Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland – Part 35

~ Part 1~

Rēgia

In his Geography, Claudius Ptolemy recorded seven inland “cities” in Ireland. Ῥηγια [Rhēgia or Rēgia] is the first of these:

Greek	Latin	English	Longitude	Latitude
Ῥηγια	Rhegia	Rēgia	13° 00'	60° 20'

Source: Nobbe 66, Wilberg 103

As I mentioned in the previous article in this series, in ancient Greek an initial rho, Ρ, always takes a rough breathing:

13. Every initial ρ has the rough breathing:_ ῥήτωρ orator_ (Lat. rhetor). Medial ρρ is written ῤῥ in some texts: Πυῤῥος Pyrrhus. (Smyth 10)

This explains why Ptolemy’s Ῥηγια is transcribed into Latin script sometimes as Regia (Müller) and sometimes as Rhegia (Wilberg). As we shall see, the rough breathing was probably not present in the original Celtic name of this settlement, so its introduction was simply a case of Smyth’s general rule being automatically applied, whether by Ptolemy, his source or one of his transcribers.

Variant Names

Three variant readings of the name of this settlement have been recorded by Ptolemy’s modern editors Karl Müller (1883) and Friedrich Wilberg (1838):

Source	Greek	English
Müller, Wilberg, Nobbe	Ῥηγια	Rēgia or Rhēgia
C, V, W, α	Ῥιγια	Rhigia or Rigia
R	Γιγια	Gigia
P	Ῥαγια	Rhagia or Ragia

• C is Parisiensis Supplem 119. Presumably this is one of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, but I have not been able to confirm this.

• V and W are two manuscripts in the Vatican Library, Vaticanus Graecus 177 (ῥιγια is on p 40b, line 3) and Vaticanus Graecus 178.

• α is identified by Müller as the Codex Ingolstadiensis. He refers to it as the Editio princeps, a term generally reserved for the first printed edition of a work. Today, the editio princeps is usually credited to Erasmus, whose complete Greek edition—based on a manuscript provided by Theobald Fettich of Kaiserslautern—was published by Hieronymus Froben in Basel in 1533. Earlier in the same year, however, Peter Apian of Ingolstadt published an incomplete version of the Geography in Latin. Müller has confused these two editions. His Cod α actually refers to Erasmus's editio princeps.

• P and R are Venetian manuscripts identified by Müller as Venetus 383 and Venetus 516. They are possibly kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, though I have not been able to confirm this.

Of these variants, Γιγια [Gigia] can probably be safely dismissed as a transmissional error due to a misreading of rho (Ρ) as gamma (Γ). The other two, however, deserve some consideration, especially Ῥιγια [Rhigia or Rigia], which can be defended on etymological grounds, as we shall see below.

Variant Coordinates

All sources agree on the longitude of Rēgia: 13° 00'. Only one variant reading of the latitude has been recorded:

Source	Longitude	Variant Latitude
F, L, M, N, O, Δ, Σ, Φ, Ψ, Arg, 4803	13° 00'	63° 00'

• F is Coislin 337, one of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. It is believed to date to the 14th or 15th century.

• L is a manuscript from the library at Vatopedi, the ancient monastery on Mount Athos in Greece.

• M is Vindobonensis 1, a codex in the Austrian National Library in Vienna.

• N and O are Oxoniensis Seldanus 2, 46 and Oxoniensis Seldanus 2, 45, two of the Selden Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

• Δ is Florentinus Abbatiae 2380, a codex from the Abbey of St Lawrence in Florence.

• Σ, Φ and Ψ are three manuscripts from the Laurentian Library in Florence: Florentinus Laurentianus 28, 9 : Florentinus Laurentianus 28, 38 : Florentinus Laurentianus 28, 42.

• Arg is the Editio Argentinensis, which we have met several times before. It was based on Jacopo d’Angelo’s Latin translation of Ptolemy (1406) and the work of Pico della Mirandola. Many other hands worked on it—Martin Waldseemüller, Matthias Ringmann, Jacob Eszler and Georg Übel—before it was finally published by Johann Schott in Straßburg in 1513. Argentinensis refers to Straßburg’s ancient Celtic name of Argentorate.

