The Herodotus Encyclopedia. Группа авторов
tribe located in the upper SPERCHEIUS Valley, on and below the northern slopes of Mt. OETA (BA 55 C3, Ainis; Strabo 9.4.10/C427). Their main city was Hypata. Herodotus calls them Enianes (’Ενιῆνες), following the spelling used by HOMER. They medized with other Thessalian tribes when XERXES was in MACEDONIA (7.132) and fought on the Persian side in 480 BCE (7.185). The Aenianes originally dwelled west of Mt. OSSA in Perrhaebia (Hom. Il. 2.749; cf. Strabo 9.5.20/C441), but were driven south by the LAPITHS (cf. Plut. Quaest. Graec. 13). They were one of the original members of the Amphictyony (Paus. 10.8.2; Aeschines (2.116) calls them “Oetaeans”). Although they were living in the Spercheius Valley as early as the fifth century, Herodotus follows Homer in referring to them in conjunction with the PERRHAEBIANS (along with the DOLOPES, their neighbors to the west in the Spercheius Valley, and the Magnesians). The Aenianes were not PERIOECI, or subjugated neighbors, of the Thessalians but independent ALLIES, acting of their own volition (cf. Thuc. 5.51). They were later destroyed by the AETOLIANS and the Athamanians (Strabo 9.4.11/C427).
SEE ALSO: Amphictyones; Medize; Thessaly
FURTHER READING
1 Béquignon, Yves. 1937. La vallée du Spercheios des origines au IVe siècle. Études d'archéologie et de topographie. Paris: de Boccard.
2 Sakellariou, Michel. 1984. “La migration des Aenianes.” In Aux origines de l'hellénisme: la Crète et la Grèce. Hommage à Henri van Effenterre, edited by Centre Gustave Glotz, 173–80. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
AENUS (Αἶνος)
MATTHEW A. SEARS
University of New Brunswick
City in southeastern THRACE, north of the Hellespontine CHERSONESE and along the HEBRUS RIVER (BA 51 G3; Müller II, 773–77), which forms the border between the modern nations of Greece and Turkey. Located on a plain and at the mouth of a major river, Aenus was strategically located and served as a mustering point for exports from further inland, including Thracian slaves and Thracian MERCENARIES.
Aenus is mentioned in HOMER’s Iliad (4.519–20) as the home of the Thracian ruler Peiroös and a contingent of valiant Thracian warriors. In historical times, the city was in the territory of the APSINTHIANS, a Thracian group best known as the rivals of the nearby DOLONCIANS, who inhabited the Chersonese. Aenus was eventually colonized by Aeolian Greeks, though Thracian connections in the area remained strong. Aenus figures little in the work of Herodotus (4.90.2; 7.58.3). Though Aenus was one of the first sites in EUROPE reached by XERXES in 480 BCE, the Persian king bypassed the city in favor of nearby DORISCUS, where he held his famous review of the army after crossing the HELLESPONT.
SEE ALSO: Aeolians; Colonization
FURTHER READING
1 IACP no. 641 (875–77).
2 Isaac, Benjamin. 1986. The Greek Settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian Conquest, 140–57. Leiden: Brill.
3 Veligianni, Chryssoula. 1995. “Abdera, Maroneia, Ainos und der Odrysenstaat.” Tekmeria 1: 136–72.
AENYRA (Αἴνυρα, τά)
ALISON LANSKI
University of Notre Dame
A region on the northeastern coast of the ISLAND of THASOS (BA 51 D3). Herodotus writes that he saw the GOLD mines between Aenyra and COENYRA (probably on Mt. Hypsarion: cf. Müller I, 108–17), which had been opened by the PHOENICIANS and contributed greatly to Thasos’ WEALTH (6.47.2). Aenyra appears on a fifth‐century BCE Thasian inscription indicating distances around the island, and probably designated the area around modern Potamia (Salviat and Servais 1964, 276–84; Graham 1978, 88–89).
SEE ALSO: Epigraphy; Mining; Scaptesyle
REFERENCES
1 Graham, A. J. 1978. “The Foundation of Thasos.” ABSA 73: 61–98.
2 Salviat, François, and Jean Servais. 1964. “Stèle indicatrice thasienne trouvée au sanctuaire d’Aliki.” BCH 88.1: 267–87.
