The Terme River ( tr, Terme Çayı; la, Thermeh; el, Θερμώδων, rendered Thermodon) is a short river in

Samsun Province Samsun Province ( tr, Samsun ili) is a province of Turkey on the Black Sea coast with a population of 1,252,693 (2010). Its adjacent provinces are Sinop on the northwest, Çorum on the west, Amasya on the south, Tokat on the southeast on the ea ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

draining into the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

. Its sources are in the

Pontic Mountains The Pontic Mountains or Pontic Alps (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Kuzey Anadolu Dağları'', meaning North Anatolian Mountains) form a mountain range in northern Anatolia, Turkey. They are also known as the ''Parhar Mountains'' in the local Turki ...

. It runs through the fertile

Çarşamba plain The ''Çarşamba Plain'', the ancient Themiscyra Plain (; grc-gre, Θεμίσκυρα ''Themiskyra''), is a plain on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, formed largely of the delta of the Yeşilırmak river (ancient Iris), but also traversed by the ...

to Salıpazarı, where it splits into three tributaries. The city of

Terme Terme (formerly spelled ''Termeh''; Ancient Greek: Thèrmae, Θέρμαι) is the seat of Terme District, Samsun Province, Turkey. Terme is located on Terme River, about 5 km from its mouth, on the eastern end of the Çarşamba Plain. Term ...

is on the river, about 5 km from its mouth. The ancient name of the river is the Thermodon, and the surrounding region was the

Pontus Pontus or Pontos may refer to: * Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea) * Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology * Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...

. In antiquity, its mouth was about "three plethra" wide (ca. 300 feet), and it was navigable. The river, said by Strabo to have "its many sources near Phanaroea... nmany streams" (which is not true; perhaps he was thinking of the Iris), was "very often noticed by ancient writers", and its mouth was near the town of Themiscyra. Starting with

Dionysius Periegetes Dionysius Periegetes ( grc-gre, Διονύσιος ὁ Περιηγητής, literally Dionysius the Voyager or Traveller, often Latinized to ''Dionysius Periegeta''), also known as Dionysius of Alexandria or Dionysius the African,''Encyclopædia ...

, in his ''

Periegesis A periegesis (Ancient Greek περιήγησις 'leading around') is a geographical survey or travelogue, sometimes also called a ''periodos'' ' journey around' 'sc.'' the world It is the name of several books: * Pausanias's Ἑλλάδος πε ...

of the World'', the Thermodon is often confused with the Iris River (modern Yeşilırmak), which is much larger, flows through

Phanaroea The Phanaroea plain (Φανάροια), the modern Erbaa Plain (), is a plain lying mostly in the Erbaa district of Tokat Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It runs east-west for about , along the Kelkit River (ancient ''Lykos'') in a val ...

, and carries much more sediment.Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, Marit Jensen, "Two Pontic Rivers", ''Cedrus: The Journal of MCRI'' 3:231-2142 (2015), In

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

, the Thermodon was the location of the plain and capital, Themiscyra, where the Amazons dwelt.

References

Further reading

See also