PART 3 – Ch.XVI.4

(‘ERAKLEOS STELAI - The Columns of Hercules)

XVI. 4. Erythia, or Rusava island, near the Columns of Hercules.

Close to the Columns of Hercules was situated, as the ancient geographers tell, the island, which the Greeks named Erythia (Rosia, Rusava - TN: the Red, Ruddy), in which the giant king, called in Greek legends Geryon, kept at pasture his magnificent cattle herds, cows and oxen with wide foreheads and flexible legs (Livy, lib. I. c. 7; Hesiod, Theog. V. 290-291).

Among the twelve labours which the king Eurystheus of Mycenae had imposed on Hercules, the tenth was to bring him the famous herds of Geryon from the Erythia island.

Hercules, Apollodorus tells us (Bibl. Lib. II. 5. 10), after arriving near Oceanos, where Erythia island was, erects in the mountains two columns, one facing the other, as monumental markers of his travel, then kills the herdsman Eurythion and his dog called Orthros, takes Geryon’s herds and departs. Geryon though, hearing of this theft, runs after Hercules and catches up with him at the river called Anthemunta. The fight starts. Hercules shoots Geryon down with an arrow, takes the herds into Abderia and from here into the land of the Lygiens. Here he is confronted by the heroes Alebion and Dercunos (Dercynos), who want to take his herds. But Hercules kills them also, and continues on his way across Tyrrhenia.

This island called Erythia, in which king Geryon kept his magnificent herds, was not in the External Ocean, as Greek geographers of later times of antiquity erroneously assumed, but was situated close to the Euxine Pontos, in the western parts of the river called Oceanos potamos or Istru. “The Greeks who dwell near the Euxine Pontos” writes Herodotus “tell that Hercules, driving the cattle herds which he had taken from Geryon, came to this country, which at that time was deserted, but now is owned by the Scythians. And they tell that Geryon dwelt outside of the Euxine Pontos, in the island which the Greeks call Erythia (Rosia, Rusava), situated near Gadira (Gedeira), outside of the Columns of Hercules, in the Ocean” (lib. IV. C. 8).

As results from this tale, the Greeks from near the Black Sea had some historical traditions about the theft of Geryon’s herds, they had positive geographical knowledge about the place where the Columns of Hercules were situated, and about the island named Erythia, located outside of the Euxine Pontos, near the same Columns.

The name “Erythia” under which Geryon’s island appears in the ancient geographical literature, presents only a simple Greek translation of an indigenous name. This statement is made by Herodotus himself in the words “the Greeks call it Erythia”.

Another author of antiquity, the famous Hecateus of Miletus, who had lived during the times of Darius Hystaspes and had navigated along the shores of Spain and Italy, declares also, based on his information, that the island called Erythia was not to be found at the Iberian straits.

“That Geryon”, writes he, “against whom king Eurystheus had sent Hercules to take his herds and bring them to Mycenae, has nothing to do with the Iberian region, nor was Hercules sent to some island Erythia, out into the big sea (Mediterranean), but to Geryon on the continent, who was king over the region beside Ambracia and Amphiloch” (Fragm. 349 in Fragm. Hist. grace. Ed. Didot, I. p. 27; Strabo, Geogr. III. 2. 11, 5. 4; Pomponius Mela, Oeuvres completes, Ed. Didot, p.652).

Finally, the Orphic poem about the Argonauts tells us that the island Erythia was at the straits of the Caucasus mountains (Argonautica, v. 1048). And under the name of “Caucasus” figure, as we know, Dacia’s Carpathians, not only in the legends of Typhon, Prometheus, and the Argonauts, but also on a Latin inscription from the time of the emperor Trajan, in Jornande’s history of the Getae, and finally, even with the Russian historian Nestor.

So, Erythia island, which was only a simple geographical fiction at the western straits of the Mediterranean, but about which the Greek merchants settled near the Euxine Pontos had positive information, and which was situated at the straits of the Caucasus mountains, in the big river from north of Thrace (Oceanos potamos), could be no other than the island located upstream of the cataracts of Istru, near the city called in folk Romanian language Rusava, and officially Orsova.

