Is he

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Ister , Latin Hister , ancient Greek Ἴστρος Istros , was a widespread name in ancient times for the lower course of the Danube , which extends from the Iron Gate to the Danube Delta .

etymology

River god Ister on Trajan's Column

The name is given by proponents of the old European hydronymy to the Indo-European root * heisr- 'quickly, quickly'.

In Hesiod's theogony, Istros is the son of Oceanus and Tethys . He is the personification of the river and was often depicted on coins of the city of the same name. Regular coins with the inscription ΙΣΤ (IST) are from the 5th century BC. Known. A figure of the river god Istros is also on the Trajan Column in Rome, on which Istros appears similar to Neptune and watches the crossing of the Danube by the Roman legions over a pontoon bridge at the beginning of the Dacian Wars . The Dacians swore by the Hister .

Importance in ancient times

The Ister as a river that flows into the Black Sea is likely to have been handed down to the Mediterranean area by the Hellenic Black Sea seafaring since the earliest times of antiquity. In the last centuries before Christianity, the Danube as a river north of the Alps, with its river god Danuvius , moved into the focus of Roman geography. An association between the Danube and the Ister could only be established at the turn of the ages, when the Roman Empire had extended to the entire course of the Danube and the cartographic connections were made accessible. Claudius Aelianus describes the Ister in the 3rd century AD as the largest river in Europe:

“ Initium Europaeorum fluminum maximi Istri, ad septentriones ventos sub Alpium radices subjectum contra solis exortum, a non magno fonte nascitur, ubi gens rei equestris perita habitat. “At that time, the term Danuvius was probably just a river section designation for the upper reaches of the Ister, up to about the Pannonian Plain .

Naming

  • The ancient name Via Istra for the connecting road along the Danube following the Limes is derived from this term .
  • The city of Istros at the mouth of the Danube goes back to a foundation by Miletus in the 7th century BC. BC to an older Thracian settlement and was the oldest Greek colony on the Black Sea .
  • Some Roman cities on the lower reaches of the Danube carried the addition ad Istrum - z. B. Nicopolis ad Istrum . The ancient city, however, was 40 km from the river, as its name was only dedicated to the victory on the Danube ( Nicopolis 'the victorious').
  • The term Ister was used in the twentieth century, among other things, for the shipping company of the steel group VÖEST , the Ister Reederei , founded in the 1950s, as well as for the Linz rowing club of the same name .
  • Between Budapest Keleti pályaudvar and Bucureşti Gara de Nord the EuroNight 472 (westward) and 473 (westward) with the name Ister runs.

Literature and film

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hesiod: Theogonia 339.
  2. ↑ Istros . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 10, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1907, p.  68 .
  3. ^ Images of coins from Istros.
  4. ↑ Servius: Scol. George. 3.497.
  5. ^ Claudius Aelianus: De Natura Animalium. Vol. XIV, 23. Latin translation from the Greek by Friedrich Jacobs . Frommann , Jena 1832 ( LacusCurtius ).
  6. ↑ Internet presence of the Linz rowing club Ister
  7. ↑ The name of the nymph can also be seen in the medieval derivation of "aurea Ripa", (Goldufer), as the valley near the Koster in Imbach in the Kremstal was previously called (see also Sigismund Calles in "Annales Austriae ...", volume 2, page 535).
  8. ↑ Poems by Gottlieb von Leon , published by Rudolf Gräffer in 1788
  9. ↑ Martin Heidegger on Hölderlin's hymn "THE ISTER" "; Vittorio Klostermann / Poeschl & Schulz-Schomburgk , Eschwege; Frankfurt am Main; 1984 ( PDF )
  10. ↑ The Ister (2004 film).