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ONCHESMUS

ONCHESMUS (Ὄγκησμος), a port-town of Chaonia in Epeirus, opposite the north-western point of Corcyra, and the next port upon the coast to the south of Panormus. (Strab. vii. p.324; Ptol. 3.14.2.) It seems to have been a place of importance in the time of Cicero, and one of the ordinary points of departure from Epeirus to Italy, as Cicero calls the wind favourable for making that passage an Onchesmites. (Cic. Att. 7.2) According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 1.51) the real name of the place was the Port of Anchises (Ἀγχίσου λιμήν), named after Anchises, the father of Aeneas; and it was probably owing to this tradition that the name Onchesmus assumed the form of Anchiasmus under the Byzantine emperors. Its site is that of the place now called the Forty Saints. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 11.)

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