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Paper short abstract:

From the period of the Dark Ages to the 4th century BC the Eastern Adriatic was quite an unexplored area for the Greeks. That fact can be perceived from archaeological records and from written sources. Some elements of the Greek mythology may reflect an ancient perception about the Adriatic world.

Paper long abstract:

In the Prometheus Bound (837) The Great Gulf of Rhea (ἡ μέγας κόλπος Ῥέας) is mentioned as an old name of the Ionian Sea. According to the ancient commentators Hesychius of Alexandria and Photios of Constantinople, Rhea's Great Gulf implied both Ionian and the Adriatic seas. A similar mythological name appears in the Argonautica of the Alexandrian poet Apollonius of Rhodes. He uses the name The Cronian Sea (ἡ Κρονίη ἅλς) for the Adriatic (IV, 327; 509; 548).

These specific names - The Great Gulf of Rhea and The Cronian Sea - belong to the old mythical geography, according to which the divine couple lived far in the west. Ancient authors wrote that Cronus was ruling in the west over the Isles of the Blessed where souls of noble deceased were spending their eternity (Hes. Op. 109f; Pind. Ol. II, 77).

From the perspective of the Dark Ages and the Early Colonization Period, the Adriatic might have been regarded as the northern edge of the world, and the Greeks considered it a part of the Ocean that circulates around the globe. Later, when geographical and spatial knowledge expanded, the Isles of the Blessed were relocated further west, to Britain, or to the shores of the Northern Ocean (Plin. NH. IV, 95; 104; Plut. De. Def. Orac. 420a). This paper raises questions about early Greek perception of the Adriatic and about the centuries long absence of a more significant foreign influence on the eastern Adriatic coast.