AEOLIANS (Αἰολέες, οἱ)
JEREMY LABUFF
Northern Arizona University
This people is often thought of as one of the three major Greek “tribes,” but Herodotus refers to them as an ethnic group in their own right, if also a subset of the Hellenes (1.6.2, 28; cf. 1.26.2; 3.1.1; 7.9.α.1). Later tradition and most scholars (e.g., Hertel 2007) see the Aeolians as originating in THESSALY or Boeotia and migrating eastward by the end of the eleventh century BCE, to settle on the Anatolian coast north of Ionia and the adjacent ISLANDS. This reconstruction is based on linguistic similarities as well as Protogeometric ceramic evidence, but Parker (2008) refutes the idea of an Aeolic dialect group, and Rose (2008) argues that the archaeological record does not suggest widespread COLONIZATION, instead tying the literary tradition to the formation of the DELIAN LEAGUE in the 470s. Herodotus refers almost exclusively to the Aeolians of Asia Minor and the nearby islands, no doubt as a result of his East Greek point of view. He lists the Aeolian (Αἰολίδες) CITIES (1.149–51) as LARISA, NEON TEICHOS, TEMNUS, CILLA, NOTIUM, AEGIROESSA, PITANE, AEGAEAE, MYRINA, GRYNEIA, and CYME, the last already considered Aeolian by HESIOD (Op. 636). SMYRNA, the twelfth city, was captured by IONIANS. In addition, Aeolians inhabited the cities on Mt. IDA (the Troad), the five cities of LESBOS (MYTILENE, METHYMNA, Antissa, Eresos, and Pyrrha), the island of TENEDOS, and the “HUNDRED ISLES.” Based on the primacy of these areas in the identification of Aeolians by early sources, Jonathan Hall has argued (2002, 71–73) that Aeolian identity originated in Asia Minor, perhaps in opposition to the emerging Ionian identity just to the south. He proposes that the “transfer” of Smyrna to Ionia served as a foundational event in the formation of Aeolian identity.
The closest that Herodotus comes to acknowledging the tradition of an Aeolian MIGRATION from mainland Greece is at 7.176.4, where he calls Thessaly the “Aeolian land.” Apollodorus (Bibl. 1.50.7–9) reports that Thessaly was given to AEOLUS to rule over by HELLEN. This stands in stark contrast to the Boeotian migration tradition, which is at least as early as PINDAR. He refers to a colonizing band of Aeolians from Boeotia led by ORESTES (Nem. 11.34; cf. Hellanicus (BNJ 4 F32), Demon (BNJ 327 F20), Strabo (13.1.3/C582), and Pausanias (3.2.1)). Herodotus, however, sees the Aeolians as former PELASGIANS (7.95.1) and seems to reject the tradition that saw the Pelasgians as displaced by Boeotian Aeolians (Diod. Sic. 5.81; Strabo 13.3.3/C621). Instead, his view seems to be that Thessalian Pelasgians migrated to Asia Minor, either before or after becoming Aeolian Greeks (cf. Hes. F9 M‐W). In this version, was Boeotia a tertiary Aeolian settlement, receiving colonists from Asia Minor such as Hesiod’s father?
The paucity of detail in discussing Aeolia as compared to Herodotus’ much more extensive treatment of the Ionians only underscores his view that the Aeolians were of secondary historical importance to their southern neighbors. His habit is to place the Ionians first when mentioning both groups, and he stresses the minor role of the Aeolians in the founding of the HELLENION at NAUCRATIS (2.178.2) and in the decision to guard the bridge at the ISTER during DARIUS I’s Scythian campaign (4.138.2). In a few places, Herodotus even subsumes them into the term “Ionians,” for example when the Spartans refuse to help the Ionians against CYRUS (II), though the envoys have just been identified as including Aeolians (1.152). Thus, the reader may suspect that Herodotus is a useful source on the Aeolians only insofar as they were associated (or contrasted) with the Ionians, for example, the fourteen passing references to CONQUEST or control by the Lydian and Persian empires (1.6.2, 26.2, 28, 141.1, 171.1; 2.1.1; 3.1.1, 90.1; 4.89.1; 5.123; 6.98.1; 7.9.α.1,