Classical Place Names in the United States: Testimony of Our Ancient Heritage

By Wolfgang M. Schutte

This compilation of place names of classical origin in the US, mostly initiated by immigrants from Southern Europe, intends to make residents and visitors alike aware of our rich European heritage here in the United States. Population figures and information given about access routes could, in some instances, differ from present data since some time elapsed between the author's research and publication of this compendium.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524552398

Wolfgang M. Schutte

Prof. Wolfgang M. Schutte is a classicist living in Switzerland and the US and has traveled extensively throughout Europe, the Far East, Africa, Australia, and has been in every state of the US. He gained his expertise from alma maters in Germany, Switzerland, and the US. Now retired, he has conducted numerous field trips with his students and colleagues to Italy and Greece, visiting sites in situ.

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Copyright © 2016 by Wolfgang M. Schutte.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2016917287

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-5241-1

                Softcover        978-1-5245-5240-4

                eBook             978-1-5245-5239-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 10/17/2016

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Foreword

Dear Fellow-American:

The idea to this guide. developed when people began asking me about the ethymology of ‘their’ town - after learning that I was one of those rare birds still lecturing ancient philosophy.

Since besides being an instructor of Latin and Greek one of my major hobbies has always been travelling; I have been to all the lower 48 states as well as in Alaska and Hawaii and seen most of the places I am going to mention in this little compilation.

Obviously there will be differences in the length of description according to the importance of the sources and the scale of information that was possible to be obtained. However I would like to emphasize that I have been as detailed as my research allowed me to be.

I wish all of you fun in looking up your town - be it your own or your grandma’s birthplace or the site where you got married.

Yours cordially,

W.S.

ALABAMA

Alabaster is a stone, originally ib preference used in the manufacturing of ointment vessels, in ancient Greek called alabastroi. It is different from marble by its crystalline texture. There are two types;a) Oriental alabaster is yellowish fallow, has a wavelike structure, with shades of color. Apart from ointment vessels it was used for sculptures and ornamentation on public buildings. This alabaster is found in Arabia, Egypt, Syria, India. b) White alabaster is of a softer texture and in ancient times was used for ums, sarcophaguses, vases, gypsum production. It is found in Italy, especially in the region of Volterra.

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Alexander the Great lived from 356-323 B.C. and was the son of Philipp II and Olympias. Being the crown prince, he was educated by Airstoteles and as early as 340 entrusted with important administrative functions. After Philipp had married Cleopatra, conflicts with his stepmother ended in his banishment. Even after he had returned he feared for his life and uncertain of his throne until Philipp was murdered in 336, most likely with Alexander’s and his mother Olympias’ knowledge. Alexander destroyed Thebes in 335. Two years later he conquered the Persians under Dareios III near Issos, in 332 he lay siege to Tyros - still an important port in Lebanon. During 332-331 he occupied entire Egypt where he was crowned Pharaoh. Moreover, in 331 he went south along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers through today’s Iraq. In Babylon Alexander enthrowned a Persian satrap in order to win over the Iranian aristocracy. In 327 Alexander invaded India, made the princes in the Panjab his vassals and tried to reach the Ganges river. A mutiny made this endeavor impossible, and so he sailed down to the mouth of the Indus river. The last months of Alexander’s life were filled with megalomania and when he died in 323 he had not nominated any successor. Alexander the Great can be seen as a genius when it came to tactical warfare, but his uncontrolled desire for power made him follow opportunistic politics. His friendly attitude towards the Persians estranged him from the Greek and the Macedonian nobility. Although he was a great military leader he did not enhance Greek values in the Middle East. This phenomenon had begun before him and was further advanced by states formed after his time.

