location of Peuce

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chris_taylor
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location of Peuce

Post by 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?
All men by nature desire understanding. Aristotle.
Alexias
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Re: location of Peuce

Post by 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.
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chris_taylor
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Re: location of Peuce

Post by chris_taylor »

Alexias wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 6:55 pm
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.
All men by nature desire understanding. Aristotle.
Alexias
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Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:16 am

Re: location of Peuce

Post by 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.
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