location of Peuce

[chris_taylor]

Hi all, it's been a long time, life got in the way pleased to be back.

Question for the ancient geography experts: I'm preparing to retrace Alexander's Balkan campaign and got stuck trying to find where "Peuce" might have been. Doing a search in the forums only found two hits and Google articles only know of a Peuce in the Danube delta.

Arrian's description of Alexander trying to take the island is so vivid, it has the ring of truth to it and if it's accepted as accurate, then Alexander's Peuce can't be in a river delta. Rivers form deltas or gorges, not both. It has to be a different one.

As far as I can tell from Google maps & earth, Arrian's description would also exclude all of the Lower Danube: the river is between 500 - 1500 meter wide and there are no geographical features along the course suggesting it carved a gorge through a mountain and then somehow found a way to flow around it instead.

Arrian's description fits the Iron Gates. But that's some 700 km upstream from where everyone else puts it?

[Alexias]

Hi Chris. There are not many contributors left, I'm afraid. We've had a couple of deaths, but the majority of people seem to have just drifted away.

Anyway, I posted a map from Nicholas Hammond 'The Genius of Alexander the Great' here http://pothos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f ... ans#p46554. At the very top of this appears to be Peuce. However this map rather contradicts another map in the book which shows the Getae to the north of this region and the Triballi to the west, south of the Danube. This map also shows the Bastarnae people downriver from here, which Alexander didn't go anywhere near as far as I can find out, so I think you can forget the lower reaches of the Danube and the delta.

I am struggling to overlay the map onto a modern map, but I think it is somewhere in the locality of the modern city of Ruse. This appears to be Pyce in Bulgarian. A coincidence with Peuce? There does appear to be another island in or near the delta of the Danube also called Peuce, which may be mythological https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 031400421X, but I don't think this can be anything to do with Alexander as it is too far from the Triballian territory.

[chris_taylor]

Hi Chris. There are not many contributors left, I'm afraid. We've had a couple of deaths, but the majority of people seem to have just drifted away.

I knew Xenophon died, which was a great loss. maybe people drifted away for the same reason I did - life got in the way - and they'll come back. Hope! This group is such a lovely place and an invaluable resource!

thank you for the pointer to the map. I agree that Hammond's Peuce maps to modern day Ruse / Pyce. but Hammond wrote 20 years ago and didn't have the benefit of google maps or streetview and in the case of Ruse / Pyce, even a river-cruise view.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7777,25 ... 312!8i6656

it is inconceivable that this location as recent as 2500 years ago maps to a place that Arrian's describes as " ... The shores of the island, also, were in most places too steep and precipitous for landing, and the current of the river alongside it was rapid and exceedingly difficult to stem, because it was shut up into a narrow channel by the nearness of the banks"

if one assumes that Alexander's pursuit of the island led him further upstream than Arrian conveys, then you have a perfect match for the geography (see "navigation" in this wikipedia article on the Iron Gates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Gates) and pictures of what the area looked like before the river was dammed https://www.donsmaps.com/engravings.html.

And several candidates for "the island called Peuce", the most famous one being the now submerged Ada Kaleh.

[Alexias]

Yes, I'd agree that Hamilton's map does seem to take Peuce too far into Getae territory, or the Triballians wouldn't have taken refuge on it. I'll have a look at your other links, thanks.

[Alexias]

I came across this in Strabo

Excerpt from Book VII. Chapter III. 8. Getae.
…But what occasion is there for me to speak of such as belonged to the times of old? for Alexander (the Great), the son of Philip, in his campaign against the Thracians beyond Mount Haemus,(1) is said to have penetrated as far as this in an incursion into the country of the Triballi, and observed that they occupied the territory as far as the Danube and the island Peuce,(2) which is in it, and that the Getae possessed the country beyond that river; however, he was unable to pass into the island for want of

(2) Piczina, at the embouchure of the Danube, between Babadag and Ismail.

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854)
William Smith, LLD, Ed.

PEUCE (Πεύκη, Ptol. 3.10.2; Strab. vii. p.305), an island of Moesia Inferior, formed by the two southernmost mouths of the Danube. It derived its name from the abundance of pine-trees which grew upon it. (Eratosth. in Schol. Apollon. 4.310.) It was of a triangular shape (Apollon. l.c.), and as large as Rhodes. By Martial (7.84. 3) it is called a Getic island; by Valerius Flaccus (8.217) a Sarmatian one. It has been identified with the modern island of Piczina or St. George, between Badabag and Ismail; but we must recollect that these parts were but little known to the ancients, and that in the lapse of time the mouths of the Danube have undergone great alterations. (Plin. Nat. 4.12. s. 24; Mela, 2.7; Avien. Descr. Orb. 440; Dion. Perieg. 401; Claud. IV Cons. Honor. 630, &c.)

PLINY Natural History Book IV

and from the point where it first enters Illyria it is called the Hister; after receiving 60 tributary rivers, nearly half of which are navigable, it is discharged into the Black Sea by six vast channels. The first of these is the mouth of Piczina, close to the island of that name, at which the nearest channel, called the Holy River, is swallowed up in a marsh 19 miles in extent. Opening from the same channel and above Istere spreads a lake measuring 63 miles round, named the Saltings.

[marcus]

Hi all, it's been a long time, life got in the way pleased to be back.

Hi Chris - good to see you back!

[chris_taylor]

I came across this in Strabo

thanks Alexias for the quotes.

I'm sure there was an island called Peuce in the Danube delta and obviously quite well known in the ancient world,

but I maintain that it was not the Peuce Arrian spoke of: Arrian is very clear that Alexander couldn't land because of the ferocious currents. there can't be such a current in a river delta or it wouldn't be a delta.

chris

[Alexias]

Yes, sorry, I recall that now.

[Jeanne Reames]

Try this site. It's enormously comprehensive. Very useful. Takes a bit of poking to figure it out, but I used it extensively for my digital epigraphy project.

TOPOS TEXT

[Alexias]

Thanks for the link, Jeanne, I'll add it to the resources page.

[marcus]

Try this site. It's enormously comprehensive. Very useful. Takes a bit of poking to figure it out, but I used it extensively for my digital epigraphy project.

TOPOS TEXT

I have to echo Jeanne's recommendation here. It's a fantastic website, and includes quite a few lesser-known texts. It's worth noting that it doesn't always have the entire text of a source.

[marcus]

I'm sure there was an island called Peuce in the Danube delta and obviously quite well known in the ancient world,

It's interesting that I was looking up something else entirely, and ended up click a link to the Wiki page on Peuce. Obviously there's no guarantee that this is correct; but there's a nice infographic on the changing shape of the Danube Delta, showing where (the author thinks) Peuce was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peuce_Island