them up to the library which the Pergamenian
kings were collecting, concealed these literary treasures in a pit, where they
were exposed to injury from damp and worms. At length, however, they were rescued
from this place and sold to Apellicon of Teos. The books, in a very mutilated
condition, were conveyed to Athens, and thence they were carried by Sulla to Rome.
It is singular that Scylax (p. 36) enumerates Scepsis among the Aeolian coast-towns;
for it is evident from Strabo (comp. Demosth. c. Aristocr. p. 671) that it stood
at a considerable distance from the sea. The town of Palaescepsis seems to have
been abandoned entirely, for in Pliny's time (v. 33) not a vestige of it existed,
while Scepsis is mentioned by Hierocles (p. 664) and the ecclesiastical notices
of bishoprics. In the neighbourhood of Scepsis there existed very productive silver
mines. It was the birthplace of Demetrius and Metrodorus. The former, who bestowed
much labour on the topography of Troas, spoke of a district, Corybissa, near Scepsis,
of which otherwise nothing is known. Extensive ruins of Scepsis are believed to
exist on an eminence near the village of Eskiupshi. These ruins are about 3 miles
in circumference, and 8 gates can be traced in its walls. (Forbiger, Handbuch
der Alt. Geogr. >vol. ii. p. 147.)
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
ΤΕΝΕΔΟΣ (Νησί) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Tenedos (Eth. Tenedios: Tenedo, Turk. Bogdsha-Adassi). An island off
the coast of Troas, from which its distance is only 40 stadia, while from Cape
Sigeum it is 12 miles distant. (Strab. xiii. p. 604; Plin. ii. 106, v. 39.) It
was originally called Leucophrys, from its white cliffs, Calydna, Phoenice, or
Lyrnessus (Strab. l. c.; Paus. x. 14. § 3; Steph. B. s. v. Tenedos; Eustath. ad
Hom. Il. p. 33; Plin. l. c.), and was believed to have received the name of Tenedos
from Tennes, a son of Cycnus (Strab. viii. p. 380; Diod. v. 83; Conon, Narrat.
28; Cic. in Verr. i. 1. 9). The island is described as being 80 stadia in circumference,
and containing a town of the same name, which was an Aeolian settlement, and situated
on the eastern coast. (Herod. i. 149; Thucyd. vii. 57.) The town possessed two
harbours, one of which was called Boreion (Arrian, Anab. ii. 2. § 2; Scylax, p.
35, who, however, notices only one), and a temple of the Smynthian Apollo. (Strab.
l. c.; Hom. Il. i. 38, 452.) In the Trojan legend, the island plays a prominent
part, and at an early period seems to have been a place of considerable importance,
as may be inferred from certain ancient proverbial expressions which owe their
origin to it, such as Tenedios pelekus (Steph. B. s. v.; Apostol. xviii. 28; Diogenian.
viii. 58; comp. Cic. ad Quint. Frat. ii. 1. 1), Tenedios anthropos (Zenob. vi.
9; Eustath. ad Dionys. 536), Tenedios hauletes (Steph. B. s. v.; Plut. Quaest.
Gr. 28), Tenedion kakon (Apostol. x. 80), and Tenedios xunegoros (Steph. B. s.
v.). The laws and civil institutions of Tenedos seem to have been celebrated for
their wisdom, if we may credit Pindar, whose eleventh Nemean ode is inscribed
to Aristagoras, a prytanis or chief magistrate of the island. We further know
from Stephanus B. that Aristotle wrote on the polity of Tenedos. During the Persian
wars the island was taken possession of by the Persians (Herod. vi. 31), and during
the Peloponnesian War it sided with Athens and paid tribute to her (Thuc. l. c.
ii. 2), which seems to have amounted to 3426 drachmae every year. (Franz, Elem.
Epigraph. n. 52.) Afterwards, in B.C. 389, Tenedos was ravaged by the Lacedaemonians
for its fidelity to Athens (Xen. Hist. Gr. v. 1. 6); but though the peace of Antalcidas
gave up the island to Persia, it yet maintained its connection with Athens. (Demosth.
c. Polycl. p. 1223, c. Theocr. p. 1333.) In the time of Alexander the Great, the
Tenedians threw off the Persian yoke, and, though reconquered by Pharnabazus,
they soon again revolted from Persia. (Arrian, Anab. ii. 2, iii. 2.) During the
wars of Macedonia with the Romans, Tenedos, owing to its situation near the entrance
of the Hellespont, was an important naval station. (Polyb. xvi. 34, xxvii. 6;
Liv. xxxi. 16, xliv. 28.) In the war against Mithridates, Lucullus fought a great
naval battle near Tenedos. (Plut. Luc. 3; Cic. p. Arch. 9, p. Mur. 15.) In the
time of Virgil, Tenedos seems to have entirely lost its ancient importance, and,
being conscious of their weakness, its inhabitants had placed themselves under
the protection of Alexandria Troas (Paus. x. 14. § 4). The favourable situation
of the island, however, prevented its utter decay, and the emperor Justinian caused
granaries to be erected in it, to receive the supplies of corn conveyed from Egypt
to Constantinople. (Procop. de Aed. v. 1.) The women of Tenedos are reported to
have been of surpassing beauty. (Athen. xiii. p. 609.) There are but few ancient
remains in the island worthy of notice.
