Download Georgraphy Ancient Names

Ancient Names/Modern Equivalents
(also know the location of these
places)
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1. Aelia Capitolina (Hierosolyma)/
Jerusalem (Israel)
• Capitolina (Latin in
full: Colonia Aelia
Capitolina) was a city built
by the emperor Hadrian,
and occupied by a Roman
colony, on the site
of Jerusalem, which was in
ruins since70 AD, leading in
part to the Bar Kokhba
revolt of 132–136.
2. Aquae Sextiae /Aix-en-Provence
(France)
• Aix (Aquae Sextiae) was founded in
123 BC by theRoman consulSextius
Calvinus, who gave his name to its
springs, following the destruction
of the nearby Gallic oppidum at
Entremont.
• In 102 BC its neighbourhood was
the scene of the Battle of Aquae
Sextiae when Romans under Gaius
Marius defeated theCimbriand Te
utones, with mass suicides among
the captured women, which passed
into Roman legends of Germanic
heroism.
3. Aquae Sulis /Bath (Britain)
• The Great Bath. Everything
above the level of the pillar
bases is of a later date.
• For the Roman Baths
complex at Aquae Sulis,
seeRoman Baths
(Bath).Aquae Sulis was a
small town in the Roman
province of Britannia. Today
it is known as Bath, located
in the English county
of Somerset.
4. Aquincum /Budapest (Hungary)
• Aquincum was situated on
the North-Eastern borders
of the Pannonia province
within the Roman Empire.
The ruins of the city can be
found today inBudapest,
the capital city of Hungary.
It is believed that Marcus
Aurelius may have written
at least part of his
book Meditations at
Aquincum
5. Arausio /Orange (France)
• Roman Orange was founded in
35 BC by veterans of
the Second legion
as Arausio (after the
local Celtic water god),
or Colonia Julia Firma
Secundanorum Arausio in full,
"the Julian colony of Arausio
established by the soldiers of
the second legion." The name
was originally unrelated to that
of the orange fruit, but was
later conflated with it.
6. Augusta Treverorum Trier
(Germany)
• Romans under Julius Caesar first
subdued the Treveri in 58 to 50
BC.
• No later than 16 BC, at the foot
of the hill later christened the
Petrisberg, upon which a military
camp had been set up in 30 BC
• The Romans founded the city of
Augusta Treverorum ("City
of Augustus in the land of
the Treveri") which has a claim
to being the oldest city in
Germany.
7. Byzantium (Constantinople) Istanbul
(Turkey)
• Byzantium was the ancient
Greek city on the site that later
became Constantinople
(modern Istanbul).
• It was founded by Greek colonists
from Megara in 657 BC. The city
was rebuilt and reinaugurated as
the new capital of the Roman
Empire by EmperorConstantine
I in 330 AD and subsequently
renamed to Constantinople.
• The city remained the capital of
the Byzantine Empire until 1453,
when it was conquered and
became the capital of
the Ottoman Empire.
8. Caledonia Scotland
• Caledonia is the Latin name
given by the Romansto the
land in today's Scotland north
of theirprovince of Britannia,
beyond the frontier of
theirempire. The etymology of
the name is probably from a PCeltic source. Its modern
usage is as a romantic or
poetic name for Scotland as a
whole, comparable
with Hibernia for Ireland
and Britanniafor the whole
of Britain.
9. Carrhae Haran (Turkey)
• Carrhae was a major
ancient city inUpper
Mesopotamia whose
site is near the
modern village of
Altınbaşak, Turkey, 24
miles (44 kilometers)
southeast
of Şanlıurfa. The
location is ina
district of Şanlıurfa
Province that is also
named "Harran".
10. Carthago /Carthage (Tunisia)
• Carthage is a suburb
of Tunis, Tunisia, with a
population of 20,715
(2004 census), and was
the centre of
the Carthaginian
Empire in antiquity. The
city has existed for
nearly 3,000 years,
developing from
a Phoenician colony of
the 1st millennium BC
into the capital of an
ancient empire.
11. Carthago Nova /Cartagena (Spain)
• Cartagena has been
inhabited for over two
millennia, being founded
around 227 BC during
thePhoenician
conquest as Qart Hadasht.
