Ancient Names/Modern Equivalents (also know the location of these places)

1. Ancient Names/Modern Equivalents (also know the location of these places) MarshLatin.wordpress.com

2. AeliaCapitolina (Hierosolyma)/ Jerusalem (Israel) • Capitolina (Latin in full: Colonia AeliaCapitolina) was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.

3. 2. AquaeSextiae /Aix-en-Provence (France) • Aix (AquaeSextiae) was founded in 123 BC by theRomanconsulSextiusCalvinus, who gave his name to its springs, following the destruction of the nearby Gallic oppidum at Entremont. • In 102 BC its neighbourhood was the scene of the Battle of AquaeSextiae when Romans under Gaius Marius defeated  theCimbriandTeutones, with mass suicides among the captured women, which passed into Roman legends of Germanic heroism.

4. 3. AquaeSulis /Bath (Britain) • The Great Bath. Everything above the level of the pillar bases is of a later date. • For the Roman Baths complex at AquaeSulis, seeRoman Baths (Bath).AquaeSulis was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is known as Bath, located in the English county of Somerset.

5. 4. Aquincum /Budapest (Hungary) • Aquincum was situated on the North-Eastern borders of the Pannonia province within the Roman Empire. The ruins of the city can be found today inBudapest, the capital city of Hungary. It is believed that Marcus Aurelius may have written at least part of his book Meditations at Aquincum

6. 5. Arausio /Orange (France) • Roman Orange was founded in 35 BC by veterans of the Second legion as  Arausio  (after the local Celtic water god), or Colonia Julia Firma SecundanorumArausio in full, "the Julian colony of Arausio established by the soldiers of the second legion." The name was originally unrelated to that of the orange fruit, but was later conflated with it.

7. 6. Augusta Treverorum Trier (Germany) • Romans under Julius Caesar first subdued the Treveri in 58 to 50 BC. • No later than 16 BC, at the foot of the hill later christened the Petrisberg, upon which a military camp had been set up in 30 BC • The Romans founded the city of Augusta Treverorum ("City of Augustus in the land of the Treveri")  which has a claim to being the oldest city in Germany.

8. 7. Byzantium (Constantinople) Istanbul (Turkey) • Byzantium was the ancient Greek city on the site that later became Constantinople (modern Istanbul). • It was founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 657 BC. The city was rebuilt and reinaugurated as the new capital of the Roman Empire by EmperorConstantine I in 330 AD and subsequently renamed to Constantinople. • The city remained the capital of the Byzantine Empire until 1453, when it was conquered and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

9. 8. Caledonia Scotland • Caledonia is the Latin name given by the Romansto the land in today's Scotland north of theirprovince of Britannia, beyond the frontier of theirempire. The etymology of the name is probably from a P-Celtic source. Its modern usage is as a romantic or poetic name for Scotland as a whole, comparable with Hibernia for Ireland and Britanniafor the whole of Britain.

10. 9. Carrhae Haran (Turkey) • Carrhae was a major ancient city inUpper Mesopotamia whose site is near the modern village of Altınbaşak, Turkey, 24 miles (44 kilometers) southeast of Şanlıurfa. The location is ina district of Şanlıurfa Province that is also named "Harran".

11. 10. Carthago /Carthage (Tunisia) • Carthage is a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia, with a population of 20,715 (2004 census), and was the centre of the Carthaginian Empire in antiquity. The city has existed for nearly 3,000 years, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC into the capital of an ancient empire.

12. 11. Carthago Nova /Cartagena (Spain) • Cartagena has been inhabited for over two millennia, being founded around 227 BC during thePhoenician conquest as QartHadasht. • The city lived its heyday during the Roman Empire, when it was known as Carthago Nova (the New Carthage) and CarthagoSpartaria, capital of the province ofCarthaginensis.

13. 12. Colonia Agrippina Cologne (Germany) • Colonia Claudia AraAgrippinensium was the Roman colony in theRhineland from which the Germancity of Colognedeveloped. • It was the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and the headquarters of the military in the region. • With the administrative reforms under Diocletian, it became the capital ofGermaniaSecunda. 

14. 13. Colonia Camulodunum Colchester (Britain) • Camulodunum is the Roman name for the ancient settlement which is today's Colchester, a town inEssex, England. • Camulodunum is claimed to be the oldest town in Britain as recorded by the Romans, existing as a Celtic settlement before theRoman conquest, when it became the first Roman town, and eventually a settlement of discharged Roman soldiers, known as Colonia Claudia Victricensis.