In Arabic the word means Bedouin and Arabia is the peninsula Jazeerat al-Arab. Arabia has been populated since the time of the paleolithic and since the third century B.C. by Semitic tribes. Arabs, i.e. tribes speaking southsemitic dialects, are mentioned in Assyrian reports since the 9th century. In pre-Islamic times only major states were formed in the north and south. In the north the state of the Nabataeans should be mentioned - with the capital of Petra. It lasted from the 7th century B.C. until 106 A.D. In the south the following states emerged after the 10th century B.C.: Saba, Quataban, Hadramaut and the city state of the Mineans. In 105 A.D. Cornelius Palma, governor of Syria under emperor Trajan, conquered the wealthy north-western part of the neighboring Nabataean kingdom. Petra and Bosra remained the most important centers of the new province. Governor became a legatus Augusti pro praetore, of praetorial rank, later called preses. One Roman legion was permanently stationed at Bosra. Since the middle of the second century A.D. it was the Legion III Cyrenaica whose general was on the same level as the leading officer of the province. In the province reform under emperor Diocletian Arabia was subdivided into the original province Arabia with Bostra as the capital and a second province which then became part of Syria Palaestina and later was Palaestina Salutaris.

in classical times Athens was the capital of Attica, the most eastern peninsula of Central Greece, five miles from the port of Piraeus. The center of old Athens was the Acropolis, a rock five hundred feet high. The name Athenai is pre-Greek, and human settlements date back into the Neolithic period - the Young Stone Age. Athenai is most likely the plural form of the Greek goddess Athena. In Mycenean Times and after 250 B.C. Athens was the seat of a kingdom. Ruins of the royal palace can still be seen next to the Erechtheion. In historical times the city developed at the foot of the North slope around the Acropolis, with the Agora, i.e. the market square, and with important administrative buildings.

In the Persian War (492-479 B.C.) the city was occupied by the Persians and in 479 completely destroyed. Shortly after the so called Themistoclean city walls were constructed on a length of about four miles and the city rebuilt.

In the second century A.D. the Roman emperor Hadrian enlarged the wall and further fortified the city by a separate wall around the Piraeus and two extra walls that connected Athens and Piraeus with each other.

In the middle of the fifth century B.C. the Acropolis was extended to be the religious center for the gods, and the Propyllean, Parthenon, Erechtheion and Nike temples were constructed. In Hellenistic times the Agora was enlarged, mainly with buildings donated and financed by foreign kings and wealthy private citizens. During the Third Mithridatic War Sulla destroyed Athens on March 1, 86 B.C. and the Piraeus settlement was destroyed forever. During the time of the Roman emperors Athens was sponsored as the seat of philosophical schools. New buildings rose in the Agora and next to it a large market place. Emperor Hadran was an admirer of Greece and added an entire district Hadrianstown in the southeast of Athens, with extensive baths - facilities found all over the Roman empire - an Olympeion and a large library.

A Germanic tribe, the Heruli, destroyed the town of Athens beyond repair in 267 A.D.; the Acropolis was mostly spared.

This small place derives its name from Attaleia. Several Hellenistic towns in Asia Minor were called by this name:

(1) in Lydia, on the road from Thyateira to Pergamon, now Sheitli in modern Turkey.

(2) a harbor town by the name of Attalides, near modern Diheli, West of Pergamon.

(3) a town in Pamphylia, now Antalya. It was founded around 150 B.C. by Attalos II Philadelphos and along with the Pergamenian State came under some Roman influence in 133 B.C. However, the region was basically dominated by sea pirates and definitely subdued only in 79 B.C. Impressive was the ring of walls, removed after 1914 with the exception of a few towers. Hadrian Gate still exists, a three-arched triumphal structure made of marble, built in 130 A.D. on the occasion of Emperor Hadrian’s visit.

Clio is the Museee of eposes such as Homer’s Odyssey or Virgil’s Aeneid. Together with the eight other Muses she is the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne - or as another tradition tells us - the daughter of Uranos and Gaia. The Muses were born in Pieria on the foothills of Mount Olympus in Greece and were worshipped there as well as on the Helikon, later also in Thespiaia. Clio was the Muse of history.

In classical times Concordia was the personification of harmony and worshipped like a goddess. Her Greek equivalent is Harmonia. According to Ovid and Plutarch her main temple was built in 367 B.C. by the military tribune Camillus - after the acceptance of the leges Liciniae Sextae, laws, which ended the struggle between the patricians and the plebeians. The temple was restored in 121 B.C. by consul L. Opimius, after the death of C. Gracchus.

During a military mutiny L. Manlius vowed to dedicate another temple to Concord. It was erected on the Capitolinian Hill in 216, as the historian Livy testifies in various places.

