{"title":"Theches: an elusive mountain","authors":"Shane Brennan, Christopher J. Tuplin","doi":"10.1017/S0066154623000054","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article deals with the location of Mount Theches, the vantage point from which Xenophon’s Ten Thousand famously got their first sight of the sea after a long and arduous march across eastern Anatolia. It discusses what the written sources can and cannot tell us about this iconic spot, comments on the currently favoured identification (stressing its dependence on an assumption about the route the army followed to and from the vantage point), and presents three other places that can come into contention if different assumptions are made about the route. The aim is not to insist that one or other of these is the correct solution but rather to underline the point that, since we do not (and are never likely to) know how the Ten Thousand approached Theches, and since there are many points in the Pontic Mountains behind Trabzon from which the sea can be glimpsed in the far distance, the identity of Theches is a problem that does not admit of more than conjectural solution. This prompts broader reflections on the textual and the topographical, and the relationship between landscape and narrative.","PeriodicalId":45130,"journal":{"name":"Anatolian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Anatolian Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0066154623000054","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ARCHAEOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This article deals with the location of Mount Theches, the vantage point from which Xenophon’s Ten Thousand famously got their first sight of the sea after a long and arduous march across eastern Anatolia. It discusses what the written sources can and cannot tell us about this iconic spot, comments on the currently favoured identification (stressing its dependence on an assumption about the route the army followed to and from the vantage point), and presents three other places that can come into contention if different assumptions are made about the route. The aim is not to insist that one or other of these is the correct solution but rather to underline the point that, since we do not (and are never likely to) know how the Ten Thousand approached Theches, and since there are many points in the Pontic Mountains behind Trabzon from which the sea can be glimpsed in the far distance, the identity of Theches is a problem that does not admit of more than conjectural solution. This prompts broader reflections on the textual and the topographical, and the relationship between landscape and narrative.
期刊介绍:
Anatolian Studies contains articles focused on Turkey and the Black Sea littoral in all academic disciplines within the arts, humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences as related to human occupation and history. Articles are in English and are accessible to a wide academic readership. Anatolian Studies is a refereed journal.