Deire
Δειρή
Deire (Δειρή, Strab. xvi. pp. 769, 773; Ptoi. 4.7.9; Steph. B. sub voce Berenice Epidires, Plin. Nat. 6.29. s. 33), or the Neck,
so called from its position on a headland of the same name, was a town situated on the African shore of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, at their narrowest part. The space between Deire and the opposite foreland of Poseidonium on the Arabian shores was about 60 stadia (8 1/2 miles) in width. Deire stood in lat. 11° 3′ N. It was also called Isidis Portus from a temple of that goddess which overlooked the harbour, and Deire-Berenices from the favourite sister of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who enlarged and granted fresh privileges to the town. (Agathem. p. 8.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.