Canae

Not to be confused with Cannae or Cana.

39°2′N 26°48′E

Canae Κάναι
Location within Turkey
Place in the Roman world
Province	Asia
Nearby water	Aegean Sea (Dikili Gulf)
Events	Battle of Arginusae
Location
Coordinates	39°2′19″N 26°48′53″E
Place name	Kane Promontory (Cane)
Town	Bademli
County	İzmir
State	Dikili District
Country	Turkey
Site notes
Discovery year	2015

Canae /ˈkeɪ.niː/ (Ancient Greek: Κάναι; Turkish: Kane) was, in classical antiquity, a city in ancient Aeolis, on the island of Argennusa in the Aegean Sea off the modern Dikili Peninsula on the coast of modern-day Turkey, near the modern village of Bademli.^[1][2] Today Argennusa has joined the mainland as the Kane Promontory off the Dikili Peninsula. Canae is famous as the site of the Battle of Arginusae in 406 B.C.^[1][3][4]

Canae is mentioned by the ancient writers Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Livy, Ptolemy, Sappho, Thucydides, and Mela.^[5][6]

History

According to the first-century Greek geographer Strabo, Canae was founded by Locrians coming from Cynus in eastern Greece.^[5][7] Canae was built on the island of Argennusa (also spelt Arginusa), beside a small promontory hill variously called Mount Cane /ˈkeɪ.niː/ (Ancient Greek: Κάνη), Aega /ˈiːɡə/ (Αἰγᾶ), or Argennon /ɑːrˈdʒɛnən/ (Ἄργεννον).^[5][7][8] The name Canae (Κάναι) means "(city) of Mount Cane"; the district that included Argennusa and the neighboring two islands of Garip and Kalem was called Canaea.^[5]

According to the 5th-century B.C. Greek historian Herodotus, the massive Achaemenid army of Xerxes I passed Mount Cane on its way from Sardis to the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.^[5][9][10]

During the Peloponnesian War, an Athenian fleet commanded by eight strategoi unexpectedly defeated a Spartan fleet under Callicratidas off the coast of Canae in 406 B.C. in the Battle of Arginusae.^[6]

During the Roman–Seleucid War, fought between the Roman Republic and Antiochus the Great in 192–188 B.C., the Roman navy wintered in Canae on their way to Chios.^[5] Livy writes that "the ships were hauled on shore and surrounded with a trench and rampart."^[11]

By the time of Pliny the Elder in the first century A.D., the city was deserted.^[5][12]

Archaeology

See also

• Arginusae
• Battle of Arginusae
• List of ancient Greek cities