• 4803 is one of the Codices Parisini Latini in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. It is a Latin translation of Ptolemy’s Geography by Jacopo d’Angelo: Latin 4803.

There is quite a difference between 60° 20' and 63° 00'. On the ground, this amounts to about 247 km. In fact, a latitude of 63° takes us well beyond the northern coast of Ptolemy’s Ireland. It is, however, safe to dismiss this variant as a simple misreading of the Greek figures. Note the similarity between the Ptolemaic numbers 63 and 60⅓:

The Ptolemaic Figures 60⅓ and 63

In Byzantine times, diacritics were used to distinguish between these, but there is no evidence that Ptolemy ever employed any such devices. It is curious, however, that this anomalous latitude should be so widespread, bearing in mind how impossible it is. No less than eleven of the extant manuscript sources and early printed editions preserve this reading.

Ptolemy’s Coordinates for Rēgia

Identity

There has been no shortage of speculation concerning the identity of Ptolemy’s Rēgia over the past four hundred years. According to Darcy & Warner (2008), scholars have proposed at least half dozen candidates, some with distinctly more probability than others. In fact, two of the candidates listed by Darcy & Warner—Rathcroghan and Athenry—are spurious, having been identified with the Other Rēgia. As for Rēgia proper, the English antiquarian William Camden set the ball rolling in 1607. In his description of County Longford, we read:

Soon after, the Shannon is received by another broad lake (called Lough Regith,) the name and situation whereof make it probable, that the City Rigia (which Ptolemy places in this Country) stood not far off. (Camden 1374-1375)

Half a century later, the Irish antiquarian James Ware concurred:

RIGIA or REGIA: Gerhard Mercator takes this Place to be Limerick [which cannot well be, in regard it is enumerated by Ptolomey among the mediterranean Cities.] Camden, from its Name and Situation, thinks it is some Place not far from Lough-Rie, a large Lake full of Islands, which receives the River Shanon. (Ware & Harris 43)

The comment in square brackets was added by Ware’s editor Walter Harris in 1745. While it is true that Ptolemy enumerates Rēgia among the mediterranean [ie inland] cities, this hardly disqualifies Limerick City as a plausible candidate: Limerick’s position at the head of the long estuary of the River Shannon is more inland than coastal. What does disqualify Limerick are its coordinates. Ptolemy enumerates two inland cities with the name Ῥηγια [Rēgia], the other being distinguished from this one by the qualification ἑτερα [hetera], which literally means the other of two. The Other Rēgia is placed two degrees (92 km) to the west of the former and fifty minutes (39 km) to its south. Gerardus Mercator’s Regia is clearly the Other Rēgia. In fact, Mercator’s 1578 map of Ptolemy’s Ireland identifies this city as Regia Altera, a literal Latin translation of the Greek Ῥηγια ἑτερα. He places Rēgia itself much further north on the River Argita in Ulster:

Mercator’s Map of Ptolemy’s Ireland

Navan Fort

In the middle of the 18th century, Charles O’Conor suggested that Ptolemy’s Rēgia might refer to Emain Macha, or Navan Fort, in County Armagh. For centuries this was the ancient and historical seat of the kings of Ulster, so it would be entirely fitting for it to find its way into Ptolemy’s description of Ireland. O’Conor does not discuss this identification in his text—it merely appears on his appended map. William Beauford defended this identification on the basis of the latitude and longitude assigned to it by Ptolemy (Beauford 70) and in the late 19th century, Goddard Orpen buttressed it with some arguments of his own:

The people called Ουολούντιοι [Voluntioi], north of the Boyne, would appear from name and position to be connected with the ancient Uladh, a name which, with a Norse termination, has given the modern Ulster. If this be so, their chief town Ῥηγία [Rēgia] may well have been the earthen fort of Emania, Eamhain Macha, near Armagh, which was the traditional “palace” of the kings of Uladh until the fourth century, when it was destroyed by the three Collas, a movement of peoples which Professor Rhys regards as the advance of the Goidels upon the primitive non-Aryan inhabitants of the north. [Footnote: Journal, R.S.A.I., 1890-1, p. 646.] (Orpen 126-127)

Rhys’s hypothesis that the pre-Goidelic people of Ulster were non-Aryan has long since been set aside (O’Rahilly 420-428). Otherwise, his theory that the traditional story of the Three Collas was based on historical encroachments of the Goidelic Celts on the pre-Goidelic—but still Celtic—inhabitants of Ulster has many adherents today. It may even be considered the mainstream opinion.

