{{Noref, date=February 2009
Calisia ( el, Καλισία, la, Calisia) was a "station" on so-called "
Amber Road
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade.
...
", mentioned by
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
, formerly universally identified with
Kalisz
(The oldest city of Poland)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town
, image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg ...
in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
. Besides the similarity of the names, the identification was supported by the closeness between the
latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...
given by Ptolemy (52°50') and the actual latitude of Kalisz (51°45'27").
The validity of these arguments is currently in doubt, mainly due to the identification of Ptolemy's Leukaristos, located at a latitude similar to that of Kalisz, with the name Laugaritio/Leugaritio certainly referring to the town of
Trenčín
Trenčín (, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia of the central Váh River valley near the Czech border, around from Bratislava. It has a population of more than 55,000, which makes it the eighth largest municip ...
in
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
(this identification is confirmed by a rock inscription made in the winter of 179/180 CE by a Roman military unit, and the biography of the unit's commander, M. Valesius Maximianus, carved on his tomb in
Diana Veteranorum
Diana Veteranorum, today a village called Ain Zana (Aïn Zana), was an ancient Roman- Berber city in Algeria. It was located around 40 km northwest of Lambaesis and 85 km southwest of Cirta.
History
Diana Veteranorum was founded in ...
in today's Algeria). As Trenčín is much further south than the latitude given by Ptolemy, this identification seems to imply that Ptolemy's data on latitude of places north of the Danube had significant errors, hence making the Calisia-Kalisz identification doubtful.