- Rioni River
:"Phasis redirects here. For the
butterfly genus , seePhasis (butterfly) ."The Rioni River ( _ka. რიონი "Rioni") is the main
river of western Georgia. It originates in theCaucasus Mountains , in the region ofRacha and flows west to theBlack Sea . It enters theBlack Sea north of the city ofPoti . The city ofKutaisi , once ancient city ofColchis , lies on its banks.Known to the ancient Greeks as the Phasis River (Greek: Φάσις), it was first mentioned by
Hesiod in his "Theogony" (l.340); later writers likeApollonius Rhodius ("Argonautica" 2.12.61),Virgil ("Georgics" 4.367) andAelius Aristides ("Ad Romam" 82) considered it the easternmost limit of thenavigable seas. Socrates, in "Phaedo" referred to the portion of the world he knew of as between the Pillars of Hercules and the River Phasis.The name of the Pheasant is derived from this river, as it was in this region that the ancients first encountered the birds. [ [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pheasant Dictionary.com - Pheasant] ]
References
ources
*Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford University Press, T. F. Hoad, 1996.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.