The Terme River (; ; , rendered Thermodon) is a short river in Samsun Province,
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
draining into the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea 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 bound ...
. Its sources are in the
Pontic Mountains
The Pontic Mountains or Pontic Alps (, meaning 'North Anatolian Mountains'), form a mountain range in northern Anatolia, Turkey. They are also known as the "Parhar Mountains" in the local Turkish and Pontic Greek languages. The term ''Parhar'' ...
. It runs through the fertile Çarşamba plain to Salıpazarı, where it splits into three tributaries. The city of Terme 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 "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
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, 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
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
, the Thermodon was the location of the plain and capital, Themiscyra, where the
Amazons
The Amazons (Ancient Greek: ', singular '; in Latin ', ') were a people in Greek mythology, portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Hercules, Labours of Heracles, the ''Argonautica'' and the ''Iliad''. ...
dwelt.
References
Further reading
* Cited by Schmitz in the Thermodon article, ''op. cit.'':
:* Aeschyl. ''Prom.'' 274, ''Suppl.'' 290.
:*
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
, 9.27.
:*
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
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 "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...
''Aeneid'', 11.659.
:*
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...