Aracynthus

Aracynthus (Ancient Greek: Ἀράκυνθος) was a range of mountains in Aetolia, the exact position of which is uncertain. It was said to run in a south-easterly direction from the Achelous River to the Evenos, and separating the lower plain of Aetolia near the sea from the upper plain above the lakes Hyria and Trichonida.^[1][2][3]

Pliny the Elder^[4] and Gaius Julius Solinus^[5] erroneously call Aracynthus a mountain of Acarnania. If we can trust the authority of later writers and of the Roman poets, there was a mountain of the name of Aracynthus both in Boeotia and in Attica, or perhaps on the frontiers of the two countries. Thus Stephanus of Byzantium^[6] and Maurus Servius Honoratus^[7] speak of a Boeotian Aracynthus; and Sextus Empiricus,^[8] Lutatius,^[9] and Vibius Sequester^[10] mention an Attic Aracynthus. As noted by McClure (2011), the Roman poet Statius, writing during the reign of Domitian, mentions both a Boeotian and Aetolian Aracynthus in his epic Thebaid.^[11]

The mountain is connected with the Boeotian hero Amphion both by Propertius^[12] and by Virgil,^[13] and the line of Virgil from Eclogue 2 “Amphion Dircaeus in Actaeo Aracyntho”—would seem to place the mountain on the frontiers of Boeotia and Attica.^[14]

There was also said to be a temple to Aphrodite Aracynthias on Aracynthus.