Re: [cybalist] Eridanos

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2377
Date: 2000-05-07

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Dennis Poulter
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 9:03 AM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] Eridanos

 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, 05 May, 2000 5:00 AM
Subject: [cybalist] Eridanos

The name Eridanos is most likely a Greek invention, as Herodotus soberly suggests. I just mean that the reference to a half-legendary amber-giving river flowing into a half-legendary sea beyond Europe suggests the Vistula and its estuary, whence amber was brought to the delta of the Po, the southern end of the Amber Road. The association of either river with the mythical Eridanus is of course arbitrary; both "Padus" and "Vistula" are old names, and the vocalism of "Eridanos" makes any connection with *da:nu very unlikely.

Piotr

Is the river Herodotus doesn't believe in the Vistula?

Piotr

Isn't the reference to amber, the reason why the Po was considered to be Eridanus? The amber of course was produced from the tears of the Heliadai mourning the demise of their brother Phaeton.

I tend to go with Herodotos, and see the Eridanus as a purely mythical river, and a Greek name, derived from Semitic,with the myth ultimately derived from Egyptian sources.

Regards

Dennis