THE BALKANS AND MACEDONIA
In the Delibata Sandstone in Banat there is the toponym Heronia, which has a theonymic meaning. Etymologically it is a coinage of the word 'Hera' referring to the goddess Hera and the suffix "ön", ego, I personally. In mythology, Hera is the daughter of Cronus and Rhea, sister of the god Zeus. In the Titanogigantomachy, Hera was guarded by Oceanus for 300 years. After the victory of Zeus-Danube over the other gods, their wedding was solemnly celebrated.
In addition to the many gifts, Hera received from the goddess Gaia a sapling that bore golden apples, which she liked very much, so the gods planted them as trees of life, eternal youth and immortality in the "garden of the gods", in the Yabuchkov rit near Pancevo. The apples were guarded by the Hesperides, daughters of the god Forka (the Forko-Tumac legend). According to Diodorus 31 , the garden of the Hesperides is located in the country of Hyperborea.
31 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, Fr. Vogel, IV, 26, Leipzig, 1986.
In addition to the toponym Chaeronia, there is also the toponym Veliki Dos, which is a personification of the goddess Doro (Dös, Döro), goddess of gift-giving and bribery. She was used by Hera to bribe the goddess of fertility, Aeila, to delay the birth of Heracles by three months.
Lake Palić and the town of Palić also have mythological content. In the works of Hesiod 32 , Pallas is the son of Earth and Hades, a titan who was killed by the goddess Athena during the struggle between the gods and the titans, flayed his skin and used it to protect her own body.
32 Hesiodus, Fragmenta & Theogonia, p. 376.
The city of Titel at the mouth of the Tisza River into the Danube also has mythological significance. Titius (Tit-yos) was a terrible giant, the son of Zeus. He attacked the goddess Leto-Lato (Letö-Latö) as she hurried through these regions, as a Hyperborean, on her way to Delphi. In his attempt to rape her, he removed her veil from her head, but Apollo and Artemis came to her aid and shot the terrible giant.
Because he mistreated the goddess Leto-Lato, Titius is cruelly punished in the underworld. His huge body is crucified in Pannonia, on an area of 5-6 hectares, and this territory is constantly overrun by hawks that tear open the terrible giant's entrails and feed on his liver. His torment has no end because his liver is eternally renewed along with the Moon. As a sign of remembrance among the people of this legend about Titius, the name of the city Tit-el remained, because etymologically tit-yos is an avenger, while el-os is a swamp, i.e. a giant swamp.
East of Titel to Begej are large wetlands, among which the White Lake and the Tsarska Bara are particularly dominant. Migratory birds, cormorants, swans and other birds that hunt fish land here.
Toponymy in Pannonia with the prefix "Ba" is very present, such as: Balaton, Banat, Bačka, Baranja, Bach, Baja, Bajmok, etc. According to the Greek etymologist, Prof. Bambignoti 33 , -ba in ba-sileus is of unknown origin, while according to Senk 34 it means king, ruler, prince, lord, duke, hence Vojvodina. It belongs to the Paleobalkan glossology. Lake Balaton in Hungary, with a depth of about 11 m and an area of 591 km 2 , has a mythological hydronym. Etymologically it is a coinage of the word –ba, -bas king and the word Latö, Letö, which refers to the titaness Lata, i.e. Leta.
33 Mpampioniotis, G, Synhroni grammatiki tis koinis neas Elinikis, Athinai, p. 358.
34 Senc, St. Greek-Croatian dictionary, s. 147, 152, Cr. Zemaljska tiskara, Zagreb, 1910.
In mythology, Leta-Leta is a Hyperborean, the daughter of Ceos and Phoebe. Zeus fell in love with Leta, after his marriage to the goddess Hera, and she conceived divine twins, the god Apollo and the goddess Artemis. The pregnant Leta wandered the world for a long time, all the way to the Aegean island of Del, where she gave birth with terrible labor pains. The "midwife" was a Hyperborean, the goddess Eileithyia, daughter of Zeus and Hera.
