{{redirect, Trito, the reconstructed mythological figure, Indo-European cosmogony#First Warrior Lake Tritonis ( el, Τριτωνίδα λίμνην), was a large body of fresh water in northern Africa that was described in many ancient texts. Classical-era Greek writers placed the lake in what today is southeastern

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

and southern

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

(modern Chott el-Djerid). In details of the late myths and personal observations related by these historians, the lake was said to be named after

Triton Triton commonly refers to: * Triton (mythology), a Greek god * Triton (moon), a satellite of Neptune Triton may also refer to: Biology * Triton cockatoo, a parrot * Triton (gastropod), a group of sea snails * ''Triton'', a synonym of ''Triturus' ...

. According to Herodotus it contained two islands, Phla, which the

Lacedaemonians Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred t ...

were to have colonized, according to an oracle, and

Mene The moonfish of the genus ''Mene'', the sole extant genus of the family Menidae, are disk-shaped fish which bear a vague resemblance to gourami, thanks to their thread-like pelvic fins. Today, the genus is represented only by ''Mene maculata'' ...

Location

The location is unclear. The lake is mentioned as being in

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

, a land the ancient Greeks believed encircled their world, "washed on all sides by the sea," Herodotus said, "except where it is attached to Asia." "In their knowledge, Libya extended from Ancient Egypt, the Nile Valley and its basin, Algeria and along the south of Ancient Egypt." Both

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 ...

in the fifth century B.C. and

Diodorus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...

in the first century A.D. described the lake. In the ''

Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax The ''Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax'' is an ancient Greek periplus (περίπλους ''períplous'', 'circumnavigation') describing the sea route around the Mediterranean and Black Sea. It probably dates from the mid-4th century BC, specifically t ...

'', which is thought to date from the mid-4th century BC, it is said to have a circumference of 1000 stades, giving it an area of about 2,300 km² (900 mi²), or, half the size of the contemporary United States state of Rhode Island. Herodotus assumed that there would have to be a large river flowing into it, which he called the Triton.

History

The name of the lake appears in discussion of the geography related in

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

. When

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...

is addressed as ''Athene Tritogeneia'' ("born of Trito"), the archaic

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

is explained by the episode where, having sprung fully formed from the head—or thigh—of

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D� ...

—who had swallowed her pregnant mother to prevent his own downfall from the rule over the current Greek pantheon by her progeny, as predicted—the goddess was escorted to Lake Trito and attended to by the nymphs. A different interpretation, taking into consideration much earlier Greek and Minoan myths, leads translator

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

to suggest that the reverse direction of religious influence occurred, with

Neith Neith ( grc-koi, Νηΐθ, a borrowing of the Demotic (Egyptian), Demotic form egy, nt, likely originally to have been nrt "she is the terrifying one"; Coptic language, Coptic: ⲛⲏⲓⲧ; also spelled Nit, Net, or Neit) was an early ancien ...

being the deity who influenced development of the Greek concept for the goddess Athene. Neith was an ancient deity when first appearing in the earliest Egyptian pantheon, and is suspected to have originated among the Berbers. The story of the

Argonauts The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, '' Argo'', ...

places Triton's home on the Mediterranean coast of Libya. Before the epic ''Argonautika'' of Apollonius, Herodotus knew this tradition of Jason, in which winds

"carried him out of his course to the coast of Libya; where, before he discovered the land, he got among the shallows of Lake Tritonis. As he was turning it in his mind how he should find his way out, Triton (they say) appeared to him, and offered to show him the channel, and secure him a safe retreat, if he would give him the tripod. Jason complying, was shown by Triton the passage through the shallows; after which the god took the tripod, and, carrying it to his own temple, seated himself upon it, and, filled with prophetic fury, delivered to Jason and his companions a long prediction. "When a descendant," he said, "of one of the Argo's crew should seize and carry off the brazen tripod, then by inevitable fate would a hundred Grecian cities be built around Lake Tritonis." The Libyans of that region, when they heard the words of this prophecy, took away the tripod and hid it. "

Apollonius of Rhodes Apollonius of Rhodes ( grc, Ἀπολλώνιος Ῥόδιος ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; la, Apollonius Rhodius; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek author, best known for the ''Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and t ...

narrates it, when the Argo was driven ashore on the Lesser Syrtes by a fierce storm while returning from

Colchis In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia (country), Georgia. Its population, the Colchians a ...

, the Argonauts found themselves in "an area surrounded by sands". They

portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

d their ship twelve days to Lake Tritonis, but the lake water was salty and undrinkable. Since they could find no outlet from Lake Tritonis to the sea, they could do nothing. Then they propitiated the deities with a golden

tripod A tripod is a portable three-legged frame or stand, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The three-legged (triangular stance) design provides good stability against gravitational loads ...

on the shore and Triton, the local deity, appeared to them in the form of a youth, to show them a hidden channel to the sea. This late myth related that a lake nymph named Tritonis made the lake her home and, according to an ancient tradition, was the mother of Athena by

Poseidon Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ch ...

. (

, iv. 180;

Pindar Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...

. Pytli. iv. 20.) By

Amphithemis In Greek mythology, Amphithemis (Ancient Greek: Ἀμφίθεμις), was the name of the following characters: * Amphithemis, also called Garamas (Γαράμαντά), son of Apollo and Acalle, daughter of Minos. He was born in Libya, to where M ...

, she became the mother of Nasamon and Caphaurus.Apollonius of Rhodes, iv. 1495.

Catastrophic natural disaster

At an unknown date, an earthquake collapsed dikes or the land structures that kept the lake from drying up, causing drainage to the sea of most of the fresh water and at the most allowing for a seasonal lake or marsh. It then possibly became associated with Chott el-Djerid, a seasonal lake which is marshy and shallow, now separated by a 50 meter high elevated ridge ten kilometers wide from the Mediterranean. Other suggested locations are various

Sabkha A sabkha ( ar, سبخة) is a coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coastal p ...

along the

Gulf of Sidra The Gulf of Sidra ( ar, خليج السدرة, Khalij as-Sidra, also known as the Gulf of Sirte ( ar, خليج سرت, Khalij Surt, is a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya, named after the oil port of Sidra or ...

and due west coastal sections, which became filled in due to salt and gypsu
evaporates as
well as sand washed or blown in. These areas are below sea level for large expanses, typically only less than 5 meters in depth. This article is based partly on the entry in the ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'' is the last in a series of classical dictionaries edited by the English scholar William Smith (1813–1893), following ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' and the ''Dictionary of Gr ...

'', by William Smith, LLD, 1854.

Notes

Sources

*http://www.asu.cas.cz/%7Ejklokocn/AJG_2017_Sahara.pdf
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, page 1175
*http://www.metrum.org/mapping/argo.htm *https://web.archive.org/web/20051205094959/http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Cyrene.html *http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/argonauts.html#Libya
Amazon.com: Phrase: "Lake Tritonis"
*https://web.archive.org/web/20060524002233/http://www.net4you.net/user/poellauerg/Amazons/Tun2005e.html
Liddell-Scott-Jones ''Lexicon of Classical Greek''
*http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/sabkha.htm *http://www.finelinesciencepress.com/chap_28.pdf *http://www.finelinesciencepress.com/chap_27.pdf Tritonis, Lake Tritonis, Lake Locations in Greek mythology Triton (mythology)