Lake Tritonis

Lake Tritonis was a large body of fresh water in northern Africa that was described in many ancient texts. Classical-era Greek writers placed the lake in what today is southern Tunisia. In details of the late myths and personal observations related by these historians, the lake was said to be named after Triton. According to Herodotus it contained two islands, Phla, which the Lacedaemonians were to have colonized, according to an oracle, and Mene.

The location is unclear. The lake is mentioned as being in Libya, a land the ancient Greeks believed encircled their world, "washed on all sides by the sea," Herodotus said, "except where it is attached to Asia." "In their knowledge, Libya extended from Ancient Egypt, the Nile Valley and its basin, to the Atlantic Ocean and along the south of Ancient Egypt."

Both Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. and Diodorus in the first century A.D. described the lake, Herodotus giving it an area of 2,300 km² (900 mi²), or, half the size of the contemporary United States state, Rhode Island. Herodotus assumed that there would have to be a large river flowing into it, which he called the Triton.

The name of the lake appears in discussion of the geography related in Greek mythology.

When Athena is addressed as Athene Tritogeneia ("born of Trito"), the archaic epithet is explained by the episode where, having sprung fully formed from the head—or thigh—of Zeus—who had swallowed her pregnant mother to prevent his own downfall from the rule over the current Greek pantheon by her progeny, as predicted—the goddess was escorted to Lake Trito and attended to by the nymphs. A different interpretation, taking into consideration much earlier Greek and Minoan myths, leads translator Robert Graves to suggest that the reverse direction of religious influence occurred, with Neith being the deity who influenced development of the Greek concept for the goddess Athene. Neith was an ancient deity when first appearing in the earliest Egyptian pantheon, and is suspected to have originated among the Berbers.

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