Hypanis
Hypanis, FL. (ὁ Ὕπανις, Hdt. 2.102, 4.17, 47, 51, 81, 178, 5.89; Strab. ii. p.107, vii. p. 306, xi. p. 494; Ptol. 3.5.6; Dion. Chrys. Or. xxxi. p. 75; Athen. p. 42; Pomp. Mela, 2.1.6; Plin. Nat. 4.12; Propert. 1.12. 4; Ov. ex Pont. 4.10, 47; Ὑπάνης, Arist. H. A. 5.19: Bog), a river of Sarmatia Europaea, which sprung from a large lake (Hdt. 4.42; comp. Potocki, Voyage, vol. i. p. 158), though according to Ptolemy (l.c.) it took its rise in the Amadoci Montes. It flowed parallel with the Borysthenes (Strab. pp. 306, 494). The water in the upper part of the course was sweet, but after receiving the bitter waters of EXAMPAEUS became brackish (Paus. 4.35.6; Ov. Met. 15.285; Vitr. 8.3.11; Eustath. ad Dionys. Per. 1143), and discharged itself into the Euxine at the town of Olbia. It received its present name in the sixth century; in Jornandes (de Get. 5) and the Geographer of Ravenna it appears under the form Bagossola == Bagos river (Sola, in old German, meaning water), Constantine Porphyrogeneta (de adm. Imp. 42) called it Bogu.
It is difficult to determine the original meaning of the name; but as the Slavonians paid divine honours to their rivers, it may be connected with the Slavonic word Bog, God.
The Greek name Hypanis is traceable to the Indo-European pani, water.
(Schafarik, Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 505.) (Kohl, Reisen in Süd-Russland, vol. i. p. 34; Köler, Mém. de l'Acad. de St. Petersb. vol. x. p. 126; Eichwald, Geographie d. Kasp. Meer, p. 295.)
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.