The identification of Rēgia with Navan Fort has received further support in the modern era from Darcy & Flynn (2008), and recently it has been defended on etymological grounds by the contributors to the website Roman Era Names:

Ρηγια πολις (Regia or Rigia 2,2,10) was probably Navan Fort (Emain Macha in Irish) near modern Armagh. This name probably refers to a king or ruler, from PIE *reg- ‘to move in a straight line, to direct’ (but other possibilities include some based on PIE *reig- ‘to reach, stretch out’).

A generation or two earlier, T F O’Rahilly had come to the same etymological conclusion, though he stopped short of identifying Ptolemy’s Rēgia with Navan Fort:

Rēgia is not to be taken as a Latin word ... Rather it is an early form of Celt. *rīgiā, dating back to a time before Indo-European ē had become ī in Celtic. Each of the two places called Rēgia was probably a royal seat (ríg-ráith); but they cannot now be identified. Compare Ir. ríge, ‘kingship’, from *rīgion. (O’Rahilly 14)

O’Rahilly was precluded from identifying Rēgia with Navan Fort because he had earlier identified that site with another of Ptolemy’s locations, Isamnion. In my article on Isamnion I rejected that identification on the grounds that Ptolemy includes Isamnion in the list of landmarks on the east coast, while Navan Fort is more than 40 km from the sea. This identification has also been rejected by Bursche & Warner (2000), who include Rēgia amongst their Unlocated Toponyms. Recently, however, Richard Warner has tentatively supported the identification with Navan Fort (Warner 2013:21)

O’Rahilly’s point that Rēgia dates back to a time before Indo-European ē had become Celtic ī (Thurneysen §58(b)) suggests that Ῥηγια is the correct orthography of this toponym and that the variant reading found in some manuscripts, Ῥιγια, is an error, even though it conforms to the later Celtic spelling.

Rathra Multivallate Enclosure at Rathcroghan

Rathcroghan

Another royal seat of considerable historical importance in ancient Ireland is Rathcroghan, or Cruachan, in County Roscommon. This was the traditional capital of the kings of Connacht, and it figures prominently in early Irish history and literature. It was from here that the legendary Queen Medb set out in quest of the Brown Bull of Cooley in Ireland’s national epic, Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). Like Navan Fort, it is precisely the sort of “city” one would expect to find in Ptolemy’s description of Ireland. If it is not Rēgia itself, it may well be the Other Rēgia.

Curiously, Rathcroghan has not been a popular choice for Rēgia over the centuries. Darcy & Flynn cite only one scholar in support of it: Seán Duffy, whose Atlas of Irish History (Second Edition) was published as recently as 2000. In fact, it is clear from the relevant map in Duffy’s Atlas that he tentatively identifies the Other Rēgia with Rathcroghan (Cruacou). Does this mean that no-one identifies Rēgia with Rathcroghan?

Ptolemy’s Ireland (Duffy)

Clogher

In his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), Samuel Lewis proffered an unusual and unexpected candidate for Ptolemy’s Rēgia: Clogher, County Tyrone:

CLOGHER ... The place is said to have derived its name from a stone covered with gold, which in pagan times is reported to have made oracular responses. The Clogh-or [Irish: Cloch ór], or “golden stone,” was preserved long after the abolition of paganism; for McGuire, canon of Armagh, who wrote a commentary on the registry of Clogher, in 1490, says “that this sacred stone is preserved at Clogher, on the right of the entrance into the church, and that traces of the gold with which it had been formerly covered by the worshippers of the idol called Cermaed Celsetacht are still visible.” ... Clogher is called by Ptolemy Rhigia or Regia. (Lewis 342)

