AXUS
AXUS (
Ἀξός:
Axus), a city of Crete (
Hdt. 4.154), which is identified with
Ὄαξος (
Steph. B. sub voce situated on a river ( “rapidum Cretae veniemus Oaxen,”
Verg. Ecl. 166), which, according to Vibius Sequester (
Flum. p. 15), gave its name to Axus.
According to the Cyrenaean traditions, the Theraean Battus, their founder, was the son of a damsel named Phronimne, the daughter of Etearchus, king of this city (Herod.
l.c.). Mr. Pashley (
Travels, vol. i. p. 143, foll.) discovered the ancient city in the modern village of
Axus, near Mt. Ida.
The river of
Axus flows past the village. Remains belonging to the so-called Cyclopean or Pelasgiewalls were found, and in the church a piece of white marble with a sepulchral inscription in the ancient
[p. 1.353]Doric Greek of the island. On another inscription was a decree of a “common assembly of the Cretans,” an instance of the well known
Syncretism, as it was called.
The coins of Axus present types of Zeus and Apollo, as might be expected in a city situated on the slopes of Mt. Ida, and the foundation of which was, by one of the legends, ascribed to a son of Apollo.
The situation answers to one of the etymologies of the name: it was called Axus because the place is precipitous, that word being used by the Cretans in the same sense that the other Greeks assigned to
ἀγμός, a crag. (Hoeck,
Kreta, vol. i. p. 397.)
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| COIN OF AXUS. |
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E.B.J]