The Delibata Sandstone in Banat semantically means divine mud or swamp, which in the mythological system represents the first region of Tartarus. In it, the souls of heroes who descend into Tartarus wander aimlessly among the multitude of less important dead, until Charon takes them down the Stiga River to Hades.
Among the hills in Pannonia that have mythological content, we mention Fruška Gora, Erino Brdo, and Veliko Brdo.
Fruška Gora is a mountain in Srem, south of the Danube, with one of the peaks named Stražilovo (321 m), above Sremski Karolvac. Its oronym comes from the PBG word -frura which means guard, hence Stražilovo. At the foot of Fruška Gora is the town of Irig, and above it, at an elevation of 444 m, is the Iris wreath. In mythology, Iris is the theonym of the daughter of Tumac (the god Forko-Tumac) and the Oceanid Electra. She is the personification of the goddess of information, the "golden-winged messenger" of the gods for news from heaven.
Digression: in Hesiod's cosmogony it is emphasized that from the initial Chaos came the supreme god Eros, then the Earth, Tartarus (Đerdap), Ereb and Night. The name Ereb (Erevos) means abyss, whose toponymy exists on the Danube in Bačka, near the town of Bezdan, at the beginning of the Danube-Tisa-Danube canal. The toponymy Night (Nyx-noć) carries the town of Noćaj/Noćaj south of Sremska Mitrovica.
Their function in the theogony was protective from the destructive power of Chaos. Erebus-Abyss and Night-Night were a double envelope around the created World that isolated it from Chaos. They were among the first ethnonyms. In Hesiod's Theogony from which they emerged, all personified creatures have the rank of deities and are found in the geographical names of Pannonia.
Erino Brdo by the Danube, east of Belgrade and in the immediate vicinity of the Gardens of the Hesperides, personifies the Erinyes or Furies. According to Hesiod 35 , the Erinyes are older than Zeus and the other Olympian gods and were born from the Earth (Gaia) fertilized with drops of blood from the castrated Uranus. Homer 36 states that the Erinyes are terrible and angry goddesses, old women with pale faces, who have snakes on their heads instead of gray hair.
35 Hesiodus, Fragmenta & Theogonia, p. 133-187.
35 Homer, Iliad and Odyssey, I, 1, IX, 454, Novi Sad, 1985. (trans. M.N. Gjurig)
They punish lawbreakers, atone for the spilled blood of relatives, those who have offended relatives and those who have violated hospitality. They are dressed in black, ragged clothes, and hold torches or whips in their hands. Without their blessing, there is no luck. One of the three Erinyes sisters is Tisiphone, who guarded the "Tower" - the Golubach fortress at the entrance to Tartarus - Djerdap.
Golemo Brdo is located east of Stishko Polen, and on it is located the trigonometric point 324 called Anathema, between the villages of Racica and Klučevac, on the right bank of the Danube. The word 'anathema' (anathema-anathma) means curse and especially refers to the gods. The etymology of the village of Kličevac comes from the verb klizö – to mourn. The listed toponyms have an interesting mythological content.
Namely, when Hercules stole Geryon's cattle from an island in the Danube called Erythia (Ada Kale), King Geryon overtook the kidnappers at the "river Anathema." In the terrible duel, Hercules struck down all three of Geryon's bodies with a single arrow.
The village of Kličevac is located "at the place where three paths intersect, here the three judges Minos, Rhadamanthus and Ajax constantly judge the newly arrived souls. Rhadamanthus judges the Asians, and Ajax the Europeans, but both send the more difficult cases to Minos.
After their verdict is pronounced, the souls head for one of three paths: one leads back to the asphodel meadow (Deliblatska pescara) and is followed by those who are neither good nor bad; the other leads to the punishment field of Tartarus (Đerdap) where all criminals go; and the third leads to the Elysian orchard (Godomin – Stygina palata), where those who were noble and full of virtues during their lives go. 37
37 Grevs, R., The Greek Myths, Penquin Books, Middlessex, 1972.
To be continued
Written by: ACADEMICIAN A. SHKOKLYEV-DONCHO AND SLAVE KATIN
