Oricum
Oricum or Orikos (Ancient Greek [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) Ὤρικος or Ὠρικός[1]) was an Ancient Greek city in Epirus[2][3] in its northern part, (southern part of modern Albania, at the south end of the Bay of Vlorë).
The city, said to have been founded by Euboeans[4] (perhaps as an Eretrian emporium[5]), was originally on an island, but already in ancient times it became connected to the mainland; it covered an area of 5 hectares, but archeological remains are scarce.[6] It was well situated for communication with Kerkyra,[7] and was only 40 miles across the sea from Otranto, making it a convenient stopping point on the journey between Greece and Italy.[8] Ancient sources (for instance, Herodotus) describe it as a limen, or harbor, but eventually it achieved the status of a polis, and from around 230 to 168 BC it issued its own coins with the legend ΩΡΙΚΙΩΝ ('of the Oricians').[9]
It had military importance under Roman rule, serving as a base during Rome's wars with the Illyrians and with Macedonia (which occupied it for a time); it was the first city taken by Julius Caesar during his invasion of Epirus, and he provides a vivid description of its surrender in Book 3 of his De Bello Civili[10]:
But as soon as Caesar had landed his troops, he set off the same day for Oricum: when he arrived there, Lucius Torquatus, who was governor of the town by Pompey's appointment, and had a garrison of Parthinians in it, endeavored to shut the gates and defend the town, and ordered the Greeks to man the walls, and to take arms. But as they refused to fight against the power of the Roman people, and as the citizens made a spontaneous attempt to admit Caesar, despairing of any assistance, he threw open the gates, and surrendered himself and the town to Caesar, and was preserved safe from injury by him. (III:12)
After this, Oricum "became more of a civilian settlement, and the few remains which can be seen today date from the 1st century BC or later. The Ottomans renamed Oricum Pashaliman, 'the Pasha's harbour', and the lagoon still bears this name, as does the nearby Albanian navy base."[11]
Orician terebinth ("Oricia terebintho") is mentioned by Virgil[12] and Sextus Propertius[13].
References
- ^ Mogens Herman Hansen and Thomas Heine Nielsen, An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis (Oxford University Press, 2004: ISBN 0198140991), p. 347.
- ^ The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 1: The Prehistory of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Aegean World, Tenth to Eighth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, and E. Sollberger,1982,Index: "... valley, 876 Hecataeus, 649, 819, 840, 866 Hecate, oracle at Oricum in Epirus, 641 Hector, 6z5 Helen of Troy, shrine of Menelaus and ..."
- ^ Aeneid (Oxford World's Classics) by Virgil, Elaine Fantham, and Frederick Ahl,2008,Index: "... mother and was driven mad by the Furies, 3.331; 4471 Oricum, a town in Epirus, 10. 136 Orion, a mythic hunter; the constellation Orion, 1.535; ..."
- ^ Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (London: Allen Lane, 2008, ISBN 978-0713999808), p. 123.
- ^ Keith G. Walker, Archaic Eretria: A Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 BC (Routledge, 2004: ISBN 0415285526), p. 151.
- ^ Hansen and Nielsen, An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, p. 347.
- ^ Walker, Archaic Eretria, p. 151.
- ^ Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes, p. 123.
- ^ Mogens Herman Hansen and Kurt A. Raaflaub, More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Franz Steiner Verlag, 1996: ISBN 3515069690), p. 149.
- ^ [http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Caesar/CaesarCiv03.html
- ^ Gillian Gloyer, Albania (Bradt Travel Guides, 2008: ISBN 184162246X), p. 212.
- ^ Aeneid, X, 136.
- ^ Elegies, III, 7.49.