In Geryon’s genealogy we find a very precious indication about the name under which Erythia island was known by the indigenes living by the Istru,

In Greek legends Geryon’s father is named Chrysaor, the one with the gold sword (Hesiod, Theog. V. 281-283). Leaving out the sharp aspiration Ch, this word appears as Rusaor. So, we have here a topographical surname taken from the town called even today Rusava.

Even from the most remote times of Pelasgian history, the lower parts of the Istru were renowned for the extremely beautiful flocks, herds and horses belonging to its inhabitants. Thousands of flocks thousands of herds, the old legends told, were wandering through the extensive pastures belonging to the titan Atlas, king in the country of the Hyperboreans (Ovid, Metam. Lib. IV. v. 633-634).

Theopompus also writes that in the region of the Peoni, an extensive population spread through Macedonia and Thrace, lived the oxen much admired by the Greeks, whose horns, of an extraordinary size, were fitted with silver and gold, and were used at solemn banquets, or as precious ornaments (Fragm. 43 in Frag. Hist. grace. I. 285).

Finally, the Dacians who lived on the banks of the Danube, were renowned in the 4^th century a.d. for their immense riches in cattle, as far as Italy (Paulinus, the bishop of Nola, in his poem to Niceta, the bishop of Dacia).

In the old times (or the Pelasgian epoch), writes Pausanias, the main ambition of the people, regarding wealth, was to have magnificent herds of cattle and horses, and the fame of Geryon’s noble race of oxen had spread far and wide (lib. IV. 36. 3).

The legend about Hercule’s expedition against Geryon had a historical foundation.

In heroic Romanian songs echoes even today the recollection about the Greeks who had crossed to the northern bank of the Danube and had stolen herds of magnificent, giant oxen from the mountains which separate Romania from Transylvania (Daul, Colinzi, p. 59). And another traditional Romanian song mentions an ancient hero, a fighter with a mace (Hercules), who had stolen five thousand oxen from the lands near the Danube, and had taken them to a king from the southern lands (Tocilescu, Revista pentru istorie, Vol. VII. p. 419).

The straits of the Danube at the Iron Gates. Fretum Herculeum.

With the islands Rusava (Erythia) and Ogradena (Gadeira). Scale 1: 200 000.

In Greco-Roman antiquity Geryon’s legend had a much wider scope than it is presented in the episode of Hercules’ labour.

Geryon is one of the big heroes of the Pelasgian epic from the Danube.

He appears in Romanian epic songs under the names Gruia, Gruian and Iorguta (Teodorescu, Poezii pop. 615) and Geryones with Apollodorus (II. 5. 10. 1), Geryoneus with Hesiod (Theog. V. 287, 982), Geryon, Geryoneus, Geryones with Varro (L. L. IX. 90). He is also called Pana Rusiana, Roman Grue Grozovanul (Alecsandri, Poezii pop. p.77), and Roscovan (Sezatoarea, Falticeni, An. II. p.34), topographical epithets after the name of the island and the town Rusava.

Gruia is “son of a Domn”, a gallant (Francu, Romanii din Muntii apuseni, p.207) from Ardel (TN - Transylvania), or from the mountains of Ardel (Tocilescu, Materialuri folclorice, I. 106).

He comes to the Danube often, where he goes on the lustre of the waters “in a fine kayak, adorned with green, flowery cloth” (Corcea, Balade, p. 86-87; Tocilescu, Materialuri folcl. I. 106). As for the hero’s appearance, he is of an epic beauty “forehead three hands wide, broad in shoulders, neither tall, nor thick, just as a man should look his best, and the people fear him” (Catana, Balade poporale, p.129).

The Greek authors have exaggerated though in a fantastic way his physical qualities and have presented him as a monster, with three heads (Hesiod, Theog. v. 287), three chests (Lucretius, R. N. V. v. 28), or three bodies (Apollodorus, Bibl. II. 5. 10. 1; Pausanias, lib. V. 19. 1). Regarding the fable about the three bodied Geryon, Trog Pompeius writes (Justini lib. XLIV. 4) that they were three brothers, and the Romanian tradition also tells us that Gruia had two other brothers (Negoescu, Balade, p. 208).

This is how, from a beautiful heroic poem of the Pelasgian times, they have created a confusion of the most bizarre fantasies, as they had also presented, in the same unnatural way, the Giants, the Cyclops, the Centimanes, Typhon and other northern heroes.

