The Terme River ( tr, Terme Çayı; la, Thermeh; el, Θερμώδων, rendered Thermodon) is a short river in Samsun Province,

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

draining into the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

. Its sources are in the

Pontic Mountains The Pontic Mountains or Pontic Alps (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Kuzey Anadolu Dağları'', meaning North Anatolian Mountains) form a mountain range in northern Anatolia, Turkey. They are also known as the ''Parhar Mountains'' in the local Turki ...

. It runs through the fertile

Çarşamba plain The ''Çarşamba Plain'', the ancient Themiscyra Plain (; grc-gre, Θεμίσκυρα ''Themiskyra''), is a plain on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, formed largely of the delta of the Yeşilırmak river (ancient Iris), but also traversed by the ...

to Salıpazarı, where it splits into three tributaries. The city of

Terme Terme (formerly spelled ''Termeh''; Ancient Greek: Thèrmae, Θέρμαι) is the seat of Terme District, Samsun Province, Turkey. Terme is located on Terme River, about 5 km from its mouth, on the eastern end of the Çarşamba Plain. Te ...

is on the river, about 5 km from its mouth. The ancient name of the river is the Thermodon, and the surrounding region was the Pontus. In antiquity, its mouth was about "three plethra" wide (ca. 300 feet), and it was navigable. The river, said by

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

to have "its many sources near Phanaroea... nmany streams" (which is not true; perhaps he was thinking of the Iris), was "very often noticed by ancient writers", and its mouth was near the town of Themiscyra. Starting with Dionysius Periegetes, in his '' Periegesis of the World'', the Thermodon is often confused with the Iris River (modern Yeşilırmak), which is much larger, flows through

Phanaroea The Phanaroea plain (Φανάροια), the modern Erbaa Plain (), is a plain lying mostly in the Erbaa district of Tokat Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It runs east-west for about , along the Kelkit River (ancient ''Lykos'') in a v ...

, and carries much more sediment.Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, Marit Jensen, "Two Pontic Rivers", ''Cedrus: The Journal of MCRI'' 3:231-2142 (2015), In

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities o ...

, the Thermodon was the location of the plain and capital, Themiscyra, where the

Amazons In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Ancient Greek: Ἀμαζόνες ''Amazónes'', singular Ἀμαζών ''Amazōn'', via Latin ''Amāzon, -ŏnis'') are portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercule ...

dwelt.

References

Further reading

See also