(Not Rhodes… that’s coming later)
“[Heracles] who once came here for the mares of Laomedon
With only six ships and a few men,
And sacked Troy and emptied her streets [aguias]
ὅς ποτε δεῦρ’ ἐλθὼν ἕνεχ’ ἵππων Λαομέδοντος
ἓξ οἴῃς σὺν νηυσὶ καὶ ἀνδράσι παυροτέροισιν
Ἰλίου ἐξαλάπαξε πόλιν, χήρωσε δ’ ἀγυιάς·
Highways, roads, streets, paths, tracks… these are much on our mind as we do our best to walk across a good chunk of Greece. So, this seemed like a good opportunity to sort out some of the vocabulary of roads, in Greek both Ancient and Modern.
The passage of the Iliad, Book 5 (above) recounts the first time Troy was sacked, by Heracles that time.
(Everything happens at least twice in mythology… did you know that Helen was kidnapped twice? Before Paris got to her, it was Theseus and his disreputable friend, the Lapith Pirithous, who kidnapper her as a child.)
Homer uses ἀγυιά (aguia) to refer to the streets of a city.