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ΤΡΟΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Ilium, Ilios (Ilion, he Ilios: Eth. Ilieus, f. Ilias), sometimes also
called Troja (Troia), whence the inhabitants are commonly called Troes, and in
the Latin writers Trojani. The existence of this city, to which we commonly give
the name of Troy, cannot be doubted any more than the simple fact of the Trojan
War, which was believed to have ended with the capture and destruction of the
city, after a war of ten years, B.C. 184. Troy was the principal city of the country
called Troas. As the city has been the subject of curious inquiry, both in ancient
and modern times, it will be necessary, in the first instance, to collect and
analyse the statements of the ancient Writers; and to follow up this discussion
by an account of the investigations of modern travellers and scholars to identify
the site of the famous city. Our most ancient authority are the Homeric poems;
but we must at the very outset remark, that we cannot look upon the poet in every
respect as a careful and accurate topographer; but that, admitting his general
accuracy, there may yet be points on which he cannot be taken to account as if
it had been his professed object to communicate information on the topography
of Troy.
The city of Ilium was situated on a rising ground, somewhat above
the plain between the rivers Seamander and Simois, at a distance, as Strabo asserts,
of 42 stadia from the coast of the Hellespont. (Hom. Il. xx. 216, fol.; Strab.
xiii. p. 596.) That it was not quite in the plain is clear from the epithets enemoessa,
aipeine, and ophruoessa. Behind it, on the south-east, there rose a hill, forming
a branch of Mount Ida, surmounted by the acropolis, called Pergamum (to Pergamon,
Hom. Il. iv. 508, vi. 512; also ta Pergama, Soph. Phil. 347, 353, 611; or, he
Pergamos, Hom. Il. v. 446, 460.) This fortified acropolis contained not only all
the temples of the gods (Il. iv. 508, v. 447,512, vi. 88, 257, xxii. 172, &c.),
but also the palaces of Priam and his sons, Hector and Paris (Il. vi. 317, 370,
512, vii. 345). The city must have had many gates, as may be inferred from the
expression pasai pulai (Il. ii. 809, and elsewhere), but only one is mentioned
by name, viz., the Skaiai pulai, which led to the camp of the Greeks, and must
accordingly have been on the northwest part of the city, that is, the part just
opposite the acropolis (Il. iii. 145, 149, 263, vi. 306, 392, xvi. 712, &c.).
The origin of this name of the left gate is unknown, though it may possibly have
reference to the manner in which the signs in the heavens were observed; for,
during this process, the priest turned his face to the north, so that the north-west
would be on his left hand. Certain minor objects alluded to in the Iliad, such
as the tombs of Ilus, Aesyetes, and Myrine, the Scopie and Erineus, or the wild
fig-tree, we ought probably not attempt to urge very strongly: we are, in fact,
prevented from attributing much weight to them by the circumstance that the inhabitants
of New Ilium, who believed that their town stood on the site of the ancient city,
boasted that they could show close to their walls these doubtful vestiges of antiquity.
(Strab. xiii. p. 599.) The walls of Ilium are described as lofty and strong, and
as flanked with towers; they were fabled to have been built by Apollo and Poseidon
(Il. i. 129, ii. 113, 288, iii. 153, 384, 386, vii. 452, viii. 519). These are
the only points of the topography of Ilium derivable from the Homeric poems. The
city was destroyed, according to the common tradition, as already remarked, about
B.C. 1184; but afterwards we hear of a new Ilium, though we are not informed when
and on what site it was built. Herodotus (vii. 42) relates that Xerxes, before
invading Greece, offered sacrifices to Athena at Pergamum, the ancient acropolis
of Priam; but this does not quite justify the inference that the new town of Ilium
was then already in existence, and all that we can conclude from this passage
is that the people at that time entertained no doubt as to the sites of the ancient
city and its acropolis. Strabo (xiii. p. 601) states that Ilium was restored during
the last dynasty of the Lydian kings; that is, before the subjugation of Western
Asia by the Persians: and both Xenophon (Hellen. i. 1. § 4) and Scylax (p. 35)
seem to speak of Ilium as a town actually existing in their days. It is also certain
that in the time of Alexander New Ilium did exist, and was inhabited by Aeolians.
(Demosth. c. Aristocr. p. 671; Arrian, Anab. i. 11. § 7; Strab. xiii. p. 593,
foll.) This new town, which is distinguished by Strabo from the famous ancient
city, was not more than 12 stadia, or less than two English miles, distant from
the sea, and was built upon the spur of a projecting edge of Ida, separating the
basins of the Scamander and Simois. It was at first a place of not much importance
(Strab. xiii. pp. 593, 601), but increased in the course of time, and was successively
extended and embellished by Alexander, Lysimachus, and Julius Caesar. During the
Mith<*>idatic War New Ilium was taken by Fimbria, in B.C. 85, on which occasion
it suffered greatly. (Strab. xiii. p. 594; Appian, Mithrid. 53; Liv. Epit. lxxxiii.)
