Eurotas (fleuve)

The Eurotas (Εὐρώτας) or Evrotas (modern Greek: Ευρώτας) is the main river of Laconia and one of the major rivers of the Peloponnese, in Greece. The river's springs are located just northwest of the border between Laconia and Arcadia, at Skortsinos. The river is also fed by underwater springs at Pellana and by tributaries coursing down from Mt. Taygetos and Mt. Parnon, which flank the Eurotas valley to the west and east, respectively. The river is long, flowing in a north-south direction and emptying into the Laconian Gulf. Its drainage basin is . The classical Eurotas was changed to Iri in the Middle Ages and only changed back to Eurotas in recent times. Eurotas, however, is not the most ancient name of the river. It does not appear in the works of Homer, which purport to recount the stories and geography of Mycenaean Greece. In that legendary time, the Dorians are not known to have been present in the Eurotas Valley. At some time prior to being called Eurotas, the river was the Bomycas and the Himeras. One etymology derives the word Eurōtas from the ancient Greek eurōs (εὐρώς), "mold". The adjective, eurōeis, "moldy," is genuinely ancient, used as an epithet of Hades in Homer. It is, however, in the Ionic dialect. The source of the Eurotas River is a surface spring called Piges Evrota (Πηγές Ευρώτα, "Eurotas Springs") located near the village of Skortsinos, Arcadia, by the side of the road ascending from Kyparissi. The spring is an outlet of an aquifer located in the adjacent limestone ridge at a locale called Kephalari. The ridge, a karst, is not part of the Taygetus Massif, but, like the other mountains of Arcadia, is a nappe raised by the compressional forces on the Hellenic Plate by the subduction of Africa. The spring is also called Logaras Spring. Logaras Spring supplies an anciently constructed catchment basin about the size of a pond, sometimes called a lake, which exits both to irrigation channels and to the Alpheios stream (not to be confused with the Alpheios river in the northwestern Peloponnese).