Caicus also Caïcus (Greek: Καϊκος or Καϊκός, transliterated as Kaïkos, formerly Astraeus or Astræus) is the ancient name of a river of Asia Minor that rises in the Temnus mountains and flows through Lydia, Mysia, and Aeolis before debouching into the Elaeatic Gulf. (Herodotus vi. 28; vii. 42). [[1]] The modern, Turkish name of the river is Bakırçay (formerly the Ak-su, Aksou, and Bakır), and it is located in the Asian part of Turkey. Transliteration in a narrow sense is a mapping from one script into another script. ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολη anatole, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey. ... Lydia (disambiguation) Lydia is a historic region of western Anatolia, congruent with Turkeys modern provinces of Ä°zmir and Manisa. ... Mysia. ... Aeolis (Aiolis) or Aeolia (Aiolia) was an area in west and northwest Asia Minor, mostly along the coast and offshore islands (particularly Lesbos), where the Aeolian Greek city-states were located. ... Bust of Herodotus at Naples Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: , Herodotos) was a historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ...

The river is first mentioned by Hesiod (Theog. 343), who, as well as the other poets, fixes the quantity of the penultimate syllable. Plutarch relates that the name of the river was originally Astraeus (Astræus) but was changed after Caicus, a son of Hermes, threw himself into it. [[2]] Hesiod (Hesiodos, ), the early Greek poet and rhapsode, presumably lived around 700 BCE. Historians have debated the priority of Hesiod or of Homer, and some authors have even brought them together in an imagined poetic contest. ... Plutarch Mestrius Plutarchus (c. ... Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles Hermes (Greek IPA ), in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general, of liars, and of...

Strabo (p. 616) says that the sources of the Caicus are in a plain, which plain is separated by the range of Temnus from the plain of Apiae (Apia), and that the plain of Apia lies above the plain of Thebe in the interior. He adds, there also flows from Tetanus a river Mysius, which joins the Caicus below its source. The Caicus enters the sea approximately 12 km from Pitane, and 3 km from Elaea (Elæa). Elaea was the port of Pergamum, which was on the Caicus, approximately 25 km from Elaea. (Strab. p. 615.) At the source of the Caicus, according to Strabo, was a place called Gergitha. the Greek georgapher Strabo, in a 16th‑century engraving. ... Elaea (Greek: Ελαία) can refer to several different items in ancient geography. ... Pergamon or Pergamum (modern day Bergama in Turkey) was a Greek city, in northwestern Anatolia, 16 miles from the Aegean Sea, located on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus (modern day Bakir), that became an important kingdom during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 282...

The course of this river has undoubtedly changed since antiquity; nor is it easy to assign the proper ancient names to the branches in the ordinary maps. Leake (Asia Minor, p. 269) infers from the direction of L. Scipio's march (Liv. xxxvii. 37) from Troy to the Hyrcanian plain, that the north-eastern branch of the river of Pergamum (Bergama or Beryma) which flows by Menduria (possibly Gergitha) and Balikesri (Caesareia) is that which was anciently called Caicus; and he makes the Mysius join it on the right bank. The Caicus as it seems is formed by two streams which meet between 50 and 65 km above its mouth, and it drains an extensive and fertile country. William Martin Leake (January 14, 1777 - January 6, 1860), British antiquarian and topographer, was born in London. ... Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus (2nd century BC) was a Roman general and statesman. ... Walls of the excavated city of Troy Troy (Ancient Greek Τροία Troia, also Ίλιον; Latin: Troia, Ilium) is a legendary city, scene of the Trojan War, described in the Trojan War cycle, especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. ... Gorgan (گرگان); Hyrcania ; Hyrcana (Old Persian Varkâna, land of wolves; modern Persian Gorgan): part of the ancient Persian empire, on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea (present day Golestan, Mazandaran, Gilan and parts of Turkmenistan). ...

References

• Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, "Stratoniceia", London, (1854)

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography by William Smith (1857). Sir William Smith (1813 - 1893), English lexicographer, was born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents. ... The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, published in 1854, was the last a series of classical dictionaries edited by the english scholar William Smith (1813–1893), which included as sister works the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. ... This article is about the British city. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, published in 1854, was the last a series of classical dictionaries edited by the english scholar William Smith (1813–1893), which included as sister works the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. ... Sir William Smith (1813 - 1893), English lexicographer, was born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents. ...