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AENUS (Αἶνος)

MATTHEW A. SEARS

University of New Brunswick

City in southeastern THRACE, north of the Hellespontine CHERSONESE and along the HEBRUS RIVER (BA 51 G3; Müller II, 773–77), which forms the border between the modern nations of Greece and Turkey. Located on a plain and at the mouth of a major river, Aenus was strategically located and served as a mustering point for exports from further inland, including Thracian slaves and Thracian MERCENARIES.

Aenus is mentioned in HOMER’s Iliad (4.519–20) as the home of the Thracian ruler Peiroös and a contingent of valiant Thracian warriors. In historical times, the city was in the territory of the APSINTHIANS, a Thracian group best known as the rivals of the nearby DOLONCIANS, who inhabited the Chersonese. Aenus was eventually colonized by Aeolian Greeks, though Thracian connections in the area remained strong. Aenus figures little in the work of Herodotus (4.90.2; 7.58.3). Though Aenus was one of the first sites in EUROPE reached by XERXES in 480 BCE, the Persian king bypassed the city in favor of nearby DORISCUS, where he held his famous review of the army after crossing the HELLESPONT.