According to Romanian traditions the hero Gruia had also a sister, with the name of Rusanda (Bibicescu, Poezii pop. din Transilvania, p.290. 310; Marinescu, Balade, I. p. 208). The origin of this name is incontestably the island Erythia or Rusava.

Rusanda herself is an old epic character. She was known to the Greek legends under the correspondent name of Erythia (Pausanias, lib. X. 17. 5; Stephanos Byzantinus, see ‘Erytheia). The only difference is that in Greek traditions Erythia (or Rusanda) was the daughter, not the sister of Geryon. (From the Erythia / Rusava island derives too the name of Eurythion. In an altered form appears also the name of the dog Orthros, which guarded the herds of Geryon, having received a Greek meaning, orthros, the dawn).

The Greek legends about Hercule’s fight with Geryon also mentioned two distinguished heroes of the antiquity, one called Alebion and the other Dercunos, both from the Lygiens’ lands [1], both the sons of Neptune. According to their genealogy, Alebion and Dercunos were therefore from near the big waters over which Neptune ruled, who had the particular epithets of thalassios and pontomedon. They had met Hercules with war, to take back his herds, as probable natural allies of Geryon.

[1. The Ligyens (Ligyes) from Geryon’s legend should not be mistaken for the Ligurians, also named by Greek authors Ligyes, whom we find settled later on the southern shore of Gaul and in the neighbouring lands of Italy. From an ethnographical point of view, these groups formed without doubt one and the same people. Aristotle spoke in one of his works about the Ligyrei from Thrace (Macrobius, Sat. I. 18). And Hesiod mentions in Fragm. 132 the Ligyi (Ligyes) as a people settled near the Ippomolgian Scythians. The Lygiens’ territory, in the legends about Hercules and Dercunos, seems to have been on the lower part of Istru.

According to traditions held by the Greeks from the Euxine Pontos (Herodotus, IV. 8), Hercules, returning to Mycenae with Geryon’s herds, had passed through Scythia, which means the western parts of the Black Sea. And as Eschyl tells us (fragm. 76), the place where Hercules had to fight the Ligyens’ army was covered with swamps and devoid of rocks. A similar episode is presented in Romanian traditional songs about Dragan, where the swampy place is near Dambovita (Tocilescu, Materialuri folcl. I. 65-66)]

Some reminiscences about the hero Dercunos have been preserved to this day in Romanian traditions. In the old folk songs he appears under the name of Dragan, or Dragan from Baragan, the nephew or grandson (TN - nepot) of old (TN - mos) Stan [2].

[2. This “mos Stan” is one of the oldest heroes of Romanian folk songs. He appears identical with Stanislav, the one “big in stature and terrible in countenance, whom the Danube reared, whom the Danube knows, she knows him and he knows her”. He is also celebrated for his mastery in catching and breaking horses (Teodorescu, Poezii pop. 688; Negoescu, Balade 176; Tocilescu, Materialuri folcl. I. 125).

The epic type of “mos Stan” presents in everything the special characteristics of Poseidon (Neptune), the southern god of the waters, who had also the epithet of Eurysthenes (from stenos - physical strength) and hippios, because he was considered as having been the first to introduce the use of horses.

In the Romanian folk reminiscences he is just a simple “old-man hero”, a personality with a purely historic character, while in the legends of Hellada he is a mythological figure (borrowed therefore from other more remote lands), a divinity who dominates the Pontos (Pontomedon) and the great commercial waterways, which explains the respect and honours which he enjoyed in Greek lands.

In Italy Poseidon was honoured under the name of Neptunus. The Roman authors can’t tell us though, which was the origin of this name, although its form is old Latin.

Varro (L. L. V. 72) tries to derive this name from nuptus (wrapping), since nuptiae (wedding), a wrong etymology, because the Roman literati had generally neglected to study the folkloric traditions. But regarding the origin of the name Neptunus, and the old history of this divinity of the waters, so much worshipped in Greece and the Ionian islands, it is very important to note that in Romanian traditional songs about “Dragan” and “old Stan”, the epithet “Nepotul” occurs constantly as part of their names. Either “Dragan from Baragan” is “nepotul of mos Stan”, or “Stan from Baragan” is “nepotul of mos Dragan”. So we have here the elements of an old historical tradition, anterior to the migration of the Latin tribes towards Italy]

And we even have a song fragment in which Iorgovan (Hercules), Dragan (Dercunos) and Iorguta Roscovan (Geryon), these illustrious representatives of the old wars, whose names had once echoed far and wide in the Pelasgian world, are mentioned all together.