• The city lived its heyday
during the Roman Empire,
when it was known
as Carthago Nova (the New
Carthage) and Carthago
Spartaria, capital of the
province ofCarthaginensis.
12. Colonia Agrippina Cologne
(Germany)
• Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium was the Roman colony in
theRhineland from which the Germancity of Colognedeveloped.
• It was the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and
the headquarters of the military in the region.
• With the administrative reforms under Diocletian, it became the
capital ofGermania Secunda.
13. Colonia Camulodunum Colchester
(Britain)
• Camulodunum is the Roman name
for the ancient settlement which is
today's Colchester, a town inEssex,
England.
• Camulodunum is claimed to be
the oldest town in Britain as
recorded by the Romans, existing
as a Celtic settlement before
theRoman conquest, when it
became the first Roman town, and
eventually a settlement of
discharged Roman soldiers, known
as Colonia Claudia Victricensis.
14. Corcyra /Corfu (Greece)
• Korkyra (Greek: Κόρκυρα) was
an ancient Greek city on the
island of Corfu in the Ionian
sea, adjacent to Epirus.
• It was a colony of Corinth,
founded in the archaic period.
According toThucydides, the
earliest recorded naval battle
took place between Korkyra
and Corinth, roughly 260 years
before he was writing- and
thus in the middle of the
seventh century BC.
15. Eburacum/ York (Britain)
• The first known recorded
mention of Eboracum by name
is dated circa 95-104 AD and is
an address containing
the Latin form of the
settlement's name, "Eburaci",
on a wooden stylus tablet from
the Roman fortress
of Vindolanda in what is now
the modern Northumberland.
• During the Roman period, the
name was also written in the
formEboracum and Eburacum.
16. Emerita Augusta /Merida (Spain)
• The roman colony ofEmerita Augusta(current dayMérida)
was founded in 25 BC byOctavius Augustus, to
resettle emeritus soldiers discharged from the Roman army
from two veteran legions of the Cantabrian Wars: Legio V
Alaudae and Legio X Gemina.
• The city was the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania.
The term emeritus meant in latin "retired" and referred to
retired soldiers with honor.
17. Etruria /Tuscany (Italy)
• Etruria —usually
referred to
in Greek and Latinso
urce texts
as Tyrrhenia (Greek:
Τυρρηνία) —was a
region of Central
Italy, located in an
area that covered
part of what now
are Tuscany, Latium,
andUmbria
18. Gades/ Cadiz (Spain)
• Cadiz is a city and port in
southwestern Spain. It is the capital
of Cádiz province, one of eight
which make up the autonomous
community of Andalusia.
• Cadiz, the oldest continuously
inhabited city in Spain and one of
the oldest in all southwestern
Europe
• The city was originally founded as
Gadir by the Phoenicians from Tyre
19. Gallia /France
• encompassing present
day France,
Luxembourg and Belgium,
most of
Switzerland, Northern
Italy, as well as the parts
of the Netherlands
and Germany on the west
bank of the Rhine.
The Gauls were the
speakers of the Gaulish
language (an early variety
of Celtic) native to Gaul.
20. Glevum Gloucester (Britain)
• Glevensium, or
occasionally Glouvia) was aRoman
fort in Roman Britain that become
"colonia" of retired legionaries in
AD 97. Today it is known
asGloucester, located in
the English county
ofGloucestershire.
• Glevum was established around AD
48 as a market centre at an
important crossing of the River
Severnand near to the Fosse
Way one of the importantRoman
roads in Britain.
21. Halicarnassus/ Bodrum (Turkey)
• Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of
modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in
southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site
on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for
the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word
mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was
part of the Persian Empire until captured byAlexander
the Great at the siege of Halicarnassusin 334 BC.
22. Hellespontus /Dardanelles (Turkey)
• Dardanelles is a narrow strait in
northwestern Turkey connecting
theAegean Sea to the Sea of
Marmara. It is one of theTurkish
Straits, along with its counterpart
theBosphorus
• Like the Bosphorus, it separates
Europe (theGallipoli peninsula)
from the mainland of Asia. The
strait is an international
waterway, and together with the
Bosphorus, the Dardanelles
connects the Black Sea to
the Mediterranean Sea.