The first temple erected by Camillus was rebuilt by Emperor Tiberius in the year 10 A.D., in honor of Concordia Augusta. Coins and inscriptions often praise the Concordia of the Imperial Family.

This name is not found in ancient times. It is derived from the Greek word demos = people and polis = city.

The ancient name is Florentina and means the flowering one. In Italy her name is Firenze, on the Arnbo River in Tuscany.

Originally Genava, now also a city in the French-speaking western part of Switzerland. Genava was the most northern town of the Allobroges. In this town the first encounters between Caesar’s army and the emigrating Helvetians occurred in the year 58 B.C.

Helena was the most beautiful and most desirable woman of all, for Homer she was Zeus’s daughter, sister of the dioskurs and therefore also daughter of Leda. Paris, the son of king Priamos of Troy abducted her from her husband Menelaos and with this act started the Trojan War. Helena’s attitude is ambivalent already in Homer: on the one hand she dislikes the Trojans and Paris; she recognizes Ulixes in his machinations with the wooden horse and does not give him away. On the other hand, she is faithful to the Trojans and temps the Greek soldiers in the horse. After Menelaos has won her back she shares his vagaries.

In a later mythos she is the daughter of Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, to whom Leda’s egg is given. In other versions she is the child of Oceanos and Thetys. The first abduction of Helena was performed by Theseus and Perithoos, but Helena is bought back, together with her nurse Aithra.

Sometimes Helena is also seen as a magician: in Laconia she was worshipped as a tree-goddess and to seamen she was identical with the polar lights but contrary to the Dioscurs brought ill luck

Sardis, in classical times Sardes, was the capital of Lydia, now Turkey, about 100 miles North-East of Ephesos. We do not find the city mentioned in Homer’s epos Ilias, since historical events happened after his period. Sardes was the residence of the king of the Mermnades, the residence being an almost invincible castle at the foot of the 600 foot high Tmolos mountain on the right bank of the Paktolos River containing gold. Lydian kings resided there since about 700 B.C., until conquered by the Persians in 547/546. The palace below the acropolis has not yet been excavated. As the Greek historian Herodotos relates to us, houses were built mainly of clay and reed. Of interest is the widespread acropolis in the North of Sades with the 200 feet high tumulus of Alyattes, father of Kroisos. The city was destroyed several times by the Cimmerians, an Iran-Thracien horse people from the Crimia area, North of the Black Sea.

Since the already-mentioned date of 547/46 Sardes was the seat of the Persian emperor and starting point of the king’s road to Susa, via Gordion, the capital of Phrygia, the Anatolian Highlands and the Iranian Highlands. During the Ionian uprising in 499 the city and the Kybeleten Temple were destroyed by the Greeks. After 334 Alexander the Great stayed in Sardes and cut the Gordian Knot there with his sword. According to legend the knot had been tied by king Gorgius and was said to be capable of being untied only by the future ruler of Aisa.

The most important ruin is the Ionian Temple for Artemis-Kybele, dated to the Seleucides period. This temple’s pillar hall was more than 300 feet long. When Antiochos III ost the Battle at Magnesia in 190 B.C. Sardes became part of Pergamon and in 133 was integrated into the Roman Province of Aisa. As Tacitus tells us in his Annales, 2, 47, Tiberius helped to rebuild the city in 17 A.D. after it had been destroyed by a major earth quake. After Tiberius Emperor Claudius had an aqueduct constructed at the site. In the fifth century of our time Sardes was again fortified and regained importance in Bycentian days.

American excavations began in 1910 and were continued since 1958. We have found important answers to the history, arts and topography of Sardes from the time of the Mermnades up to the Islamic Middle Ages. Recently finds of the Geometrical Period and of the second millenium B.C. have been added.

Last but not least might be mentioned the synagogue, erected between 230 - 250 A.D.

Troy, in Homer’s epic Ilias also Ilios and later Ilion, was a famous city in the Scamander Plains at the Northwestern tip of Asia Minor. The German amateur-archaeologist Henry Schliemann found and investigated the ruins together with Dorpfeld between 1870 and 1894 in a hill now called in Turkish Hisarlik. There were major American excavations between 1932 and 1938. Dorpfeld subdivided the settlement into nine major time phases which were inturn by U.S. scholars split into 46 subsections. In the scope of this survey we shall limit