TORO´NE
TORO´NE (
Τορώνη: Eth.
Τορωναῖος), a town of Chalcidice in Macedonia, situated upon the SW. coast of the peninsula of Sithonia.
It was said to have derived its name from Torone, a daughter of Proeteus or Poseidon and Phoenice. (
Steph. B. sub voce Τορώνη.) It was a Greek colony, founded by the Chalcidians of Euboea, and appears to have been originally the chief settlement of the Chalcidians in these parts. Hence the gulf lying between the peninsulas of Sithonia and Torone was generally called the Toronaean, now the
Gulf of Kassáindhra. (
Τορωναϊκὸς κόλπος, Steph. B. sub voce Τορώνη; Ptol. 3.13.13;
Τορωνικὸς κόλπος, Strab. vii. p.330; Scyimn. Ch. 640; Toronaicum mare,
Liv. 44.11; Toronaeus sinus,
Tac. Ann. 5.10.) Like the other Greek cities in these parts, Torone furnished ships and men to the army of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. (
Hdt. 7.122.)
After the Persian War Torone came under the dominion of Athens. In B.C. 424 a party in the town opened the gates to Brasidas, but it was retaken by Cleon two years afterwards. (
Thuc. 4.110, seq., 5.2.)
At a later time it seems to have been subject to Olynthus, since it was recovered by the Athenian general Timotheus. (
Diod. 15.81.)
It was annexed by Philip, along with the other Chalcidian cities, to the Macedonian empire. (
Diod. 16.53.)
In the war against Perseus, B.C. 169, it was attacked by a Roman fleet, but without success. (
Liv. 44.12.) Theophrastus related that the Egyptian bean grew in a marsh near Torone (ap.
Athen. 3.72d.); and Archestratus mentions a particular kind of fish, for which Torone was celebrated (ap.
Athen. 7.310c.).
The harbour of Torone was called Cophos (
Κωφός), or “deaf,” because being separated from the sea by two narrow passages, the noise of the waves was never heard there: hence the proverb
κωφότερος τοῦ Τορωναίου λιμένος. (
Strab. vii. p.330; Mela, 2.3; Zenob.
Prov. Graec. cent. iv. pr. 68.)
This port is apparently the same as the one called by Thucydides (
5.2) the harbour of the Colophonians, which he describes as only a little way from the city of the Toronaeans. Leake conjectures that we ought perhaps to read
Κωφῶν instead of
Κολοφωνίων. It is still called
Kufó, and Torone likewise retains its ancient name. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. iii. pp. 119, 155, 455.)
