Anigros

Anigros ( Greek  Ἄνιγρος , 'sorrowful') was a river in the ancient Triphylia region . He was also identified with the Minyēios ( Μινυήϊος ) mentioned in Homer . Although modern names such as Mavropotamos ( modern Greek Μαυροπόταμος , black river ') or Geranio (Γεράνιο) are reported, no existing river today can be clearly assigned to the ancient one.

The Anigros rises on Mount Lapithos and flows into the Gulf of Kyparissia not far from the ancient port city of Samikon - or swamped near the coast, presumably a few kilometers north of the modern city of Zacharo , possibly at today's sulfur lake and spa Kaiafas.

In ancient times, the water of the Anigros was considered bad-smelling and inedible. The reason given was

• that the centaurs would have washed the poison of the hydra from the wounds caused by the arrows of Heracles ,
• that Melampus used the water to cleanse the prostitutes and
• that the murderers of Icarius had thrown his body into the well shaft ( Hyginus Mythographus De astronomia 2.2).

Nevertheless, the water was considered medicinal. He was said to heal skin diseases such as scabies and lichen . Near the spring, his nymphs , the anigrids, were worshiped in caves, to which skin patients who bathed in the river sacrificed.

Severe earthquakes in the early Middle Ages , probably during the reign of Emperor Justinian I , changed the geomorphology of the area so much that the river might have disappeared as a result.

swell

• Strabon Geographica 8.3.19 (Casaubon 346-347)
• Pausania's description of Greece 5.5.9

literature

• Anigrus, In: William Smith: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, London 1854 ( online )
• Gustav Hirschfeld : Anigros . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2210.

Web links

• Report of the river on the sides of the city of Zacharo (Greek)