THY´RIUM
THY´RIUM or THY´REUM (Θύριον, Pol. 4.25; Αύρεον, Pol. 4.6; Θούριον, Pol. 28.5; Θύρρειον, Anth. Gr. 9.553: Eth. Θυριεύς, Eth. Thyriensis), a city in Acarnania, the exact site of which is unknown. It placed by Pouqueville in the interior near the sources of the Anapus; and his authority is followed by K. O. Müller and others. This, however, is evidently a mistake. Cicero tells us (ad Fam. 16.5) that in sailing from Alyzia. to Leucas, he touched at Thyrium, where he remained two hours; and from this statement, as well as from the history of the events in which Thyrium is mentioned, we may infer that it was situated on or near the Ionian sea, and that it was the first town on the coast S. of the canal [p. 2.1196]which separated Leucas from the mainland. It is placed by Leake in the plain of Zavérdha, but no ruins of it have been discovered. Its name does not occur in Strabo. Thyrium is first mentioned in B.C. 373, when its territory was invaded by Iphicrates. (Xen. Hell. 6.2. 37) Xenophon describes it as a place of importance; and it appears as one of the chief cities of Acarnania at the time of the Roman wars in Greece, when its name frequently occurs. At this period Thyrium was one of the places at which the meetings of the Acarnanian League were usually held. [ACARNANIA] It was one of the many towns whose ruin was occasioned by the foundation of NICOPOLIS to which its inhabitants were removed by order of Augustus. (Pol. 4.6, 25, 17.10, 22.12, 28.5; Liv. 36.11, 12, 38.9, 43.17; Anth. Graec. l.c.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 16.) |
| COIN OF THYRIUM. |