110
pelagos, and pontos all rendered as ‘sea’ in translation, without further comment.
Can we do better, such as by reserving ‘sea’ for one of the three and devising phrases
for the others, or by reviving less familiar English terms?
Thalassa is by far the commonest word, and is used differently from the others.
One may say in Greek, for example, that imperial Athens was powerful ‘by land and
by thalassa’ but not ‘by land and by pontos’ or ‘by pelagos’. Likewise, while
Herodotos once refers to ‘the thalassa of the Euxeinos Pontos’ (2. 33. 4) and the
poet Apollonios of Rhodes uses the phrase ‘pelagos of the thalassa’ (Argonautika,
2. 608), neither of those phrases would work the other way round. Perhaps significantly, thalassa is commonly derived from ἅλς (hals), ‘salt’, suggesting a mass of a
particular substance.
Pelagos, the second most common term for ‘sea’, is etymologically linked by
LSJ to Latin plaga in the sense of ‘region, quarter, tract’. So ‘open sea’ or ‘wide sea’
would make sense (rather as in the modern term ‘pelagic’, meaning belonging to the
deep or open sea). Whereas ‘wide’ is sometimes applied in Greek to pontos, ‘open
sea’ would be a distinctively English usage. It is a little awkward when a specific
place-name stands before it, such as the Sikelikon (Sicilian) or Ikarikon (Icarian)
pelagos; but the phrase could in these cases be hyphenated if necessary, as in ‘the
Sicilian open-sea’.
In contrast, the Brill dictionary links pontos to Latin pons, ‘bridge’, and Sanskrit
pánthāḥ, ‘path’, ‘way’, ‘means’; it seems that, at least originally, it connoted passage or movement. The term ‘seaway’ might thus be used, but its meaning in modern English is sometimes too specific (equivalent to ‘sea lane’), alternatively
denoting a rough sea or the space one vessel in motion must allow to another (cf.
‘leeway’, ‘sea room’). There is the additional complication that our Black sea
19
is
the Greeks’ ‘Euxeinos Pontos’, also called simply ‘Pontos’ or indeed ‘Euxeinos’
(Euxine in English), which it would seem strange to designate a ‘seaway’. In default
of ready alternatives, the practical compromise may thus be to use ‘main’, which
despite its old-fashioned overtones is listed in the two modern editions of Roget
cited above.
20
I have previously employed ‘main’ for pelagos in my edition of Ps.Skylax’s Periplous (Circumnavigation).
21
It happens that pontos as a common noun
is often (among the geographers) employed in poetry (Homeric Catalogue of Ships;
Dionysios Periegetes), as ‘main’ has been in English verse (originally as an abbreviation of ‘main sea’).
22
19 In not capitalizing ‘sea’ in names of this kind, I follow the practice of the revisers of Pliny the
Elder’s books on geography in the Loeb Classical Library, as set out in Talbert 2020.
20 COD
11 (Stevenson and Waite 2011) defines main
1 , sense 3, thus: ‘(the main) archaic or literary the open ocean’. Despite a common assumption, the meaning does not necessarily derive from
the phrase ‘the Spanish Main’, where ‘main’ in fact appears to be short for ‘mainland’, denoting
the former Spanish imperial territories in the western Atlantic.
21 Shipley 2011 ~
2 Shipley 2019; e.g. at §15 ‘the Tyrrhenian main’, §58. 4 ‘the Aigaion (Aegean)
main’, §66. 3 ‘stretching up into the main’ (of a peninsula).
22 Oxford English Dictionary (3rd edition, 2000; consulted on line 5 July 2020), ‘main’, sense I.5.a,
citing i.a. Tennyson, The Princess (1847), ‘to gaze O’er land and main’.
D. G. J. Shipley
pelagos, and pontos all rendered as ‘sea’ in translation, without further comment.
Can we do better, such as by reserving ‘sea’ for one of the three and devising phrases
for the others, or by reviving less familiar English terms?
Thalassa is by far the commonest word, and is used differently from the others.
One may say in Greek, for example, that imperial Athens was powerful ‘by land and
by thalassa’ but not ‘by land and by pontos’ or ‘by pelagos’. Likewise, while
Herodotos once refers to ‘the thalassa of the Euxeinos Pontos’ (2. 33. 4) and the
poet Apollonios of Rhodes uses the phrase ‘pelagos of the thalassa’ (Argonautika,
2. 608), neither of those phrases would work the other way round. Perhaps significantly, thalassa is commonly derived from ἅλς (hals), ‘salt’, suggesting a mass of a
particular substance.
Pelagos, the second most common term for ‘sea’, is etymologically linked by
LSJ to Latin plaga in the sense of ‘region, quarter, tract’. So ‘open sea’ or ‘wide sea’
would make sense (rather as in the modern term ‘pelagic’, meaning belonging to the
deep or open sea). Whereas ‘wide’ is sometimes applied in Greek to pontos, ‘open
sea’ would be a distinctively English usage. It is a little awkward when a specific
place-name stands before it, such as the Sikelikon (Sicilian) or Ikarikon (Icarian)
pelagos; but the phrase could in these cases be hyphenated if necessary, as in ‘the
Sicilian open-sea’.
In contrast, the Brill dictionary links pontos to Latin pons, ‘bridge’, and Sanskrit
pánthāḥ, ‘path’, ‘way’, ‘means’; it seems that, at least originally, it connoted passage or movement. The term ‘seaway’ might thus be used, but its meaning in modern English is sometimes too specific (equivalent to ‘sea lane’), alternatively
denoting a rough sea or the space one vessel in motion must allow to another (cf.
‘leeway’, ‘sea room’). There is the additional complication that our Black sea
19
is
the Greeks’ ‘Euxeinos Pontos’, also called simply ‘Pontos’ or indeed ‘Euxeinos’
(Euxine in English), which it would seem strange to designate a ‘seaway’. In default
of ready alternatives, the practical compromise may thus be to use ‘main’, which
despite its old-fashioned overtones is listed in the two modern editions of Roget
cited above.
20
I have previously employed ‘main’ for pelagos in my edition of Ps.Skylax’s Periplous (Circumnavigation).
21
It happens that pontos as a common noun
is often (among the geographers) employed in poetry (Homeric Catalogue of Ships;
Dionysios Periegetes), as ‘main’ has been in English verse (originally as an abbreviation of ‘main sea’).
22
19 In not capitalizing ‘sea’ in names of this kind, I follow the practice of the revisers of Pliny the
Elder’s books on geography in the Loeb Classical Library, as set out in Talbert 2020.
20 COD
11 (Stevenson and Waite 2011) defines main
1 , sense 3, thus: ‘(the main) archaic or literary the open ocean’. Despite a common assumption, the meaning does not necessarily derive from
the phrase ‘the Spanish Main’, where ‘main’ in fact appears to be short for ‘mainland’, denoting
the former Spanish imperial territories in the western Atlantic.
21 Shipley 2011 ~
2 Shipley 2019; e.g. at §15 ‘the Tyrrhenian main’, §58. 4 ‘the Aigaion (Aegean)
main’, §66. 3 ‘stretching up into the main’ (of a peninsula).
22 Oxford English Dictionary (3rd edition, 2000; consulted on line 5 July 2020), ‘main’, sense I.5.a,
citing i.a. Tennyson, The Princess (1847), ‘to gaze O’er land and main’.
D. G. J. Shipley