Parthenopolis

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Parthenopolis (Greek "virgin city") was the name of two ancient cities, the location of which is not clear. It was also a medieval name for Magdeburg .

Pliny names Parthenopolis in his Naturalis historia (5,148) in a list of places in Bithynia ; The Pliny editor Gerhard Winkler thinks that it is probably today's Turkish village of Koca Irmak near Bartın , which lies on the river Bartinsu, the ancient Parthenios.

Another city called Parthenopolis was located in the Roman province of Moesia inferior (Lower Moesia ). It is also mentioned by Pliny ( Naturalis historia 4,44); he describes it as a Scythian settlement with the nickname Aroteren. It is believed that it is today's Costinești south of Constanța in today's Romania or that the ancient Parthenopolis is to be found near this modern town. Eutropius mentions this Parthenopolis in his breviary (6.10) when listing cities that Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus (Marcus Licinius Lucullus) in 72 BC. Chr. Took. In the 9th chapter of the breviary of Rufius Festus , Parthenopolis also appears among the cities then occupied by Lucullus.

In the Middle Ages, the city of Magdeburg was also called the Parthenopolis in Graecia. This name is first attested for Magdeburg in a certificate from Emperor Otto III. from the year 989, which was made by a Magdeburg scribe. The name probably originated in Magdeburg itself. It appears in the Magdeburg founding saga, which has been handed down in the Annales Magdeburgenses (for the year 938) and the Gesta archiepiscoporum Magdeburgensium (Chapters 2 and 3) and goes back to a lost source from the Ottonian period. There it is reported that Julius Caesar founded cities after the subjugation of Gaul, which were intended to offer him military support against the surrounding tribes. One of them was Magdeburg, which Caesar named Parthenopolis (Virgin City) in honor of the virgin goddess Diana . On the banks of the Elbe, Caesar donated a sanctuary to Diana, in which virgins consecrated to the goddess would have lived.

literature

Remarks

  1. Gerhard Winkler (Ed.): C. Plinius Secundus d. Ä., Naturkunde , Buch V, Munich 1993, p. 275; see. Dörner Sp. 1936.
  2. Gerhard Winkler (Ed.): C. Plinius Secundus d. Ä., Naturkunde , Bücher III / IV, Munich 1988, p. 383; see. Danoff Sp. 777.
  3. ^ Karl Bischoff: Magdeburg. On the history of a place name , in: Contributions to the history of German language and literature 72, 1950, pp. 392-420, here: 417f.
  4. ^ Dietrich Claude : History of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg up to the 12th Century , Part 1, Cologne 1972, p. 60.
  5. Sagen der Stadt Magdeburg In: magdeburger-chronist.de