Rathmore, Clogher Hillfort

What makes Clogher a plausible candidate is its rich history and the presence of a nearby ringfort, Rathmore, or Clogher Hillfort. This was a significant royal seat from around the 4th or 5th century of the common era, but it may have been important for centuries before this, as there is archaeological evidence for a much earlier occupation of the site (Warner 2000:40). Against this identification is the fact that Clogher’s importance really belongs to the Common Era, while Ptolemy’s Geography describes Ireland as it was around 300 BCE.

Nevertheless, Seán Duffy has weighed in on Lewis’s side in his Atlas of Irish History.

Grianan of Aileach

Grianan of Aileach

The Grianan of Aileach in County Donegal is one of Ireland’s best-preserved ringforts. In the early middle ages it served as the royal seat of the Kings of Aileach, a Goidelic kingdom established in the northwest of the country in the early 5th century. The current structure, an impressive stone cashel, was reconstructed in the 1870s. The original cashel is thought to have been raised in the 6th or 7th century, but the site may have served as a local seat of power in earlier times.

The first person to identify Aileach with Ptolemy’s Rēgia was probably Eugene O’Curry, Professor of Irish History and Archaeology at the Catholic university of Ireland, who delivered the following remark in a lecture given at the college in 1859:

I may observe that Aileach is one of the few spots in Erinn marked in its proper place by the geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria, who flourished in the second century ... (O’Curry 10)

Following the reconstruction in the 1870s, the genealogist John O’Hart repeated O’Curry’s suggestion:

In this territory, on a high hill or mountain called Grianan, on the eastern shore of Lough Swilly, south of Inch Island, was situated the celebrated fortress called the Grianan of Aileach (from “Grianan,” a palace or royal residence, and “Aileach” or “Oileach,” which signifies a stone fortress). This fortress was also called “Aileach Neid” or “Oileach Neid,” from Neid, one of the Tua-de-Danan princes; and was for many ages the seat of the ancient Kings of Ulster. It was built in a circular form of great stones without cement, of immense strength, in that style called “Cyclopean” architecture; and some of its extensive ruins remain to this day. It was demolished, a.d. 1101, by Murtogh O’Brien, King of Munster and the 180th Monarch of Ireland. This palace of Aileach is supposed to have been the “Regia” of Ptolemy, the celebrated Greek geographer, in the second century; and the river marked “Argita” on his map of Ireland, is considered to have been the Finn, which is the chief branch of the Foyle river. (O’Hart 822)

It is easy to see why one might identify Ptolemy’s Rēgia with such an impressive site, even if it is largely a modern reconstruction. There is, however, no hard evidence that Aileach was a royal seat or historically significant before the Goidelic conquest of Ulster, which took place about three centuries after Ptolemy’s time. The simple fact is that the Grianan of Aileach may not have existed in Ptolemy’s day, let alone in 300 BCE.

Near Lough Ree	Navan Fort	Clogher	Grianan of Aileach
Camden (1607)	-	-	-
Ware (1654)	-	-	-
-	O’Conor (1766)	-	-
-	William Beauford (1789)	-	-
-	-	Lewis (1837)	-
-	-	-	Eugene O’Curry (1859)
-	-	-	O’Hart (1892)
-	Orpen (1894)	-	-
-	-	Duffy (2000)	-
-	Darcy & Flynn (2008)	-	-

Source: Darcy & Flynn 56 (corrected)

Conclusions

In my opinion, it would be extraordinary if Ptolemy’s description of Ireland omitted all mention of Navan Fort. Emain Macha was one of the most important sites in ancient Ireland and archaeology proves that it is of considerable age. Its position is also quite a good fit for Ptolemy’s Rēgia. There is no better candidate.

