DARDA´NIA
DARDA´NIA (
Δαρδανία, Eth.
Δάρδανος) or DARDANICE, a territory in Mysia, the limits of which are not very clearly defined. Strabo (p. 565) interprets Homer as placing Dardania above Ilium, on the Paroreia of Troja; and (p. 596) in another place, after describing the positions of Abydus, Dardanus, and the places on the coast of the Hellespont as far as Sigeium, he says, “above them lies the Trojan plain, which extends eastward many stadia, as far as Ida. The Paroreia (mountain tract) is narrow: it extends on one side south as far as the parts about Scepsis, and north to the Lycians about Zeleia.” Again, when he is describing the places about the promontory of Lectum, and the river Satnioeis, he says that all these places are adjacent to Dardania and Scepsis, being a kind of second and lower Dardania (p. 606).
There is really no historical province Dardania, and all that Strabo says of it is derived from his interpretation of the Iliad. The Dardani and Dardanii are mentioned in the Iliad (
2.819,
15.425). Aeneas, in the Iliad, is the commander of the Dardani.
Dardanus, a son of Jupiter, settled in Dardania long before Ilium was built in the plain.
He was the ancestor of Priamus; and there were five generations from Dardanus to Priamus. (
Il. 20.215, &c.) Dardanus was a wanderer into Asia; and the legend seems to represent a tradition of the Dardani coming. from Europe and seizing a part of Mysia. Dardanus found the country occupied by Teucri, who had a king Teucer.
According to the authority of Cephalon (
Steph. B. sub voce s.vv. Ἀρίσβη and
Δάρδανος), Dardanus came from Samothrace and married a daughter of Teucer. Cephalon and Hellanicus could, not agree about the woman's name.
Strabo mentions a promontory Dardanis or Dardanium, about 70 stadia south of Abydus: it appears to be the
Kephiz Burnu of the Turks, and the
Punta dei Barbieri of the Europeans (Strab. pp. 587, 595); and probably that which Pliny calls Trapeza.
There was a tradition that the descendants of Aeneas maintained themselves in part of the inland territory of Dardania, after the war of Troy. Xenophon (
Xenoph. Hell. 3.1.10) speaks of one Zenis a Dardaneus, who had a principality in Mysia, and Scepsis and Gergitha were two of his strong places; but the territory that he had was not the old Dardania. Xenophon calls it the Aeolis of Pharnabazus.
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G.L]