23. Helvetia/ Switzerland
• Helvetiais the
femalenational
personification of Switzerlan
d, officially Confœderatio
Helvetica, the "Helvetic
Confederation".
• The allegory is typically
pictured in a flowing gown,
with a spear and a shield
emblazoned with the Swiss
flag, and commonly
withbraided hair.
24. Hibernia/ Ireland
• Hibernia is the Classical
Latin name for the island
ofIreland. The name Hibernia
was taken from Greek
geographical accounts.
• The Roman historian Tacitus,
in his bookAgricola (c. 98
AD), uses the name Hibernia.
The Romans also sometimes
used Scotia, "land of
theScoti", as a geographical
term for Ireland in general, as
well as just the part
inhabited by those people.
25. (H)iberus /Ebro River (Spain)
• The Greeks and theRomans called it the Hiber, the Iber, or Iberus Flumen,
leading to its current name. The Iberian peninsula and the Hibēri or Ibēri
(the people of the area) were named after the river.
• Inantiquity, the Ebro was used as the dividing line between Roman (north)
and Carthaginian (south) expansions after the First Punic War (264-241
BC). When Rome, fearful of Hannibal's growing influence in the Iberian
Peninsula, made the city of Saguntum(considerably south of the Ebro) a
protectorate of Rome, Hannibal viewed the treaty as an aggressive action
by Rome and used the event as the catalyst to the Second Punic War.
26. Hispania/ Spain
• Hispania was the Roman name for
the Iberian Peninsula. Under
the Republic, Hispania was divided
into two provinces: Hispania
Citerior andHispania Ulterior.
• During the Principate, Hispania
Ulterior was divided into two new
provinces, Baeticaand Lusitania,
while Hispania Citerior was
renamedTarraconensis.
• The western part of Tarraconensis
was split off, first as Hispania Nova,
later renamed Callaecia
(or Gallaecia, whence
modern Galicia).
27. Lugdunum Lyons (France)
• Colonia Copia Claudia Augusta
Lugdunum(modern: Lyon, France)
was an important Roman city
in Gaul. The city was founded in 43
BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus. It
served as the capital of the Roman
province Gallia Lugdunensis.
• For 300 years after its foundation,
Lugdunum was the most
important city in the western part
of the Roman Empire after Rome.
• Two
emperors, Claudius(Germanicus)
and Caracalla, were born in
Lugdunum.
28. Lusitania Portugal
• Lusitania (Portuguese: Lusitânia, Spanish:Lus
itania) or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient
Roman province including approximately all
of modern Portugal south of the Douro river
and part of modern Spain
• It was named after
the Lusitani orLusitanian people (an IndoEuropean people). Its capital was Emerita
Augusta (currently Mérida, Spain), and it was
initially part of the Roman Republic province
of Hispania Ulterior, before becoming a
province of its own in the Roman Empire.
• Romans first came to the territory around
the mid 2nd century BC. A war with
Lusitanian tribes followed, from 155 to 139
BC. In 27 BC, the province was created.
29. Lutetia /Paris (France)
• Lutetia (also Lutetia
Parisiorum in Latin, Lukote
kiabefore,
in French Lutèce) was a
town in pre-Roman
and Roman Gaul.
The Gallo-Roman city was
a forerunner of the reestablished Merovingian t
own that is the ancestor
of present-day Paris.
30. Massilia/ Marseille (France)
• Marseille has been called the oldest city in France, as it was
founded in 600 BC by Greeks fromPhocaea as a trading port
• Massalia was one of the first Greek ports in Western
Europe, growing to a population of over 1000. It was the
first settlement given city statusin France.
• Facing an opposing alliance of theEtruscans,Carthage and
theCelts, the Greek colony allied itself with the
expanding Roman Republic for protection.
31. Mediolanum Milan (Italy)
• Mediolanum, the ancient Milan, was an
importantRoman city in northern Italy.
• Mediolanum appears to have been
founded around 600 BC by the
Celtic Insubres, after whom this region
of northern Italy was called Insubria.
• The Romans, led by consul Gnaeus
Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the
Insubres and captured the city in 222
BC.
