Aegospotami Explained
Aegospotami (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: Αἰγὸς Ποταμοί, Aigos Potamoi) or Aegospotamos[1] (i.e. Goat Streams) is the ancient Greek name for a small river issuing into the Hellespont (Modern Turkish Çanakkale Boğazı), northeast of Sestos.[2]
Aegospotami is located on the Dardanelles, south of the modern Turkish town of Sütlüce, Gelibolu.[3] [4]
At its mouth was the scene of the decisive battle in 405 BC in which Lysander destroyed the Athenian fleet, ending the Peloponnesian War.[5] [6] The ancient Greek township of the same name, whose existence is attested by coins of the 5th and 4th centuries,[7] and the river itself were located in ancient Thrace in the Chersonese.[1]
According to ancient sources including Pliny the Elder and Aristotle, in 467 BC a large meteorite landed near Aegospotami. It was described as brown in colour and the size of a wagon load. A comet, tentatively identified as Halley's Comet, was reported at the time the meteorite landed. This is possibly the first European record of Halley's comet.[8] [9]
References
40.332°N 26.6°W
Notes and References
- Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. “Aegospotami.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1985., (indexed), and (deluxe).
- John Freely -The companion guide to Turkey 1993 "... a stream known to the Greeks as Aegospotami, or Goats' River, which empties into the strait at Ince Limam, ..."
- Book: Kagan, Donald. The Fall of the Athenian Empire. Cornell University Press. 1991. 978-0-8014-9984-5. 386–388.
- Tzvetkova, Julia (2008) History of the Thracian Chersonese, Faber, pp. 263-335 (ISBN 978-954-400-001-1)
- Guralnik, David B., Editor in Chief. “Aegospotami.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. Second College Edition. New York, NY: Prentice Hall Press, 1986. (indexed), (plain edge), (pbk.), and (LeatherKraft).
- Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire, (Cornell University Press, 1991), p.386. "A key to understanding the course of events is that Aegospotami was only a beach, a place without a proper harbor, a little to the east of the modern Turkish town called Sütlüce, or Galata in its Greek form, the ancient town of ..."
- Aegospotami . 1. 255.
- Book: Comets: A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth and Folklore . registration . Donald K. Yeomans. 4. 1991. Donald Wiley and Sons. 978-0-471-61011-3.
- News: Halley's comet 'was spotted by the ancient Greeks'. BBC . 10 September 2010.