AENUS
AENUS (
Αἶνος: Eth.
Αἴνιἁτης, Eth.
Aenius:
Enos), a town of Thrace, situated upon a promontory on the south-eastern side of the PaIns Stentoris, through which one of the mouths of the Hebrus makes its way into the sea.
According to Virgil (
Aen. 3.18), it was founded by Aeneas when he landed there on his way from Troy, but there does not seem any more authority for this statement than the similarity of the names; but its antiquity is attested by the fact of its being mentioned by Homer (
Hom. Il. 4.519).
According to Herodotus (
7.58) and Thucydides (
7.57), Aenus was an Aeolic colony. Neither of them, however, mentions from what particular place it was colonised. Scymnus Chius (696) attributes its foundation to Mytilene; Stephanus Byzant. to Cumae, or, according to Meineke's edition, to the two places conjointly.
According to Strabo (p. 319), a more ancient name of the place was Poltyobria. Stephanus says it was also called Apsinthus.
Little especial mention of Aenus occurs till a comparatively late period of Grecian history.
It is mentioned by Thucydides (
l.c.) that Aenus sent forces to the Sicilian expedition as a subject ally of Athens.
At a later period we find it successively in the possession of Ptolemy Philopator, B.C. 222 (Pol. 5.34), of Philip, king of Macedonia, B.C. 200 (
Liv. 31.16), and of Antiochus the Great.
After the defeat of the latter by the Romans, Aenus was declared free. (
Liv. 38.60.)
It was still a free city in the time of Pliny (
4.11).
Athenaeus (p. 351) speaks of the climate of Aenus as being peculiarly ungenial.
He describes the year there as consisting of eight months of cold, and four of winter.
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| COIN OF AENUS. |
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