• The chief of the Insubres submitted to
Rome, giving the Romans control of the
city
32. Neapolis /Naples (Italy)
• Naples (Latin: Neapolis; Ancient Greek: Νεάπολις,
meaning "new city") is the capital of Campania and the
third-largest municipality in Italy, after Rome and Milan.
• Naples is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in
the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established
on the site in the 2nd millennium BC,[5] with a larger
mainland colony – initially known as Parthenope –
developing around the 9th–8th centuries BC, at the end of
the Greek Dark Ages
33. Nemausus/ Nimes (France)
• Nîmes became a Roman colony
sometime before 28 BC, as witnessed
by the earliest coins, which bear the
abbreviation NEM. COL, "Colony of
Nemausus".
• Some years later a sanctuary and
other constructions connected with
the fountain were raised on the site.
• Nîmes was already under Roman
influence, though it was Augustus
who made the city the capital
ofNarbonne province, and gave it all
its glory.
34. Nicaea /Nice (France)
• Nice (Nicaea) was probably
founded around 350 BC by the
Greeks of Massilia (Marseille),
and was given the name of
Νικαία ("Nikaia") in honour of a
victory over the
neighbouring Ligurians (Nike is
theGreek goddess of victory).
The city soon became one of the
busiest trading ports on the
Ligurian coast;
35. Oea /Tripoli (Libya)
• The city was founded in the 7th century
BC, by thePhoenicians, who gave it
the Libyco-Berber name Oea (or Wy't),
suggesting that the city may have been
built upon an existing native town.
• The Phoenicians were probably
attracted to the site by its natural
harbor, flanked on the western shore by
the small, easily defensible peninsula,
on which they established their colony.
36. Olisipo/ Lisbon (Portugal)
• Municipium Cives Romanorum Felicitas Julia
Olisipo (in Latin: Olisippo or Ulyssippo) was
the ancient name of modern day Lisbon while
part of the Roman Empire.
• During the Punic wars, after the defeat
of Hannibal the Romans decided to deprive
Carthage in its most valuable
possession, Hispania. After the defeat of the
Carthaginians by Scipio Africanus in Eastern
Hispania, the pacification of the West was led
by Consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus.
37. Padus /Po River (Italy)
• The Po river is first certainly identified
in the Graeco-Roman historians and
geographers of the late Roman
Republic and the early Roman Empire,
long after the valley had been
occupied successively by prehistoric
and historic
peoples:Ligures, Etruscans, Celts, Ven
eti, Umbri, and Romans.
• Pliny (Hist. Nat., iii. 122) also gives the
Ligurian name of the Po river
as Bodincus, which he translates as
"bottomless".
38. Patavium/ Padua (Italy)
• Patavium is a city and comune in
the Veneto, northern Italy.
• Padua claims to be the oldest city in
northern Italy. According to a
tradition dated at least to Virgil's
Aeneid, and rediscovered by
the medieval commune, it was
founded in 1183 BC by the Trojan
prince Antenor, who was supposed
to have led the people of Eneti or
Veneti from Paphlagonia to Italy.
39. Philadelphia /Amman (Jordan)
• In the 13th century BC Amman was called
Rabbath Ammon orRabat Amon by
theAmmonites.
• In the Hebrew Bible, it is referred to
as Rabbat AmmonIt was later conquered by
the Assyrians, followed by thePersians, and
then theMacedonians.
• Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Macedonian
ruler of Egypt, renamed itPhiladelphia.
• The city became part of the
Nabataean kingdom until 106 AD when
Philadelphia came under Roman control and
joined the Decapolis
40. Pontus Euxinus /Black Sea
• For the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition
refers to the Black Sea as the 'Hospitable
sea', Euxeinos Pontos (Εὔξεινος Πόντος).
• This is aeuphemism replacing an earlier
'Inhospitable Sea',Pontos Axeinos, first attested
in Pindar (early fifth century BCE,~475 BC).
• Strabo (7.3.6) thinks that the Black Sea was
called "inhospitable" before Greek colonization
because it was difficult to navigate, and because
its shores were inhabited by savage tribes.