Historic traditions about Dercunos or Dragan existed also with the Pelasgians from the western parts of Europe.

With Virgil, Dercennus is one of the old kings of Latium, before Latinus. The mound under which he was buried formed an enormous hill covered in shady oaks (Aen. XI. 849-851).

The Greek authors had altered though the name of the hero Dragan (Dercunos). But we find a more correct form with the poet Avienus (Ora maritma, v. 196-198). He mentions the Ligiens and the descendants of the Dragani (Draganes pl.), whose dwellings were in the region abundant in snow, or the lands of Scythia. These reminiscences found in Virgil’s and Avienus’ poems, about an old king or hero named Dercennus or Draganes, attest that the legendary events which form the cycle of Hercules - Geryon – Dercunos, come from an epoch when the migration of the Pelasgian tribes from the Carpathians towards the western lands was not yet finished.

The island Rusava (old Erythia), in the bed of the Danube, upstream from the Iron Gates.

(Urechia, Ist. Rom. Tom. III - from an 18^th century engraving).

We’ve presented here the legends and geographical traditions of the ancients, regarding the island Erythia, from near the Columns of Hercules.

And we have yet another precious archaeological document about the identity of this island, Erythia, identical with the island Rusava from the straits of the Danube, beyond the Iron Gates.

On a bas-relief discovered in Cyprus at Athienau, which once had decorated the pedestal of a colossal statue of Hercules, is represented the scene of the theft of the herds of Geryon from the island Erythia.

This monument presents an exceptional importance for the identification of Erythia island with the island called today Rusava.

Bas-relief discovered at Athienau in Cyprus, representing the tenth labor of Hercules, or the theft of Geryon’s herds from the island of Erythia, Rusava of today (Ceccaldi “Monuments antiques de Cypre). On the left is represented Hercules, on the moment of alighting on the lower end of the island, wearing on his back the skin of the Nemeic lion, whose tail hangs behind his legs. The upper part of the body and the head are efaced. His right arm, which is partly visible, is bent upwards. The hero draws his bow and shoots an arrow towards the three headed guarding dog Orthros, which is threatening him. Eurythion, Geryon’s herdsman, hastens to drive the herds of oxen, cows and calves to the upper end of the island, to cross with them to the nearest bank. With his left hand he holds tightly at his chest the oleander, the holy tree of the island, which he has uprooted and taken with him, in order to prevent Hercules from stealing it. With his right arm he makes a threatening gesture towards Hercules, implying that for this sacrilege punishment will follow. Beyond and in front of the band representing the island, the artist shows two other bands, with an almost smooth surface, which represent the calm waters of the Danube. In the background, at the edge of the water, the nearby mountains are represented in contours, with the same shapes as have the heights existing today on the southern bank of the Danube, in front of Rusava island.

Actual view of Rusava island, ancient Erythia.

In the background is the same group of mountains represented on the bas-relief from Cyprus.

(TN – The island called Rusava, or Ada-Kaleh, after it was settled by Turks, has disappeared under the Danube’s waters in 1972, as a result of the building of the great Iron Gates hydroelectric dam).

The artist of Cyprus shows in this sculpture not only the longish shape of the island, as described by the ancients (Pliny, H. N. IV. s. 35), but he depicts at the same time the terrain on the opposite side of the island, across the water.

In the background is represented with contours the whole group of mountains which complete the natural aspect of the island Erythia. There is an astonishing similarity with the real perspective presented even today by the hills and mountains in the vicinity of this island.

So, the geographical problem of the famous Erythia island, a problem so difficult for the ancients, is today completely elucidated.

The island Erythia, situated in the old Oceanos potamos from the north of Thrace, appears, from traditions, from the most believable geographical descriptions, as well as from the chorographic image presented by the bas-relief from Cypros, as being one and the same with the island Rusava inside the famous straits of the Danube, upstream from the Iron Gates.

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