Navan Fort (Emain Macha)

---

References

• William Beauford, Letter from Mr. William Beauford, A.B. to the Rev. George Graydon, LL.B. Secretary to the Committee of Antiquities, Royal Irish Academy, The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 3, pp 51-73, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (1789)
• A Bursche, R Warner, Map 2 Hibernia-Scandinavia, in R J A Talbert (editor), Map-by-Map Directory [to accompany] Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ (2000)
• William Camden, Britannia: Or A Chorographical Description of Great Britain and Ireland, Together with the Adjacent Islands, Second Edition, Volume 2, Edmund Gibson, London (1722)
• Robert Darcy & William Flynn, Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland: A Modern Decoding, Irish Geography, Volume 41, Number 1, pp 49-69, Geographical Society of Ireland, Taylor and Francis, Routledge, Abingdon (2008)
• Patrick S Dinneen, An Irish-English Dictionary, New Edition, Irish Texts Society, Dublin (1927)
• Seán Duffy, Atlas of Irish History, Third Edition, Gill and MacMillan, Dublin (2011)
• Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Second Edition, Volume 1, S Lewis & Co, London (1840)
• Gerardus Mercator, Cl Ptolemaei Alexandrini, Geographiae Libri Octo [The Eight Books of the Geography of Claudius Ptolemy of Alexander], Second Edition, Gottfried van Kempen, Köln (1584)
• Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Müller (editor & translator), Klaudiou Ptolemaiou Geographike Hyphegesis (Claudii Ptolemæi Geographia), Volume 1, Alfredo Firmin Didot, Paris (1883)
• Karl Friedrich August Nobbe, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia, Volume 2, Karl Tauchnitz, Leipzig (1845)
• Charles O’Conor, Dissertations on the History of Ireland, G Faulkner, Dublin (1766)
• Eugene O’Curry, On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Volume 3, Lecture 19, Of Buildings, Furniture, Etc, in Ancient Erinn, Williams and Norgate, London (1878)
• John O’Hart, Irish Pedigrees: Or The Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation, Fifth Edition, Volume 1, James Duffy & Co, Limited, Dublin (1892)
• Thomas F O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin (1946, 1984)
• Goddard H Orpen, Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume 4 (Fifth Series), Volume 24 (Consecutive Series), pp 115-128, Dublin (1894)
• Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geography, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat Gr 191, fol 127-172 (Ireland: 138v–139r)
• John Rhys, The Early Irish Conquests of Wales and Dumnonia, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Fifth Series, Volume 1, Number 8, pp 642-657, RSAI, Dublin (1891)
• Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, American Book Company, New York (1920)
• Rudolf Thurneysen, Osborn Bergin (translator), D A Binchy (translator), A Grammar of Old Irish, Translated from Handbuch des Altirischen (1909), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin (1946, 1998)
• James Ware, Walter Harris (editor), The Whole Works of Sir James Ware, Volume 2, Walter Harris, Dublin (1745)
• Richard B Warner, Clogher: An Archaeological Window on Early Medieval Tyrone and Mid Ulster, in C Dillon & H Jefferies (editors), Tyrone: History and Society, pp 39-54, Dublin (2000)
• Richard B Warner, Ptolemy’s Isamnion Promontory: Rehabilitation and Identification, Emania, Issue 21, pp 21-29, Navan Research Group, Berlin (2013)
• Friedrich Wilhelm Wilberg, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae, Libri Octo: Graece et Latine ad Codicum Manu Scriptorum Fidem Edidit Frid. Guil. Wilberg, Essendiae Sumptibus et Typis G.D. Baedeker, Essen (1838)

Image Credits

• Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland: Wikimedia Commons, Nicholaus Germanus (cartographer), Public Domain
• Greek Letters: Wikimedia Commons, Future Perfect at Sunrise (artist), Public Domain
• Mercator’s Map of Ptolemy’s Ireland: No Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Only
• Rathra Multivallate Enclosure at Rathcroghan: © Christy Lawless, Fair Use
• Ptolemy’s Ireland (Duffy): © Seán Duffy 2000, Fair Use
• Rathmore, Clogher Hillfort © Brian T McElherron, Fair Use
• Grianan of Aileach: Joe Sullivan (photographer), Public Domain
• Navan Fort (Emain Macha): © Ellen Bell, Fair Use