Dracanum

Dracanum (Greek Drakanon) on the island of Kos near Samos was one of the sites that disputed with Thebes in mainland Greece for the site of the birth of Dionysus, according to the fragmentary Homeric Hymn, which commences

"For some say it was at Drakanon, others on wind-swept Ikaros, and some say on Naxos, Heaven-born, Eiraphiotes,[1] but others by the deep-eddying river Alpheios, that Semele conceived and bore you to Zeus who delights in thunder. And others, lord, say that you were born in Thebes; but they are lying, for the father of men and gods bore you far away from men, hiding you from white-armed Hera. There is a certain Nysa, a very high mountain blooming with forests, far from Phoenike, near the streams of Aigyptos..." (Shelmerdine translation) [2]

The geographer Strabo[3] reports the "small town Dracanum, bearing the same name as the promontory on which it is situated and having near by a place of anchorage."

Notes

  1. ↑ Eiraphiotes: "Insewn". Dionysus, in Olympian myth, was sewn into the thigh of Zeus, who brought the prematurely delivered infant to term.
  2. ↑ These fragmentary lines are preserved in a quote by Diodorus Siculus, 3.66.3, who attributes them to Homer himself. "All these sites boasted connections with the worship of Dionysos in antiquity," observes Susan C. Shelmerdine, The Homeric Hymns (Focus Classical Library), 2000: 27
  3. ↑ Strabo, Book 14


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