Cool ancient names of cities or regions

[Kyriakos]

In the same vein as the "cool ancient names" thread in this forum

I always liked the regional name "Lacedaimon". (Λακεδαίμω&#957.

The area was named after the mythical Spartan king of the same name

Also the ancient Aetolian city with the name Metropolis sounds nice, not sure if it was quasi-generic or not but afaik it was the only such named city of the era i looked into (Peloponnesian war).

Kolophon as well, which is argued to mean "pinnacle", and i have read that some sources attribute the name of that Ionian (region in the western coast of Asia Minor, directly above Caria) city to its cavalry which was supposed to be undefeated and served as the pinnacle of what the city brought to each conflict.

 

[bhsup]

Vilcabamba
Tenochtitlan
Jericho
Megiddo

 

[classical_hero]

Dalmatia, so that meant that the inhabitant are Dalmatians. Grrr. woof. Bark

 

[Dachs]

Amphaxitis
Chaonia
Kaspeireia
Pelasgiotis
Surastrene
Traxiane
Triakontaschoinos

 

[Phrossack]

Trebizond
Ctesiphon
Dvin
Sarai
Samarkand
Megalopolis
Konstantinopoulis
Xacitarxan
Kazan

Coolest is a tie between Tmutarakan/Tamatarkhan and Mtskheta.

 

[Kyriakos]

Triakontaschoinos

Nice Caused me to learn that this was the new name of the lower part of the Ptolemaic Empire, after some areas previously under the control of Ethiopia were incorporated. Seems that at first that region of the Empire was termed "Dodecaschoinos", exactly because it was quite smaller before those wars.

The second part of the term (-schoinos) appears to refer to a unit of measurement of lenght.

edit: Just to include the information that this regional expansion seems to have happened during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor (Πτολεμαίος ΣΤ' Φιλομήτω&#961

 

[Lone Wolf]

Kazan
Samarkand

They still exist under these names...

Anyway, continuing the Turkic theme:

Djuketau (a former city in Volga Bulgaria)
Ukek (Tatar city on Volga, razed by Timur)

I also like long Greek names like

Marcianopolis
Arkadiopolis

A Greek counter-example which is the opposite of cool: Theoupolis. So boring. Good thing that overly pious 6-th century name for Antiocheia never caught on.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Pretty sure Marcianopolis is not really a Greek name in any sense at all :/ Just some latin hybrid, ending in -polis.
Of course you could say the same for Constantinople, but i don't regard that as a "cool" name either, and Constantine ended up not being used in the latin world in the end.

Regarding "Theoupolis", it doesn't sound that bad to me. Just not that cool either.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Ur

Uruk

Lagash

Larak

 

[Lone Wolf]

I like the sound of "Lagash", yeah.

Also, Dur-Kurigalzu. Sounds alien-ish.

Purushapura and Vijayanagar are also fine.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I always liked Merv and Toshkent.

 

[Dachs]

I always liked Merv

Antiocheia in Margiane?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Antiocheia in Margiane?

Yes, that city.

On that note, Transoxiana, Arachosia, and Zeravshan are great names too.

 

[Kyriakos]

Another hellenistic city with a cool name is Hekatompylos (or Hekatontapylos) (Εκατόμπυλο&#962 which literally means a city that has one hundred gates.
From an article i just read it seems that was a common name for cities which simply had more than the ordinary four gates (iirc Thebes was also called by that epithet, although it had seven gates)

It was founded (probably) by Seleykos I, in the region of Parthia, although i read that it is also claimed that Alexander himself founded it, and he had camped there for a while (Dachs would know for sure, since he said he liked Seleykos I, and if you do help here, Dachs, can you also say if the expansion of the Ptolemaic empire to the Triakontaschoinos happened indeed during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor?)

 

[History_Buff]

Not really ancient, and not really one place, but the Exarchate of Ravenna always takes the cake in my books.

 

[Tee Kay]

Pataliputra

 

[Antilogic]

For some reason Antalya struck me as cool as a kid, don't know why.

 

[Dachs]

That's a modern name. The ancient name would be Attaleia.

 

[Antilogic]

That sounds like a congratulatory message from Han Solo.

 

[Phrossack]

Antiokheia is also pretty good.