Terme River

The Terme River (Turkish: Terme Çayı; Latin: Thermeh;[1] Greek: Θερμώδων,[1] rendered Thermodon[1]) is a short river in Samsun Province, Turkey draining into the Black Sea. Its sources are in the Pontic Mountains.[2][3] 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.[4] In antiquity, its mouth was about "three plethra" wide (ca. 300 feet[5]), and it was navigable.[1][6] The river, said by Strabo to have "its many sources near Phanaroea... [in] many 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.[1] 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.[7]

In Greek mythology, the Thermodon was the location of the plain and capital, Themiscyra, where the Amazons dwelt.[4][1]

References

1. Schmitz, Leonhard (1857). "Thermodon". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. II, Iabadius–Zymethus. London: Walton and Maberly, and John Murray. p. 1161, principally.
2. Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, "Navigable Rivers in Northern Anatolia", to be published in Anca Dan, Stéphane Lebreton (eds.), Rivers of Asia minor (Geographica Historica) full text
3. Gustav Hirschfeld, "Notes of travel in Paphlagonia and Galatia" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 4: 275-280 (1883).
4. Schmitz, Leonhard (1857). "Themiscyra". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. II, Iabadius–Zymethus. London: Walton and Maberly, and John Murray. p. 1156, principally; see also pp. 64, 70, 119, 223, 546, 659, 946, and 1161.
5. Calvert, J.B. (13 May 2010). "Old Units of Length". MySite.DU.edu. University of Denver. Retrieved 3 March 2020. Original creation date, 3 July 1999.
6. Xenophon, Anab. 5.6.9, 6.2.1.
7. Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, Marit Jensen, "Two Pontic Rivers", Cedrus: The Journal of MCRI 3:231-2142 (2015), doi:10.13113/CEDRUS.2015011411

Further reading

• Cited by Schmitz in the Thermodon article, op. cit.:

• Aeschyl. Prom. 274, Suppl. 290.
• Herodotus, 9.27.
• Herodotus, 4.86.
• Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, p. 33.
• Strabo i. p.52, vii. p. 298.
• Periplus of the Euxine Sea p. 10.
• Ptolemy 5.6.4.
• Pomp. Mela, 1.19.
• Plin. Nat. H. 11.19, 37.37.
• Virgil Aeneid, 11.659.
• Ovid, ex Pont. 4.19 51.

See also

• Themiscyra Plain