It is said to have been once destroyed before that time, by one Charidemus (Plut.
Sertor. 1.; Polyaen. iii. 14); but we neither know when this happened, nor who
this Charidemus was. Sulla, however, favoured the town extremely, in consequence
of which it rose, under the Roman dominion, to considerable prosperity, and enjoyed
exemption from all taxes. (Plin. v. 33.) These were the advantages which the place
owed to the tradition that it occupied the identical site of the ancient and holy
city of Troy: for, it may here be observed, that no ancient author of Greece or
Rome ever doubted the identity of the site of Old and New Ilium until the time
of Demetrius of Scepsis, and Strabo, who adopted his views; and that, even afterwards,
the popular belief among the people of Ilium itself, as well as throughout the
world generally, remained as firmly established as if the criticism of Demetrius
and Strabo had never been heard of. These critics were led to look for Old Ilium
farther inland, because they considered the space between New Ilium and the coast
far too small to have been the scene of all the great exploits described in the
Iliad; and, although they are obliged to own that not a vestige of Old Ilium was
to be seen anywhere, yet they assumed that it must have been situated about 42
stadia from the sea-coast. They accordingly fixed upon a spot which at the time
bore the name of Ilieon kome. This view, with its assumption of Old and New Ilium
as two distinct places, does not in any way remove the difficulties which it is
intended to remove; for the spaee will still be found far too narrow, not to mention
that it demands of the poet what can be demanded only of a geographer or an historian.
On these grounds we, in common with the general belief of all antiquity, which
has also found able advocates among modern critics, assume that Old and New Ilium
occupied the same site. The statements in the Iliad which appear irreconcilable
with this view will disappear if we bear in mind that we have to do with an entirely
legendary story, which is little concerned about geographical accuracy.
The site of New Ilium (according to our view, identical with that
of Old Ilium) is acknowledged by all modern inquirers and travellers to be the
spot covered with ruins now called Kissarlik, between the villages of Kum-kioi,
Kalli-fatli, and Tchiblak, a little to the west of the last-mentioned place, and
not far from the point where the Simois once joined the Scamander. Those who maintain
that Old Ilium was situated in a different locality cannot, of course, be expected
to agree in their opinions as to its actual site, it being impossible to fix upon
any one spot agreeing in every particular with the poet' s description. Respecting
the nationality of the inhabitants of Ilium, we shall have to speak in the article
Troas (Comp. Spohn, de Agro Trojano, Lipsiae, 1814, 8vo.; Rennell, Observations
on the Topography of the Plain of Troy, London, 1814,4to.; Choiseul-Gouffier,
Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece, Paris, 1820, vol. ii. p. 177, fell.; Leake, Asia
Minor, p. 275, foll.; Grote Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 436, foll.; Eckenbrecher,
uber die Lage des Homerischen Ilion, Rhein. Mus. Neue Folge, vol. ii. pp. 1-49,
where a very good plan of the district of Ilion is given. See also, Welcker, Kleine
Schriften, vol. ii. p. 1, foil.; C. Maclaren, Dissertation on the Topography of
the Trojan War, Edinburgh, 1822; Mauduit, Decouvertes dans la Troiade, &c., Paris
& Londres, 1840.)
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
ΤΡΩΑΣ (Αρχαία χώρα) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Troie, Troia (or Ilias ge). The territory ruled over by the ancient
kings of Troy or Ilium, which retained its ancient and venerable name even at
a time when the kingdom to which it had originally belonged had long ceased to
exist. Homer himself nowhere describes, the extent of Troas or its frontiers,
and even leaves us in the dark, as to how far the neighbouring allies of the Trojans,
such as the Dardanians, who were governed by princes of their own, of the family
of Priam, were true allies or subjects of the king of Ilium. In later times, Troas
was a part of Mysia, comprising the coast district on the Aegean from Cape Lectum
to the neighbourhood of Dardanus and Abydus on the Hellespont; while inland it
extended about 8 geographical miles, that is, as far as Mount Ida, so as to embrace
the south coast of Mysia opposite the island of Lesbos, together with the towns
of Assus and Antandrus. (Hom. Il. xxiv. 544; Herod. vii. 42.) Strabo, from his
well-known inclination to magnify the empire of Troy, describes it as extending
from the Aesepus to the Caicus, and his view is adopted by the Scholiast on Apollonius
Rhodius (i. 1115). In its proper and more limited sense, however, Troas was an
undulating plain, traversed by the terminal branches of Ida running out in a north-western
direction, and by the small rivers Satniois, Scamander, Simois, and Thymbrius.
