DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0112
PROBABLE SITE OF HIPPOCORONION.
63
deal further to the east of these parts, and perhaps
it may be on this account that Professor Hoeck5 has
supposed Hippocoronion to have been near Hiera-
pytna. But Mount Ida and the Samonian promon-
tory, both of which are named by Strabo in the same
passage, have a good deal more than half of Crete
between them: so that no great necessity can exist for
supposing the other places enumerated to have been
very near together. A reason for the loss, or rather
corruption, of the first part of the compound, after the
name of the ancient city was transferred to the district
in which it was situated, may be found in the fact that
the old word Hippos is lost to the modern Greek lan-
guage6. Instances in which the name of an ancient city
is thus transferred to a modern village near its site, or
even to a district in or near which it stood, are not
uncommon, and we shall find others in Crete.
Having obtained this gratifying information respect-
ing the existence of ancient remains, similar to those
examined yesterday and this morning, I pursued my
journey towards and up the barren and unfrequented
side of the mountain, and traversed a wild and dreary
glen in the full hope of finding ere long some vestiges
of another ancient city. At length I arrived at the
hamlet of Kyriakusalia7, and one of its peasants offered
5 Hoeck, Kreta, Vol. i. p. 434, and the map.
6 "AKoyov is commonly used to denote a horse by the modern Greeks. I
am well aware that the component parts of many compound words of modern
Greek are lost as independent words, though they exist in the compounds:
thus iroie'co and ol/cos are entirely lost, though el&oiroiw and oiKovopw, o'lko-
vo/jlos, &c. are in common use, and would be understood by an ignorant
peasant, who would neither know the meaning of the verb iroiSi nor of the
substantive oIkos. Still we could hardly look for an instance of this peculiarity
of the modern language in a proper name, and the change of 'IinroKopuiva
into 'AiroKoptmia seems to me easy and obvious.
7 The etymology of Kvpt,a.Kov-crd\ia, certainly a singular name, is quite
evident. 'S.dXia, or ScuXia, which I wrote, on the spot, as the latter part of the
word, is the ancient ariaXov, saliva. We cannot compare our English Spittles,
corruptions of Hospital, with this place, which seems to owe its name to the
genuine spittle of St Cyriac. Perhaps he may have resembled the Antimachus
of Aristophanes : i|/aKots oe oCtos eKaXelro, eTreiSj] irposeppaive toi/s <rvvo-
piXuvvTa^
63
deal further to the east of these parts, and perhaps
it may be on this account that Professor Hoeck5 has
supposed Hippocoronion to have been near Hiera-
pytna. But Mount Ida and the Samonian promon-
tory, both of which are named by Strabo in the same
passage, have a good deal more than half of Crete
between them: so that no great necessity can exist for
supposing the other places enumerated to have been
very near together. A reason for the loss, or rather
corruption, of the first part of the compound, after the
name of the ancient city was transferred to the district
in which it was situated, may be found in the fact that
the old word Hippos is lost to the modern Greek lan-
guage6. Instances in which the name of an ancient city
is thus transferred to a modern village near its site, or
even to a district in or near which it stood, are not
uncommon, and we shall find others in Crete.
Having obtained this gratifying information respect-
ing the existence of ancient remains, similar to those
examined yesterday and this morning, I pursued my
journey towards and up the barren and unfrequented
side of the mountain, and traversed a wild and dreary
glen in the full hope of finding ere long some vestiges
of another ancient city. At length I arrived at the
hamlet of Kyriakusalia7, and one of its peasants offered
5 Hoeck, Kreta, Vol. i. p. 434, and the map.
6 "AKoyov is commonly used to denote a horse by the modern Greeks. I
am well aware that the component parts of many compound words of modern
Greek are lost as independent words, though they exist in the compounds:
thus iroie'co and ol/cos are entirely lost, though el&oiroiw and oiKovopw, o'lko-
vo/jlos, &c. are in common use, and would be understood by an ignorant
peasant, who would neither know the meaning of the verb iroiSi nor of the
substantive oIkos. Still we could hardly look for an instance of this peculiarity
of the modern language in a proper name, and the change of 'IinroKopuiva
into 'AiroKoptmia seems to me easy and obvious.
7 The etymology of Kvpt,a.Kov-crd\ia, certainly a singular name, is quite
evident. 'S.dXia, or ScuXia, which I wrote, on the spot, as the latter part of the
word, is the ancient ariaXov, saliva. We cannot compare our English Spittles,
corruptions of Hospital, with this place, which seems to owe its name to the
genuine spittle of St Cyriac. Perhaps he may have resembled the Antimachus
of Aristophanes : i|/aKots oe oCtos eKaXelro, eTreiSj] irposeppaive toi/s <rvvo-
piXuvvTa^