15. 14. Corcyra /Corfu (Greece) • Korkyra (Greek: Κόρκυρα) was an ancient Greek city on the island of Corfu in the Ionian sea, adjacent to Epirus.  • It was a colony of Corinth, founded in the archaic period. According toThucydides, the earliest recorded naval battle took place between Korkyra and Corinth, roughly 260 years before he was writing- and thus in the middle of the seventh century BC.

16. 15. Eburacum/ York (Britain) • The first known recorded mention of Eboracum by name is dated circa 95-104 AD and is an address containing the Latin form of the settlement's name, "Eburaci", on a wooden stylus tablet from the Roman fortress of Vindolanda in what is now the modern Northumberland.  • During the Roman period, the name was also written in the formEboracum and Eburacum.

17. 16. Emerita Augusta /Merida (Spain) • The roman colony ofEmerita Augusta(current dayMérida) was founded in 25 BC byOctavius Augustus, to resettle emeritus soldiers discharged from the Roman army from two veteran legions of the Cantabrian Wars: Legio V Alaudae and Legio X Gemina. • The city was the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. The term emeritus meant in latin "retired" and referred to retired soldiers with honor.

18. 17. Etruria /Tuscany (Italy) • Etruria —usually referred to in Greek and Latinsource texts as Tyrrhenia (Greek: Τυρρηνία) —was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, andUmbria

19. 18. Gades/ Cadiz (Spain) • Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of Cádiz province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. • Cadiz, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Spain and one of the oldest in all southwestern Europe • The city was originally founded as Gadir by the Phoenicians from Tyre

20. 19. Gallia /France • encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of the Gaulish language (an early variety of Celtic) native to Gaul. 

21. 20. Glevum Gloucester (Britain) • Glevensium, or occasionally  Glouvia) was aRoman fort in Roman Britain that become "colonia" of retired legionaries in AD 97. Today it is known asGloucester, located in the English county ofGloucestershire. • Glevum was established around AD 48 as a market centre at an important crossing of the River Severnand near to the Fosse Way one of the importantRoman roads in Britain.

22. 21. Halicarnassus/ Bodrum (Turkey) • Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was part of the Persian Empire until captured byAlexander the Great at the siege of Halicarnassusin 334 BC.

23. 22. Hellespontus /Dardanelles (Turkey) • Dardanelles is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting theAegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of theTurkish Straits, along with its counterpart theBosphorus • Like the Bosphorus, it separates Europe (theGallipoli peninsula) from the mainland of Asia. The strait is an international waterway, and together with the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

24. 23. Helvetia/ Switzerland • Helvetiais the femalenational personification of Switzerland, officially Confœderatio Helvetica, the "Helvetic Confederation". • The allegory is typically pictured in a flowing gown, with a spear and a shield emblazoned with the Swiss flag, and commonly withbraided hair. 

25. 24. Hibernia/ Ireland • Hibernia is the Classical Latin name for the island ofIreland. The name Hibernia was taken from Greek geographical accounts. • The Roman historian Tacitus, in his bookAgricola (c. 98 AD), uses the name Hibernia. The Romans also sometimes used Scotia, "land of theScoti", as a geographical term for Ireland in general, as well as just the part inhabited by those people.

26. 25. (H)iberus /Ebro River (Spain) • The Greeks and theRomans called it the Hiber, the Iber, or IberusFlumen, leading to its current name. The Iberian peninsula and the Hibēri or Ibēri (the people of the area) were named after the river. • Inantiquity, the Ebro was used as the dividing line between Roman (north) and Carthaginian (south) expansions after the First Punic War (264-241 BC). When Rome, fearful of Hannibal's growing influence in the Iberian Peninsula, made the city of Saguntum(considerably south of the Ebro) a protectorate of Rome, Hannibal viewed the treaty as an aggressive action by Rome and used the event as the catalyst to the Second Punic War.

27. 26. Hispania/ Spain • Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania CiteriorandHispania Ulterior. • During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baeticaand Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamedTarraconensis. • The western part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova, later renamed Callaecia (or Gallaecia, whence modern Galicia). 