This plain gradually rises towards Mount Ida, and contained, at least in later
times, several flourishing towns. In the Iliad we hear indeed of several towns,
and Achilles boasts (Il. ix. 328) of having destroyed eleven in the territory
of Troy; but they can at best only have been very small places, perhaps only open
villages. That Ilium itself must have been far superior in strength and population
is evident from the whole course of events; it was protected by strong walls,
and had its acropolis.
The inhabitants of Troas, called Troes (Troes), and by Roman prose-writers
Trojani or Teucri, were in all probability a Pelasgian race, and seem to have
consisted of two branches, one of which, the Teucri, had emigrated from Thrace,
and become amalgamated with the Phrygian or native population of the country.
Hence the Trojans are sometimes called Teucri and sometimes Phryges. (Herod. v.
122, vii. 43; Strab. i. p. 62, xiii. p. 604; Virg. Aen. i. 38, 248, ii. 252, 571,
&c.) The poet of the Iliad in several points treats, the Trojans as inferior in
civilisation to his own countrymen; but it is impossible to say whether in such
cases he describes the real state of things, or whether ther he does so only from
a natural partiality for his own countrymen.
According to the common legend, the kingdom of Troy was overturned
at the capture and burning Ilium in B.C. 1184; but it is attested on pretty good
authority that a Trojan state survived the catastrophe of its chief city, and
that the kingdom was finally destroyed by an invasion of Phrygians who crossed
over from Europe into Asia. (Xanthus, ap. Strab. xiv. p. 680, xii. p. 572.) This
fact is indirectly confimed by the testimony of Homer himself, who makes Poseidon
predict that the posterity of Aeneas should long continue to reign over the Trojans,
after the race of Priam should be extinct.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΤΣΟΡΛΟΥ (Πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Tzurulum (Tzouroulon, Procop. B. Goth. iii. 38; Anna Comn. vii. p. 215, x. p.
279; Theophyl. vi. 5; in Geog. Rav. iv. 6, and Tab. Peut., Suralluhm and Syrallum;
in It. Ant. pp. 138, 230, Izirallum, but in p. 323, Tirallum; and in It. Hier.
p. 569, Tunorullum), a strong town on a hill in the SE. of Thrace, not far from
Perinthus, on the road from that city to Hadrianopolis. It has retained its name
with little change to the present day, being the modern Tchorlu or Tchurlu.
ΧΑΛΚΗΔΩΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Chalcedon (Chalkedon: Eth. Chalkedonios or Chalkideus), a city of
Bithynia, at the entrance of the Pontus, opposite to Byzantium, as Stephanus (s.
v. Chalkedon) describes it; and a colony of the Megareis. (Thuc. iv. 75.)
The tract about Chalcedon was called Chalcedonia. (Herod. iv. 85.)
According to Menippus, the distance along the left-hand coast from the temple
of Zeus Urius and the mouth of the Pontus to Chalcedon was 120 stadia. All the
coins of Chalcedon have the name written Kalchedon, and this is also the way in
which the name is written in the best MSS. of Herodotus, Xenophon, and other writers,
by whom the place is mentioned. The distance from Chalcedon to Byzantium was reckoned
seven stadia (Plin. v. 32), or as it is stated by Pliny elsewhere (ix. 15), one
Roman mile, which is eight stadia. Polybius (iv. 39) makes the distance between
Chalcedon and Byzantium 14 stadia; which is much nearer the mark. But it is difficult
to say from what points these different measurements were made. The distance from
Scutari (Chrysopolis) to the Seraglio point in Constantinople (according to a
survey in the Hydrographical office of the Admiralty) is nearly one nautical mile.
In the same chart a place Caledonia is marked, but probaby the indication is not
worth much. Chalcedon, however, must have been at least two miles south of Scutari,
perhaps more; and the distance from Chalcedon to the nearest point of the European
shore is greater even than that which Polybius gives. Chrysopolis, which Strabo
calls a village, and which was in the Chalcedonia (Xenophon, Anab. vi. 6, 38),
was really at the entrance of the Bosporus on the side of the Propontis, but Chalcedon
was not. It is stated that the modern Greeks give to the site of Chalcedon the
name Chalkedon, and the Turks call it Kadi-Kioi. The position of Chalcedon was
not so favourable as that of the opposite city of Byzantium, in the opinion of
the Persian Megabazus (Herod. iv. 144), who is reported to have said that the
founders of Chalcedon must have been blind, for Chalcedon was settled seventeen
years before Byzantium; and the settlers, we must suppose, had the choice of the
two places. It was at the mouth of a small river Chalcedon (Eustathius ad Dionys.