• The name was changed to "hospitable" after
the Milesians had colonized the southern
shoreline, the Pontus, making it part of Greek
civilization.
41. Propontis /Sea of Marmora
• Marmara also is known as the Sea of
Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in
the context of classical antiquity as
the Propontis.
• It is the inland sea that connects
the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus
separatingTurkey's Asian and European
parts.
• The Bosphorusstrait connects it to the
Black Sea and theDardanelles strait to
the Aegean.
• The former also separates Istanbul into
its Asian and European sides.
42. Rhenus /Rhine River (Germany)
• The Rhine and the Danube formed most
of the northern inland frontier of
the Roman Empire and, since those days,
the Rhine has been a vital and navigable
waterway carrying trade and goods deep
inland. It has also served as a defensive
feature and has been the basis for
regional and international borders.
• Nearly all the classical sources mention
the Rhine and the name is always the
same: Rhenus in Latin or Rheonis in
Greek. The Romans viewed the Rhine as
the outermost border of civilization and
reason, beyond which were mythical
creatures and wild Germanic tribesmen,
not far themselves from being beasts of
the wilderness they inhabited.
43. Rhodanus /Rhone River (France)
• The Rhone is one of the
majorrivers of Europe, rising
in Switzerland and running from
there through
southeastern France. At Arles,
near its mouth on
the Mediterranean Sea.
• The Rhone has been an important
highway since the times of
the Greeksand Romans. It was the
main trade route from the
Mediterranean to eastcentral Gaul
44. Sequana Seine River (France)
• The name "Seine" comes
from the Latin Sequana.
• The Seine (French: La
Seine, pronounced: [la
sɛn]) is a 776 km (482 mi)long river and an
important commercial
waterway within the Paris
Basin in the north of
France.
45. Serdica /Sofia (Bulgaria)
• Sofia was originally
a Thracian settlement
calledSerdica or Sardica
tribe Serdi that had populated it.
For a short period during the 4th
century B.C., the city was possessed
by Philip of Macedon and his
son Alexander the Great.
• The city was destroyed by
the Huns in 447, but was rebuilt
by Byzantine Emperor Justinian and
renamed Triaditsa. Although also
often destroyed by the Slavs, the
town remained under Byzantine
dominion until 809.
46. Smyrna /Izmir (Turkey)
• Smyrna was an ancient city located at a
central and strategic point on
the Aegean coast of Anatolia.
• Due to its advantageous port conditions,
its ease of defence and its good inland
connections, Smyrna rose to prominence.
• The ancient city is located at two sites
within modern İzmir, Turkey. The first site,
probably founded indigenously, rose to
prominence during the Archaic Period as
one of the principal ancient Greek
settlements in western Anatolia.
• The second, whose foundation is
associated withAlexander the Great,
reached metropolitan proportions during
the period of the Roman Empire.
• Most of the present-day remains date
from the Roman era, the majority from
after a 2nd century AD earthquake.
47. Thapsus /Ras Dimas (Tunisia)
• Thapsus or Thapsos was an ancient city in what is modern
day Tunisia. Its ruins exist at Ras Dimas near Bekalta, approximately
200 km southeast ofCarthage. Originally founded by Phoenicians, it
served as a marketplace on the coast of the province Byzacena in
Africa Propria. Thapsus was established near a salt lake on a point of
land eighty stadia (14.8 km) from the island ofLampedusa.
• In 46 BC, Julius Caesar defeated Metellus Scipioand
the Numidian King Juba with a tremendous loss of men near
Thapsus (see Battle of Thapsus). Caesar exacted a payment of
50,000 sestercesfrom the vanquished. Their defeat marked the end
of opposition to Caesar in Africa. Thapsus then became a Roman
colony.
48. Tomi/ Constanta (Romania)
• Constanța, historically known
as Tomis is the oldest extant city
in Romania. It was founded
around 600 BC.
• Tomis (also called Tomi) was
a Greek colony in the province
of Scythia Minor on the Black
Sea shore, founded around 600
BC for commercial exchanges
with the local Getic populations.
The name may likely be derived
from Greek Τομή meaning
cutpiece, section.
T
49. Tyrus Tyre (Lebanon)
50. Vindobona Vienna (Austria)