Cestria (Epirus)

Cestria or Kestria (Ancient Greek: Κεστρία),[1] also known as Ilium or Ilion (Ἴλιον), or Troja (Τροΐα),[2] was a town in ancient Epirus.[3] Its district was called Cestrine or Kestrine (Κεστρίνη) and Kestrinia (Κεστρινία),[4] and was located in Chaonia, separated from Thesprotia by the river Thyamis.[5] It is said to have received its name from Cestrinus, son of Helenus and Andromache,[6] having been previously called Cammania or Kammania (Καμμανία).[7] The principal town of the district was Cestria,[8] but its more usual name appears to have been Ilium or Troja, in memory of the Trojan colony of Helenus.[9] In the neighbourhood are those fertile pastures, which were celebrated in ancient times for the Cestrinic oxen.[10] The inhabitants of the district were called Κεστρηνοί by the poet Rhianus.[11]

The city is located near the modern Filiates, Greece.[12]

  1. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium. Ethnica. Vol. s.v.
  2. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium. Ethnica. Vol. s.v.
  3. ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Vol. 3.96.
  4. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica, §K351.22
  5. ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Vol. 1.46.
  6. ^ Pausanias (1918). "11.1". Description of Greece. Vol. 1. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library., 2.23.6.
  7. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium. Ethnica. Vol. s.v.
  8. ^ Pliny. Naturalis Historia. Vol. 4.1.
  9. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium. Ethnica. Vol. s.v. Τροΐα.
  10. ^ Hesych. sub voce Κεστρινικοὶ Βοές; Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 924.
  11. ^ Stephanus of Byzantium. Ethnica. Vol. s.v. Χαῦνοι.
  12. ^ Bell, Robert E. (1989). Place-names in Classical Mythology: Greece. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-507-8.