Perieg. v. 803) or Chalcis. Pliny (v. 32) states that Chalcedon was first named
Procerastis, a name which may be derived from a point of land near it: then it
was named Colpusa, from the form of the harbour probably; and finally Caecorum
Oppidum, or the town of the blind. The story in Herodotus does not tell us why
Megabazus condemned the judgment of the founders of Chalcedon. Strabo (p. 320)
observes that the shoals of the pelamys, which pass from the Euxine through the
Bosporus, are frightened from the shore of Chalcedon by a projecting white rock
to the opposite side, and so are carried by the stream to Byzantium, the people
of which place derive a great profit from them. He also reports a story that Apollo
advised the founders of Byzantium to choose a position opposite to the blind;
the blind being the settlers from Megara, who chose Chalcedon as the site of their
city, when there was a better place opposite. Pliny (ix. 15) has a like story
about the pelamys being frightened from the Asiatic shore; and Tacitus (Ann. xii.
63) has the same story as Strabo. The remarks of Polybius on the position of Byzantium
and Chalcedon are in his fourth book (c. 39, &c.).
Chalcedon, however, was a place of considerable trade, and a flourishing
town. It contained many temples, and one of Apollo, which had en oracle. Strabo
reckons his distances along the coast of Bithynia from the temple of the Chalcedonii
(p. 643, and p. 546). When Darius had his bridge of boats made for crossing over
to Europe in his Scythian expedition, the architect constructed it, as Herodotus
supposes, half way between Byzantium and the temple at the entrance of the Pontus,
and on the Asiatic side it was within the territory of Chalcedon (Herod. iv. 85,
87). But the Chalcedonia extended to the Euxine, if the temple of the Chalcedonii
of Strabo (pp. 319, 563) is the temple of Zeus Urius as it seems to be. The territory
of Chalcedon therefore occupied the Asiatic side of the Bosporus. Strabo, after
speaking of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis and the temple of the Chalcedonii, adds,
and the country has, a little above the sea, the fountain Azaritia, which contains
small crocodiles: then follows the sea-coast of the Chalcedonii, named the bay
of Astacus, a part of the Propontis. According to this the Chalcedonii had once
the bay of Astacus, which is very unlikely, for there was Astacus, a colony of
the Megareis and of the Athenians, in this bay. The passage of Strabo is probably
corrupt, and might easily be corrected. It is not likely at any rate that they
had more than the north side of the bay of Astacus. Chalcedon was taken by the
Persian Otanes, after the Scythian expedition of Darius (v. 26). When Lamachus
led his men from the river Calex in Bithynia (B.C. 424), where he lost his ships
by a flood in the river, he came to Chalcedon (Thucyd iv. 75), which must then
have been on friendly terms with the Athenians. It afterwards changed sides, and
received a Lacedaemonian Harmost (Plut. Alcib. c. 29); but the Athenians soon
recovered it. However, at the time of the return of the Ten Thousand, it seems
to have been again in the possession of the Lacedaemonians (Xenophon, Anab. vii.
1, 20). Chalcedon was the birth-place of the philosopher Xenocrates.
Chalcedon was included in the limits of the kingdom of Bithynia, and
it came into the possession of the Romans under the testament of Nicomedes, B.C.
74. When Mithridates invaded Bithynia, Cotta, who was the governor at the time,
fled to Chalcedon, and all the Romans in the neighbourhood crowded to the place
for protection. Mithridates broke the chains that protected the fort, burnt four
ships, and towed away the remaining sixty. Three thousand Romans lost their lives
in this assault on the city. (Appian. Mithrid. 71; Plut. Lucull. 8.) Under the
empire Chalcedon was made a free city. The situation of Chalcedon exposed it to
attack in the decline of the empire. Some barbarians whom Zosimus (i. 34) calls
Scythians, plundered it in the reign of Valerian and Gallienus. It was taken by
Chosroes the Persian in A.D. 616, and a Persian camp was maintained above ten
years in the presence of Constantinople. (Gibbon, Decline, &c. c. 46.) But Chalcedon
still existed, and its final destruction is due to the Turks, who used the materials
for the mosques and other buildings of Constantinople. Chalcedon, however, seems
to have contributed materials for some of the edifices of Constantinople long
before the Turks laid their hands on it. (Amm. Marc. xxxi. 1, and the notes of
Valesius.)
This place is noted for a General Council, which was held here A.D.
451.
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
ΧΡΥΣΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Chrysa (Chruse, Chrusa: Eth. Chruseus). Stephanus (s. v.) has a list of various
places so called. He does not decide which is the Chrysa of Homer (Il. i. 37,
390, 431). He mentions a Chrysa on the Hellespont, between Ophrynium and Abydus.
Pliny (v. 30) mentions Chryse, a town of Aeolis, as no longer existing in his
time. He also mentions a Chryse in the Troad, and apparently places it north of
the promontory Lectum, and on the coast. He says that Chrysa did not exist, but
the temple of Smintheus remained; that is, the temple of Apollo Smintheus. The
name Smitheus, not Smintheus, appears on a coin of Alexandria of Troas (Harduin?s
note on Plin. v. 30). The Table places Smynthium between Alexandria and Assus,
and 4 miles south of Alexandria. Strabo places Chrysa on a hill, and he mentions
the temple of Smintheus, and speaks of a symbol, which recorded the etymon of
the name, the mouse which lay at the foot of the wooden figure, the work of Scopas.
