Adriatic Sea - Name

Name

The origins of the name Adriatic are linked to the Etruscan settlement of Adria, which probably derives its name from the Illyrian adur meaning water or sea. In classical antiquity, the sea was known as Mare Adriaticum (Mare Hadriaticum, also sometimes simplified to Adria) or, less frequently, as Mare Superum, " upper sea". The two terms were not synonymous, however. Mare Adriaticum generally corresponds to the Adriatic Sea's extent, spanning from the Gulf of Venice to the Strait of Otranto. That boundary became more consistently defined by Roman authors—early Greek sources place the boundary between the Adriatic and Ionian seas at various places ranging from adjacent to the Gulf of Venice to the southern tip of the Peloponnese, eastern shores of Sicily and western shores of Crete. Mare Superum on the other hand normally encompassed both the modern Adriatic Sea and the sea off the Apennine peninsula's southern coast, as far as the Strait of Sicily. Another name used in the period was Mare Dalmaticum, applied to waters off the coast of Dalmatia or Illyricum.