Ichnae or Ichnai (Greek: Ἴχναι) an ancient town of

Bottiaea Bottiaea (Greek: ''Bottiaia'') was a geographical region of ancient Macedonia and an administrative district of the Macedonian Kingdom. It was previously inhabited by the Bottiaeans, a people of uncertain origin, later expelled by the Macedoni ...

, Macedonia on the

Thermaic Gulf The Thermaic Gulf (), also called the Gulf of Salonika and the Macedonian Gulf, is a gulf constituting the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea. The city of Thessaloniki is at its northeastern tip, and it is bounded by Pieria Imathia and Larissa ...

, above the mouth of

Loudias The Loudias ( el, Λουδίας) or Lydias (Λυδίας), popularly called Mavroneri (Μαυρονέρι, "Blackwater", from its Ottoman Turkish name ''Kara Asmak'' قره آصماق) is a river in Central Macedonia that flows through the r ...

river, near modern

Koufalia Koufalia ( el, Κουφάλια) is a municipal unit and a town of the Chalkidona municipality. Koufalia is the seat of the municipality of Chalkidona. Before the 2011 local government reform it was a municipality. Administrative division The mu ...

; built by the Macedonians according to Hazlitt, although Ichnaeans appear independently in epigraphy. It is mentioned by

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

, coupled with

Pella Pella ( el, Πέλλα) is an ancient city located in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is best-known for serving as the capital city of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, and was the birthplace of Alexander the Great. On site of the ancient cit ...

. Ichnai is called a

polis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...

in the urban sense in

7.123.3 and in the political sense in a fragmentary and undated treaty between the city and Dicaea. Coins of Ichnaeans, dated to 520-480 BC, carry a bull and wheel with crescentic lateral bars and are categorized to the Thraco-Macedonian type. According to

Mogens Herman Hansen Mogens Herman Hansen FBA (born 20 August 1940, Frederiksberg) is a Danish classical philologist and classical demographer who is one of the leading scholars in Athenian Democracy and the Polis. Academic career Hansen finished his masters at U ...

, Ichnae may have been an originally South

Paeonian In antiquity, Paeonia or Paionia ( grc, Παιονία, Paionía) was the land and kingdom of the Paeonians or Paionians ( grc, Παίονες, Paíones). The exact original boundaries of Paeonia, like the early history of its inhabitants, a ...

settlement, which already in Archaic times received an influx of Southern Greek colonists. After the

Macedon Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by ...

ian conquest, settlers from the Old kingdom were added and Ichnaeans may have participated in the Macedonian colonization of

Amphipolis Amphipolis ( ell, Αμφίπολη, translit=Amfipoli; grc, Ἀμφίπολις, translit=Amphipolis) is a municipality in the Serres (regional unit), Serres regional unit, Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is ...

. Two 3rd century BC reported Ichnaeans are: Antigonos son of Asandros, Delphian

proxenos Proxeny or ( grc-gre, προξενία) in ancient Greece was an arrangement whereby a citizen (chosen by the city) hosted foreign ambassadors at his own expense, in return for honorary titles from the state. The citizen was called (; plural: o ...

Dies son of Alketas, Pythian

theorodokos The ''theorodokoi'' (Greek: , ) in ancient Greece were sacred envoy-receivers whose duty was to host and assist the ''theoroi'' (θεωροί, "viewers") before the Panhellenic games and festivals... A ''theorodokos'' was sometimes appointed by th ...

. There is also an undated

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

in Athens of Eurydike daughter of Dadas, Ichnaian. Ichnae's site is within the boundaries of the modern municipal unit of

References

Sources

*Hazlitt, The Classical Gazetteer, page 181 *An inventory of archaic and classical poleis By Mogens Herman Hansen, Thomas Heine Nielsen Page 802 (2004) Bottiaea Cities in ancient Macedonia Former populated places in Greece {{AncientMacedonia-geo-stub