According to an old story, Apollo had his name Smintheus, as being the mouse destroyer;
for Sminthus signified mouse, according to Apion. Strabo has an argument to show
that the Chrysa of the Iliad was not the Chrysa near Alexandria, but the other
place of the same name in the plain of Thebe, or the Adramyttene. He says that
this Chrysa was on the sea, and had a port, and a temple of Smintheus, but that
it was deserted in his time, and the temple was transferred to the other Chrysa.
There is, however, little weight in Strabo's argument, nor is the matter worth
discussion.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited Aug 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΧΡΥΣΟΠΟΛΙΣ (Πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Chrysopolis (Chrusopolis: Eth. Chrusopolites: Scutari), in Bithynia,
near Chalcedon, on the right to one who is sailing upwards, that is, from the
Propontis into the Thracian Bosporus. (Steph. s. v. Chrusopolis) It belonged to
the Chalcedonians. Dionysius of Byzantium, in his Anaplus of the Bosporus, says
that it was called Chrysopolis either because the Persians made it the place of
deposit for the gold which they collected from the cities, or from Chryses, a
son of Agamemnon and Chryseis. Polybius (iv. 44) says that those who intend to
cross from Chalcedon to Byzantium cannot make a straight course on account of
the current which comes down the Bosporus, but they make an oblique course to
the promontory Bus, and the place called Chrysopolis, which the Athenians having
seized by the advice of Alcibiades, set the first example of levying tolls on
vessels bound for the Pontus; and those which sailed out of it too. (Diodor. xiii.
64.) Pliny (v. 32) says of Chrysopolis, fuit.
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
ΧΡΥΣΟΥΠΟΛΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
ΑΒΥΔΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΑΡΜΑΡΑ
A town of the Troad on the Hellespont, and a Milesian colony, nearly opposite to Sestos, but a little lower down the stream. The bridge of boats which Xerxes constructed over the Hellespont, B.C. 480, commenced a little higher up than Abydos, and touched the European shore between Sestos and Madytus.
ΑΔΡΑΜΥΤΤΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
A small town of Mysia opposite the island of Lesbos, which suffered severely in the war of the Romans with Mithridates. It is mentioned in the New Test.
(Lurnessos). A town in the Troad, the birthplace of Briseis, and often mentioned by Homer
ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥΠΟΛΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
The modern Adrianople. A town in Thrace, on the right bank of the Hebrus, situated in an extensive plain, founded by the emperor Hadrian. In the Middle Ages it ranked second to Constantinople alone.
The primitive name of Adrianopolis in Thrace, and which the Byzantine authors frequently employ in speaking of that city. The name is derived from the circumstance of Orestes having purified himself on this spot after the murder of his mother.
ΑΙΝΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
A town in Thrace, near the mouth of the Hebrus, said by Vergil to have been founded by Aeneas.
ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΑ ΤΡΩΑΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
also Troas simply, on the sea-coast southwest of Troy, was enlarged by Antigonus, hence called Antigonia, but afterwards it resumed its first name. It flourished greatly, both under the Greeks and the Romans; and both Iulius Caesar and Constantine thought of establishing the seat of the Empire in it.
ΑΜΑΞΙΤΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
(Hamaxitos). A small town on the coast of the Troad.
ΑΝΤΑΝΔΡΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
An Aeolian colony on the Adramyttian Gulf, at the foot of Mount Ida.
ΑΡΠΑΓΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΜΥΣΙΑ
(ta Harpageia), or Harpagium (Harpagion). A small town in Mysia, between Cyzicus and Priapus, the scene of the rape of Ganymedes, according to some legends.
ΑΣTΑΚΟΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
A celebrated city of Bithynia, on the Sinus Astacenus, a bay
of the Propontis, was a colony from Megara, but afterwards received fresh colonists
from Athens, who called the place Olbia. It was destroyed by Lysimachus, but was
rebuilt on a neighbouring site by Nicomedes I., who named his new city Nicomedia.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΒΙΖΥΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
(Bizue). A Thracian city on the Euxine Sea, northwest of Byzantium. The poets declare it to have been shunned by swallows because of the fate of Tereus
ΒΙΘΥΝΙΑ (Αρχαία χώρα) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
A district of Asia Minor, bounded on the west by Mysia, on the
north by the Pontus Euxinus, on the east by Paphlagonia, and on the south by Phrygia
Epictetus. It was possessed at an early period by Thracian tribes from the neighbourhood
of the Strymon, called Thyni and Bithyni, of whom the former dwelt on the coast,
the latter in the interior. The country was subdued by the Lydians, and afterwards
became a part of the Persian Empire under Cyrus, and was governed by the satraps
of Phrygia. During the decline of the Persian Empire, the northern part of the
country became independent, under native princes, who resisted Alexander and his
successors, and established a kingdom, which lasted till the death of Nicomedes
III. (B.C. 74), who bequeathed it to the Romans. Under Augustus it was made a
proconsular province. It was a fertile country, intersected with wooded mountains,
the highest of which was the Mysian Olympus, on its southern border.
