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of the mainland conquered by the Persians in the time of CYRUS (II). Very little is known about the city before the Hellenistic period (Radt 1991). It did not become a member of the DELIAN LEAGUE and thus may have remained under Persian control after the wars, although XENOPHON in the early fourth century describes it as not subject to the king (Hell. 4.5.8). Xenophon and other later sources refer to it as “Aegae” (e.g., Ps.‐Scylax 98.2; Strabo 13.3.5/C621).
SEE ALSO: Aeolians; Persia
REFERENCE
1 Radt, Wolfgang. 1991. “Archaisches in Aigai bei Pergamon.” IstMitt 41: 481–84.
FURTHER READING
1 IACP no. 801 (1038–39).
AEGALEOS (Αἰγάλεως, ὁ)
VASILIKI ZALI
University of Liverpool
A range of mountains in Attica between the plains of ATHENS and ELEUSIS, opposite the island of SALAMIS (BA 59 B3). Herodotus mentions that XERXES watched the Battle of Salamis from Aegaleos (8.90.4; cf. Aesch. Pers. 466–67). At the western end of the range there was a peninsula, called Amphiale, which, according to STRABO (9.1.13/C395), was only two stades (about a quarter‐mile) away from Salamis. The southern coastal part of Aegaleos was called Corydallus (Strabo 9.1.14), while the part through which a road ran from the plain of Athens to that of Eleusis was called Poecilum (Paus. 1.37.7).
SEE ALSO: Viewing
FURTHER READING
1 Macan, Reginald Walter. 1908. Herodotus: The Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Books. Vol. I.2, 499–500. London: Macmillan. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
AEGE (Αἰγή, ἡ)
CHRISTOPHER BARON
University of Notre Dame
City on the PALLENE peninsula in northern Greece (BA 51 B5). XERXES’ fleet picks up troops from Aege and other CITIES in the region after it passes through the ATHOS canal in 480 BCE (7.123.1). Aege was a member of the DELIAN LEAGUE; nothing is known of it after the fifth century. It is now thought to have been located on Gyromiri hill near modern Polychrono (Tsigarida 2011, 145–46).
SEE ALSO: Neapolis (Pallene)
REFERENCE
1 Tsigarida, Bettina. 2011. “Chalcidice.” In Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon: Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 BC–300 AD, edited by Robin J. Lane Fox, 137–58. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
FURTHER READING
1 IACP no. 556 (821–22).
2 Vokotopoulou, Julia. 1996. “Cities and Sanctuaries of the Archaic Period in Chalkidike.” ABSA 91: 319–28.
AEGEAN SEA (τὸ Αἰγαῖον; ὁ Αἰγαῖος πόντος)
DAVID BRANSCOME
Florida State University
A bay of the MEDITERRANEAN Sea, lying between the Greek mainland and the western Anatolian coast and bounded to the south by the ISLANDS of CRETE and RHODES (2.97.1, 113.1; 4.85.4; 7.36.2, 55.1). Owing to Greeks’ sailing the waters of the Aegean Sea and inhabiting its numerous islands, Herodotus expects a ready familiarity from his readers as to the nature and location of this SEA (Ceccarelli 2016, 73–79). Most commonly, Herodotus refers to it with the neuter substantive “the Aegean” (to Aigaion), but in one passage he uses the phrase “the Aegean sea” (ho Aigaios pontos, 2.97.1; see Ceccarelli 2012, 29–31).
He employs the Aegean Sea as a device to help readers imagine the position of BRIDGES built by the Persian kings DARIUS I and XERXES. Regarding Darius’ bridge over the Thracian BOSPORUS, Herodotus moves progressively southward in his geographical description: Pontus (EUXINE or Black Sea), Bosporus, PROPONTIS, and finally HELLESPONT, which “issues out into the open sea called the Aegean” (4.85.2). Xerxes has two parallel bridges built across the Hellespont, one nearer to the Euxine, the other nearer the Aegean (7.36.2, 55.1).
Herodotus mentions the Aegean twice during his Egyptian LOGOS. It is when the Trojan ALEXANDER (Paris) is traveling from SPARTA to TROY—HELEN in tow—and is “on the Aegean” (2.113.1) that WINDS blow him off course to EGYPT. Elsewhere Herodotus asks readers to think of the CITIES of Egypt poking up from the NILE’s flood waters as resembling “the islands in the Aegean Sea” (2.97.1). Despite the well‐known MYTH (which may be no earlier than Hellenistic in date) about THESEUS’ father Aegeus leaping to his death in and thereby giving his name to the Aegean Sea, the aig‐ root may actually derive from the name of a pre‐Greek sea god (see Fowler 1988, 99–102).
SEE ALSO: Aegeus son of Pandion; Analogy; Geography; Ships and Sailing
REFERENCES
1 Ceccarelli, Paola. 2012. “Naming the Aegean Sea.” MHR 27: 25–49.
2 Ceccarelli, Paola. 2015. “Map, Catalogue, Drama, Narrative: Representations of the Aegean Space.” In New Worlds from Old Texts: Revisiting Ancient Space and Place, edited by Elton Barker, Stefan Bouzarovski, Christopher Pelling, and Leif Isaksen, 61–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3 Fowler, Robert L. 1988. “ΑΙΓ‐ in Early Greek Language and Myth.” Phoenix 42.2: 95–113.
AEGEIDAE (Αἰγεῖδαι, οἱ)
KATHARINA WESSELMANN
Christian‐Albrechts‐University, Kiel
The Aegeidae are descendants of Aegeus, grandson of THERAS through OEOLYCUS, whose lineage traces back to POLYNEICES and CADMUS SON OF AGENOR. Herodotus describes the Aegeidae as “a big clan (megalē phylē) in Sparta” (4.149.1). There is no information in the Histories on how the mythical Theban FAMILY came to live in SPARTA, but Herodotus tells the anecdote that the family could not at first produce CHILDREN who survived to adulthood; only when they set up a temple for the avenging spirits (erinyes) of LAÏUS and OEDIPUS—apparently a RITUAL to purify the family after the horrific deeds of their ancestors—did their offspring start to flourish (4.149.2). The same legend is elsewhere cause for their EXILE: according to Pausanias, AUTESION, father of Theras, left THEBES for the PELOPONNESE because he was chased by the FURIES of Laïus and Oedipus (9.5.15). An Isthmian ode of PINDAR (Isthm. 7) and its scholia indicate that the Spartans recruited the Aegeidae in their war against Amyclae.
Herodotus tells us no more about the clan, but they must have been fairly well known to his AUDIENCE, seeing that they were linked with the royal family in Sparta through Theras, brother of the widowed queen ARGEIA and warden of her young sons and therefore, temporarily, ruler of Sparta (Hdt. 4.147). The family’s prominent status is also attested elsewhere, for example in Pausanias, who claims that Aegeus’ descendant Euryleon shared command in the first Messenian War with the two Spartan kings (4.7.8), and that Cadmus, Oeolycus, and Aegeus had shrines in Sparta (3.15.8). The Aegeidae appear several times in Pindar: they are supposed to have brought the cult of APOLLO Carneius to THERA, a colony founded by Theras (Hdt. 4.147–48), from where their descendants moved on to CYRENE (Pind. Pyth. 5.72–81) and, via various other places, to ACRAGAS in SICILY (schol. Pind. Ol. 2.16, 2.82).
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