Toryne

Toryne (Ancient Greek: Τορύνη),[1] also known as Torone (Τορώνη),[2] was a city of ancient Thesprotia in ancient Epirus.[3] The fleet of Augustus was moored off Toryne a short time before the Battle of Actium, and seems from the order of the names in Ptolemy to have stood in one of the bays between the mouth of the river Thyamis and Sybota.[4] It was located on the Ionian Sea coast, and its site is tentatively placed near present Parga.[5][6]

Epirus in antiquity

In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra Toryne is personally taken over by Caesar shortly after his being in Rome, showing an almost mystical speed. "Toryne" meant "ladle" in Ancient Greek, and in Plutarch's Life of Antony, Cleopatra puns upon this. [7] In Victor Hugo's novel of the French Revolution, Les Miserables, a character says: "Cleopatra’s pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne".[8]

References
  1. Plutarch, Ant. 62
  2. Ptolemy. The Geography. 3.14.5.
  3. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation by Mogens Herman Hansen,2005,page 349
  4.  Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Toryne". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
  5. Richard Talbert, ed. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. p. 54, and directory notes accompanying.
  6. Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
  7. Foss, Michael (2014). The Search for Cleopatra. Michael O'Mara Books.
  8. Les Misérables.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Toryne". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

See also


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