The chief towns of Bithynia were Chalcedon, Prusa, Heraclea
(Pontica), Nicaea, and Bithynium (Claudiopolis).
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΒΙΣΑΝΘΗ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
A Thracian town on the Propontis, subsequently known as Rhaedestum, whence its modern name Rodosto.
ΒΟΣΠΟΡΟΣ (Θαλάσσιο στενό) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Bosporus, α name applied to a strait of the sea. There were two straits
known in antiquity by this appellation, namely, the Thracian and the Cimmerian
Bosporus; the former now known by the name of the Straits or Channel of Constantinople,
the latter the Straits of Caffa or Theodosia, or, according to a later denomination,
the Straits of Yenikale. It connects the Palus Maeotis with the Euxine. Various
reasons have been assigned for the name. The best is that which makes the appellation
refer to the early passage of agricultural knowledge from East to West (bous,
an ox, and poros, a passage). Nymphius tells us, on the authority of Accarion,
that the Phrygians, desiring to pass the Thracian strait, built a vessel, on whose
prow was the figure of an ox, calling the strait over which it carried them boos
poros, Bosporus, or the ox's passage. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Valerius Flaccus
and others of the ancient writers Map of the Propontis and the Thracian Bosporus.
refer the name to the history of Io, who, when transformed into a cow (bous) by
Here, swam across this strait to avoid her tormentor. Arrian says that the Phrygians
were directed by an oracle to follow the route which an ox would point out to
them, and that on one being roused by them for this purpose, it swam across the
strait. The strait of the Thracian Bosporus properly extended from the Cyanean
Rocks to the harbour of Byzantium or Constantinople. It is said to be sixteen
miles in length, including the windings of its course, and its ordinary breadth
about one and a half miles. In several places, however, it is very narrow; and
the ancients relate that a person might hear birds sing on the opposite side,
and that two persons might converse across it. Here Darius is said to have crossed
on his expedition against the Scythians.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΟΝ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
A celebrated city of Thrace, on the shore of the Thracian Bosporus,
called at a later period Constantinopolis, and made the capital of the Eastern
Empire of the Romans. It was founded by a Dorian colony from Megara, or, rather,
by a Megarian colony in conjunction with a Thracian prince. For Byzas, whom the
city acknowledged, and celebrated in a festival as its founder, was, according
to the legend, a son of Poseidon and Ceroessa the daughter of Io, and ruled over
all the adjacent country. The early commerce of Megara was directed principally
to the shores of the Propontis, and this people had founded Chalcedon seventeen
years before Byzantium, and Selymbria even prior to Chalcedon. When, however,
their trade was extended still farther to the north, and had reached the shores
of the Euxine, the harbour of Chalcedon sank in importance, and a commercial station
was required on the opposite side of the strait. This station was Byzantium. The
appellation of “blind men” given to the Chalcedonians by the Persian general Megabazus,
for having overlooked the superior site where Byzantium was afterwards founded,
does not therefore appear to have been well merited. As long as Chalcedon was
the northernmost point reached by the commerce of Megara, its situation was preferable
to any offered by the opposite side of the Bosporus, because the current on this
latter side runs down from the north more strongly than it does on the side of
Chalcedon, and the harbour of this city, therefore, is more accessible to vessels
coming from the south. On the other hand, Byzantium was far superior to Chalcedon
for the northern trade, since the current that set in strongly from the Euxine
carried vessels directly into the harbour of Byzantium, but prevented their approach
to Chalcedon in a straight course. The harbour of Byzantium was peculiarly favoured
by nature, being deep, capacious, and sheltered from every storm. From its shape,
and the rich advantages thus connected with it, the harbour of Byzantium obtained
the name of Chrysoceras, or "he Golden Horn,"which was also applied
to the promontory or neck of land that contributed to form it. And yet, notwithstanding
all these advantages, Byzantium remained for a long time an inconsiderable town.
The declining commerce of Megara, and the character which Byzantium still sustained
of being a half-barbarian place, may serve to account for this.
At a subsequent period, the Milesians sent hither a strong
colony, and so altered for the better the aspect of things that they are regarded
by some ancient writers as the founders of the city itself. When, at a later day,
the insurrection of the Asiatic Greeks had been crushed by Darius, and the Persian
fleet was reducing to obedience the Greek cities along the Hellespont and the
Propontis, the Byzantines, together with a body of Chalcedonians, would not wait
for the coming of the Persians, but, leaving their habitations, and fleeing to
the Euxine, built the city of Mesembria on the upper coast of Thrace. The Persians
destroyed the empty city, and no Byzantium for some time thereafter existed. This
will explain why Seylax, in his Periplus, passed by Byzantium in silence, while
he mentions all the Grecian settlements in this quarter, and among them even Mesembria
itself.