28. 27. Lugdunum Lyons (France) • Colonia Copia Claudia Augusta Lugdunum(modern: Lyon, France) was an important Roman city in Gaul. The city was founded in 43 BC by LuciusMunatiusPlancus. It served as the capital of the Roman province Gallia Lugdunensis. • For 300 years after its foundation, Lugdunum was the most important city in the western part of the Roman Empire after Rome. • Two emperors, Claudius(Germanicus) and Caracalla, were born in Lugdunum.

29. 28. Lusitania Portugal • Lusitania (Portuguese: Lusitânia, Spanish:Lusitania) or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain  • It was named after the LusitaniorLusitanian people (an Indo-European people). Its capital was Emerita Augusta (currently Mérida, Spain), and it was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior, before becoming a province of its own in the Roman Empire. • Romans first came to the territory around the mid 2nd century BC. A war with Lusitanian tribes followed, from 155 to 139 BC. In 27 BC, the province was created.

30. 29. Lutetia /Paris (France) • Lutetia (also LutetiaParisiorum in Latin, Lukotekiabefore, in French Lutèce) was a town in pre-Roman and Roman Gaul. The Gallo-Roman city was a forerunner of the re-established Merovingian town that is the ancestor of present-day Paris.

31. 30. Massilia/ Marseille (France) • Marseille has been called the oldest city in France, as it was founded in 600 BC by Greeks fromPhocaea as a trading port • Massalia was one of the first Greek ports in Western Europe, growing to a population of over 1000. It was the first settlement given city statusin France. • Facing an opposing alliance of theEtruscans,Carthage and theCelts, the Greek colony allied itself with the expanding Roman Republic for protection.

32. 31. Mediolanum Milan (Italy) • Mediolanum, the ancient Milan, was an importantRoman city in northern Italy. • Mediolanum appears to have been founded around 600 BC by the Celtic Insubres, after whom this region of northern Italy was called Insubria. • The Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the Insubres and captured the city in 222 BC. • The chief of the Insubres submitted to Rome, giving the Romans control of the city

33. 32. Neapolis /Naples (Italy) • Naples  (Latin: Neapolis; Ancient Greek:  Νεάπολις, meaning "new city") is the capital of Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy, after Rome and Milan.  • Naples is one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world. Bronze Age Greek settlements were established on the site in the 2nd millennium BC,[5] with a larger mainland colony – initially known as Parthenope – developing around the 9th–8th centuries BC, at the end of the Greek Dark Ages

34. 33. Nemausus/ Nimes (France) • Nîmes became a Roman colony sometime before 28 BC, as witnessed by the earliest coins, which bear the abbreviation NEM. COL, "Colony of Nemausus".  • Some years later a sanctuary and other constructions connected with the fountain were raised on the site. • Nîmes was already under Roman influence, though it was Augustus who made the city the capital ofNarbonne province, and gave it all its glory.

35. 34. Nicaea /Nice (France) • Nice (Nicaea) was probably founded around 350 BC by the Greeks of Massilia (Marseille), and was given the name of Νικαία ("Nikaia") in honour of a victory over the neighbouringLigurians (Nike is theGreek goddess of victory). The city soon became one of the busiest trading ports on the Ligurian coast;

36. 35. Oea /Tripoli (Libya) • The city was founded in the 7th century BC, by thePhoenicians, who gave it the Libyco-Berber name Oea (or Wy't), suggesting that the city may have been built upon an existing native town. • The Phoenicians were probably attracted to the site by its natural harbor, flanked on the western shore by the small, easily defensible peninsula, on which they established their colony.

37. 36. Olisipo/ Lisbon (Portugal) • MunicipiumCivesRomanorumFelicitas Julia Olisipo (in Latin: Olisippo or Ulyssippo) was the ancient name of modern day Lisbon while part of the Roman Empire. • During the Punic wars, after the defeat of Hannibal the Romans decided to deprive Carthage in its most valuable possession, Hispania. After the defeat of the Carthaginians by Scipio Africanus in Eastern Hispania, the pacification of the West was led by Consul DecimusJunius Brutus Callaicus.

38. 37. Padus /Po River (Italy) • The Po river is first certainly identified in the Graeco-Roman historians and geographers of the late Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire, long after the valley had been occupied successively by prehistoric and historic peoples:Ligures, Etruscans, Celts, Veneti, Umbri, and Romans. • Pliny (Hist. Nat., iii. 122) also gives the Ligurian name of the Po river as Bodincus, which he translates as "bottomless". 

