Aegea
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Aegea is a back-formation from "Aegean", the sea that was named for an eponymous Aegeus in early levels of Greek mythology. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911) mentioned an Aegea, queen of the Amazons, as an alternative eponym of the Aegean Sea, and Aegea was the name of the wife of the Roman proconsul of Achaia whom the apostle Andrew converted and baptised, according to Jacob de Voragine's Golden Legend, De Sancto Andrea Apostolo. "Aegea" is found in modern baby-name books and carried by some contemporary women.
Modern Italian has the adjective Egea ("Aegean"), but Classical Latin had none. Modern botanical Latin sometimes uses the specific epithet aegea to mean "of the Aegean".
Modern usages include "Aegea" as a Turkish socio-geographic term for the Aegean basin and the nations around it, as in "Izmir, pearl of Aegea." Geologists also use "Aegea" to describe the fragmentary rotating crustal block that supports mainland Greece and the Aegean basin, as a parallel to "Anatolia." This block is rotating counter-clockwise and is being strongly subducted into a line of trenches south of Crete.
The Cilician port city of Aegea or Aegeae in Pausanias, v.21.11, and on its coinage, Aigai like the archaic capital of Macedonia, is the modern Ayas, Turkey, on the Gulf of Issus (modern Gulf of Iskenderun). The city was mentioned in Tacitus' Annals XIII:8: War between Armenia/Rome and Iberia/Parthia. At Aegeae Apollonius of Tyana made his early studies in the 1st century CE, when the city was at its cultural height. The city of Aegea was the site of the martyrdom of Thallelaios during the reign of Numerian (283-284 CE). The Orthodox Church celebrates his feast on May 20. See link. In Aegea, probably their natal city, Saints Cosmas and Damian performed their legendary cures in the early 4th century. At Ayas Marco Polo disembarked to begin his trip to China and back.
Near another city of Aegea, in Euboea, Poseidon had his watery palace.
"Fort Aegea" is a fantasy role-playing game.
No classical literary sources, however, have been given for the following statements:
- "Aegea, a Greek goddess also known as Aga, was sister to Circe and Pasiphae and daughter to Helios and Perse. When Zeus rose up against Cronus and the other Titans, Gaia hid Aegea in a cave to hide her beauty. Amaterasu and Päivätär have similar stories in Japanese and Finnish mythology, respectively."
External links
- The Martyrs Thallelaios, Alexander and Asterios (http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Feasts-and-Saints/May/May-20.html#thalaleas)
- Legenda Aurea: (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/vorag.andrea.html) excerpt (in Latin)
- ancient coinage of Cilicia (http://www.snible.org/coins/hn/cilicia.html)