Road station

Melantum

Mündung des Melet Irmak · Melet Irmağı

Melantum takes its name from the river Melanthios, the Melet Irmak, which reaches the Black Sea near Ordu; Pliny and Arrian know only the river, not a settlement at its mouth. That has prompted the suggestion that the mapmaker, working from a sailing guide, simply took river mouths for road stations. Yet medieval sea charts and route lists name a place by the ford, Schifi or Squify, perhaps the station's successor. On the map the road line stops short of the next name, Polemonio, apparently because the copyist hesitated to draw through its lettering.

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