Byzantium reappeared after the overthrow of Xerxes, some of
the old inhabitants having probably returned; and here Pausanias, the commander
of the Grecian forces, took up his quarters (B.C. 479). He gave the city a code
of laws, and a government modelled, in some degree, after the Spartan form, and
hence he was regarded by some as the true founder of the city. The Athenians succeeding
to the hegemony, Byzantium fell under their control, and received so many important
additions from them that Ammianus Marcellinus, in a later age, calls it an Attic
colony. The city, however, was a Doric one, in language, customs, and laws, and
remained so even after the Athenians had the control of it. The maintenance of
this military post became of great importance to the Greeks during their warfare
with the Persians in subsequent years, and this circumstance, together with the
advantages of a lucrative and now continually increasing commerce, gave Byzantium
a high rank among Grecian cities. After Athens and Sparta had weakened the power
of each other by national rivalry, and neither could lay claim to the empire of
the sea, Byzantium became an independent city, and turned its whole attention
to commerce. Its strong situation enabled it, at a subsequent period, to resist
successfully the arms of Philip of Macedon; nor did Alexander, in his eagerness
to march into Asia, make any attempt upon the place. It preserved also a neutral
character under his successors. The great evil to which the city of Byzantium
was exposed came from the inland country, the Thracian tribes continually making
incursions into the fertile territory around the place, and carrying off more
or less of the products of the fields. The city suffered severely also from the
Gauls, being compelled to pay a yearly tribute amounting at least to eighty talents.
After the departure of the Gauls it again became a flourishing
place, but its most prosperous period was during the Roman sway. It had thrown
itself into the arms of the Romans as early as the war against the younger Philip
of Macedon, and enjoyed from that people not only complete protection, but also
many valuable commercial privileges. It was allowed, more over, to lay a toll
on all vessels passing through the straits--a thing which had been attempted before
without success--and this toll it shared with the Romans. But the day of misfortune
at length came. In the contest for the Empire between Severus and Niger, Byzantium
declared for the latter, and stood a siege in consequence which continued long
after Niger's overthrow and death. After three years of almost incredible exertions
the place surrendered to Severus. The few remaining inhabitants whom famine had
spared were sold as slaves, the city was razed to the ground, its territory given
to Perinthus, and a small village took the place of the great commercial emporium.
Repenting soon after of what he had done, Severus rebuilt Byzantium, and adorned
it with numerous and splendid buildings, which in a later age still bore his name;
but it never recovered its former rank until the days of Constantine. Constantine
had no great affection for Rome as a city, nor had the inhabitants any great regard
for him. He felt the necessity, moreover, of having the capital of the Empire
in some more central quarter, from which the movements of the German tribes on
the one hand, and those of the Persians on the other, might be observed. He long
sought for such a locality, and believed at one time that he had found it in the
neighbourhood of the Sigaean promontory, on the coast of Troas. He had even commenced
building here when the superior advantages of Byzantium as a centre of empire
attracted his attention, and he finally resolved to make this the capital of the
Roman world. For a monarchy possessing the western portion of Asia and the largest
part of Europe, together with the whole coast of the Mediterranean Sea, nature
herself seemed to have destined Byzantium as a capital.
Constantine's plan was carried into rapid execution (A.D. 330).
The ancient city had possessed a circuit of forty stadia, and covered merely two
hills, one close to the water, on which the Seraglio at present stands, and another
adjoining it, and extending towards the interior to what is now the Besestan,
or great market. The new city, called Constantinopolis, or "City of Constantine,"
was three times as large, and covered four hills, together with part of a fifth,
having a circuit of somewhat less than fourteen geographical miles. Every effort
was made to embellish this new capital of the Roman world: the most splendid edifices
were erected, including an imperial palace, numerous residences for the chief
officers of the court, churches, baths, a hippodrome; and inhabitants were procured
from every quarter. Its rapid increase called, from time to time, for a corresponding
enlargement of the city, until, in the reign of Theodosius II., when the new walls
were erected (the previous ones having been thrown down by an earthquake), Constantinople
attained to the size which it at present has. Chalcondylas supposes the walls
of the city to be 111 stadia in circumference; Gyllius, about 13 Italian miles;
but, according to the best modern plans of Constantinople, it is not less than
19,700 yards. The number of gates is twentyeight--fourteen on the side of the
port, seven towards the land, and as many on the Propontis. The city is built
on a triangular promontory, and the number of hills which it covers is seven.
Besides the name of Constantinopolis (Konstantinou polis), this city had also
the more imposing one of New Rome (Nea Rhome), which, however, gradually fell
into disuse. According to some, the peasants in the neighbourhood, while they
repair to Constantinople, say in corrupt Greek that they are going es tam bolin
(i.e. es tan polin), "to the city," whence has arisen the Turkish name
of the place, Stamboul. Constantinople was taken by the Turks under Mohammed II.
on the 29th of May, A.D. 1453.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΓΑΡΓΑΡΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΤΟΥΡΚΙΑ
Gargara (ta Gargara). The southern summit of Mount Ida, in the Troad, with a city of the same name at its foot.
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