Parthenius
Παρθένιος
Parthenius (Παρθένιος), the most important river in the west of Paphlagonia. It owes its Greek name probably to a similarity in the sound of its native appellation, which is still Bartan-Su or Bartine; though Greek authors fabled that it derived its name from the fact that Artemis loved to bathe in its waters (Scymn. 226, foll.) or to hunt on its banks, or from the purity of its waters. The river has its sources on mount Olgassys, and in its north-western course formed the boundary between Paphlagonia and Bithynia. It empties itself into the Euxine about 90 stadia west of Amastris. (Hom. Il. 2.854; Hes. Th. 344; Hdt. 2.104; Xenoph. Anab. 5.6.9, 6.2.1; Strab. xii. p.543; Ptol. 5.1.7; Arrian, Peripl. p. 14; Steph. B. sub voce who erroneously states that the river flowed through the middle of the town of Amastris; Ov. Pont. 4.10 49; Amm. Marc. xxii 9.)
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.