ARACYNTHUS
ARACYNTHUS (
Ἀράκυνθος:
Zygós), a range of mountains in Aetolia running in a south-easterly direction from the Achelous to the Evenus, and separating the lower plain of Aetolia near the sea from the upper plain above the lakes Hyria and Trichonis. (Strab. pp. 450, 460;
Dionys. Perieg. 431; Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 121.) Pliny (
4.2.3) and Solinus (
7.22) erroneously call Aracynthus a mountain of Acarnania. If we can trust the authority of later writers and of the Roman poets, there was a mountain of the name of Aracynthus both in Boeotia and in Attica, or perhaps on the frontiers of the two countries. Thus Stephanus B. (s. v.) and Servius (
ad Virg. Eel. 2.24) speak of a Boeotian Aracynthus; and Sextus Empiricus (
adv. Gramm. 100.12, p. 270), Lutatius (
ad Stat. Theb. 2.239), and Vibius Sequester (
de Month. p. 27) mention an Attic Aracynthus.
The mountain is connected with the Boeotian hero Amphion both by Propertius (
3.13. 42) and by Virgil (
Ecl. 2.24); and the line of Virgil--“Amphion Dircaeus in
Actaeo Aracyntho” --would seem to place the mountain on the frontiers of Boeotia and Attica. (Comp. Brandstäter,
Die Gesch. des Aetol. Landes, p. 108.)