39. 38. Patavium/ Padua (Italy) • Patavium is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. • Padua claims to be the oldest city in northern Italy. According to a tradition dated at least to Virgil's Aeneid, and rediscovered by the medieval commune, it was founded in 1183 BC by the Trojan prince Antenor, who was supposed to have led the people of Eneti or Veneti from Paphlagonia to Italy. 

40. 39. Philadelphia /Amman (Jordan) • In the 13th century BC Amman was called RabbathAmmonorRabatAmon by theAmmonites. • In the Hebrew Bible, it is referred to as RabbatAmmonIt was later conquered by the Assyrians, followed by thePersians, and then theMacedonians.  • Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Macedonian ruler of Egypt, renamed itPhiladelphia. • The city became part of the Nabataean kingdom until 106 AD when Philadelphia came under Roman control and joined the Decapolis

41. 40. Pontus Euxinus /Black Sea • For the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the 'Hospitable sea', EuxeinosPontos (ΕὔξεινοςΠόντος). • This is aeuphemism replacing an earlier 'Inhospitable Sea',PontosAxeinos, first attested in Pindar (early fifth century BCE,~475 BC). • Strabo (7.3.6) thinks that the Black Sea was called "inhospitable" before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. • The name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline, the Pontus, making it part of Greek civilization.

42. 41. Propontis /Sea of Marmora • Marmara also is known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis. • It is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separatingTurkey's Asian and European parts. • The Bosphorusstrait connects it to the Black Sea and theDardanelles strait to the Aegean. • The former also separates Istanbul into its Asian and European sides.

43. 42. Rhenus /Rhine River (Germany) • The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. It has also served as a defensive feature and has been the basis for regional and international borders. • Nearly all the classical sources mention the Rhine and the name is always the same: Rhenus in Latin or Rheonis in Greek. The Romans viewed the Rhine as the outermost border of civilization and reason, beyond which were mythical creatures and wild Germanic tribesmen, not far themselves from being beasts of the wilderness they inhabited.

44. 43. Rhodanus /Rhone River (France) • The Rhone is one of the majorrivers of Europe, rising in Switzerland and running from there through southeastern France. At Arles, near its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea. • The Rhone has been an important highway since the times of the Greeksand Romans. It was the main trade route from the Mediterranean to east-central Gaul

45. 44. Sequana Seine River (France) • The name "Seine" comes from the Latin Sequana. • The Seine (French: La Seine, pronounced: [la sɛn]) is a 776 km (482 mi)-long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France.

46. 45. Serdica /Sofia (Bulgaria) • Sofia was originally a Thracian settlement calledSerdica or Sardica tribe Serdi that had populated it. For a short period during the 4th century B.C., the city was possessed by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. • The city was destroyed by the Huns in 447, but was rebuilt by Byzantine Emperor Justinian and renamed Triaditsa. Although also often destroyed by the Slavs, the town remained under Byzantine dominion until 809.

47. 46. Smyrna /Izmir (Turkey) • Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. • Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. • The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey. The first site, probably founded indigenously, rose to prominence during the Archaic Period as one of the principal ancient Greek settlements in western Anatolia. • The second, whose foundation is associated withAlexander the Great, reached metropolitan proportions during the period of the Roman Empire. • Most of the present-day remains date from the Roman era, the majority from after a 2nd century AD earthquake.

48. 47. Thapsus /RasDimas (Tunisia) • Thapsus or Thapsoswas an ancient city in what is modern day Tunisia. Its ruins exist at Ras Dimas near Bekalta, approximately 200 km southeast ofCarthage. Originally founded by Phoenicians, it served as a marketplace on the coast of the province Byzacena in Africa Propria. Thapsus was established near a salt lake on a point of land eighty stadia (14.8 km) from the island ofLampedusa. • In 46 BC, Julius Caesar defeated MetellusScipioand the Numidian King Juba with a tremendous loss of men near Thapsus (see Battle of Thapsus). Caesar exacted a payment of 50,000 sestercesfrom the vanquished. Their defeat marked the end of opposition to Caesar in Africa. Thapsus then became a Roman colony.

49. 48. Tomi/ Constanta (Romania) • Constanța,historically known as Tomisis the oldest extant city in Romania. It was founded around 600 BC.  • Tomis (also called Tomi) was a Greek colony in the province of Scythia Minor on the Black Sea shore, founded around 600 BC for commercial exchanges with the local Getic populations. The name may likely be derived from Greek Τομή meaning cutpiece, section. T

50. 49. TyrusTyre (Lebanon)