Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/108

 liimciNiuM: his map of Asia Minor, places it, under the name of Kribolus, at the head of the gulf of Astacus, which agrees with Dion Csssins (Epit. Xiph. hizviii. 39), ^ho speaks of it as a naval station opposite to Nico- media. According to some authorities, the site is Kcaranmaal; others call the site ErekH or Eregli. The figure of a house in tha Table indicates a town, perhaps with warm springs. [6. L.] ERICrNIUM, a town of Perrhaebia in Thes- saly, situated near the frontiers of Histiaeotis. Its ttte is uncertain, but Leake conjectures that it stood at Leftharo-yidriy though there are no ancient remains at this place. (Jay. zzztL 18, xzzix. 25 ; Leake, Northern Greeeef vol. Iy. p. 315.) ERIGUSA [AsouAB Imsulab.] • ERI'DANUS (*HfHZa9^$) was the name given by the Greeks to the Padus or Fo, the great river ot Northern Italj. The appellation was adopted from them by the Roman poets, and hence is occasionally used even by Latin prose writers. (Virg. Georg,. 481; Ovid. MeL ii. 324; Propert i. 12. 4; Martial, lit 67. 2; &c) But there is good reason to believe that the name was not in the first instance applied to the Padus, but belonged to quite a different region ef Europe, and was some time before it acquired the signification in which it was afterwards employed. The name of the Eridanus appears in the earMeet Greek authorities inseparably connected with the well-known fable of the sisters of Phaethon, and the trees that wept tean of amber. This myth appears to have been already known to Hesiod (Hygin. 154; Hesiod, Fr, 184. ed. Markscheffel), who in his extant works notices the Eridanus among the Greek riven of the world {Tkeog. 338): but we have no idea of the geographical position which he assigned it. The current opinion in the days of Herodotus appears to have been that the Eridanus was a river in the more Westerly regions of Europe, but flowing into the sea on the north of that continent. (Herod, iii. 115.) The historian, however, rejects this notion, and treats both the name and existence of the Eridanus as a mere fiction of the Greek poets: a view adopted at a much Uter period by Strabo (v. p. 215). The tagueness of the notions entertained oonoeming its situation is fiurther proved by the fact that, according to Pliny, Aeschylus spoke of the Eridanus as a river of Iberia, and identified it with the Rhodanus. (Plin. zzzvii. 2. s. 1 1 .) According to Hygintu, Pherecydes was the first who identified the Eridanus with the Padus. (Hygin. 154.) Euripides evidently adopts the same view, as he connects the former river with the shores of the Adriatic (Eur. Hipp. 737); and this opinion seems to have become gradually esta- blished among the Greeks. Scylax, writing about the middle of the 4th century b.c., distinctly places the river Eridanus in the land of the Veneti, and there is no doubt that the Padus is the river which he meant (ScyL p. 6. § 19.) The same view was henceforth adopted by ail the geographers except Strabo, who, not choosing to admit the identity of the two riven, rejects altogether the Eridanus as a mere fiction, as well as the islands of the Electrides, sup- posed to be situated at its month (Strab. v. p. 215; Pd. il 16; Soymn. Ch. 391—397 ; Plin. iii. 16. s. 20, xxxvii. 2. s. 11; Dionys. Per. 289 — 293; Diod. v. 2d;Paus.Ld.§ 6, v. 14. § 3.) The real fiust appean to be, that the name of Eridanus was originally applied by the Greeks to a great river m the north of Europe^ on the shores of which amber was produced, and of which some vague report had reached tliem through means of the VOL. I. erigon: 849- tnderB who brought the amber itself tnm tlie shores of the Baltic to tlie head of the Adriatic It is idle to inquire what the river renlly meant was; whether the Oder or Vistula, at the mouths of which amber is now found in the greatest quantity, or some other river of the N. of Germany. The name ErujUmu^ is evidently closely connected, if not identical, with that of Bhodanutf and it is probable enough that Bhmut is only another form of the same word. (Latham, OermamOf p. 13.) Hence, in the vague geographical notions of the early Greeks, one great river was easily confounded with another. Aeschylus, as already mentioned, identified the Eridanus and Rhodanus: while ApoUonius Rhodius, writing at a much later period, but evidently following some earlier poet, describes the two riven as arms of the same great stream, another portion of which fiowed into the ocean. (Apoll. Rhod. iv. 596, 627, 628.) Amber appean to have been brought in very early times (as it stiU was in the days of Pliny) overland from the shores of the Baltic to those of the Adriatic; here it was purchased by the Phoenicians and early Greek tradere: whence it came to be regarded, by a very natural error, as a production of Sie country^ and the name of the Eridanus being inseparably connected with the production of amber, the Greeks gave the name to the great river that fbms so con- spicuous a feature of this part of Italy. The gum- like nature of the substance itself evidently gave rise to the fable of its distilling or exuding fnm trees, which was afterwards applied by the poets and my- thographen to the poplan that adorned the banka of the Padus, now assumed to be the true Eridanu8» (Gluver. ItaL pp. 390—393; Wemsdorf, Exc, ii ad Avien, Or, Mark.) The origin and history of the connection between the Eridanus and Padus have been given at some length, on account of its important bearing on the progress of ancient geography: the geographical account of the latter river and its tributaries is given under the head of Padus. Several ancient writen placed near the mouth of the mythical Eridanus certain islands which they called the Electrides Ibsulav ('HXtirrp/Scs yrjffoi)j on the shores of which it was said that much amber was found, fnm whence their name was derived. But as tiiere are in fiust no islands in this part of the Adriatic, except those actually formed by the mouths of the Padus, Strabo and Pliny reject altogether the existence of the Electrides as &bulous, while other writen seem to have sought them among the numerous groups of islands which line the oppo- site shore of the Adriatic. (Strab. v. p. 215; PUn. xxxvii. 2. s. 11.) As much of the amber collected in the Baltic is really found in the islands at the mouths of the great rivers, it is not impossible that some obscure tradition of this fact may have given rise to the name of the Electrides, which were sub- sequently tra nsf erred, tc^ther with the Eridanus itself from the Baltic to the Adriatic [E. H. B.] ERI'DANUS, a river of Attica, a tributaxy of the llissus. [Attica, p. 323, a.] ERIGON CEpiTw'y, Strab. vii. pp. 327, 330; the river Axius, which, having its source in Uie Paeonian mountains, todc a NE., conrae till its junc- tion with the main stream at no great distance from Stobi. (Liv. xxxix. 53.) It is now called by the Bulgarians Zma Rjtiha, and by the Turks Ku^uk Kord-Su. (Comp. Leake, Northern Greece^ vol. iii. pp. 268, 275.) The geography of the basin of 3l
 * Zptiy»v, Ptol. iii. 13. § 8), the great W. branch of