On a Paphlagonian State of Mind

There are lots of Zagoras (literally “beyond the mountain”).

Some are in Poland.

Others in Croatia.

Yet others in Bulgaria (e.g., Stara Zagora).

There is one in Greece, where Slavs likely reached.

(Strangely, there is even one in Morocco (there it is likely a Berber name, see, e.g. Sahara although stories of a Moroccan Nekur/Nukur/Nakur/Nekor where the royal guard was composed of Slavs (though perhaps just slaves?) have come up in the past and it is told that after a rebellion they set up their own “village of the Slavs” though some argue it was just a “village of the slaves”).

However, what is interesting is that a Zagora has been in at least four different sources mentioned in Paphlagonia – a place where lived yet another tribe of the Venethi.  One of them is Arrian  of Nicomedia (c. AD c. 86 – c. 160) (Zagora).  The other Marcian of Heraclea (4th century) (Zagoron, p 73).  Ptolemy has his own version (Zagorum in Galatia).  Finally, the Peutinger Map shows a Zacoria.  There is also a local river, Zalecus mentioned in some of these sources (though as Halega in the Peutinger Map).  Zagora is likely the later Gazuron or Calippi.

Here is a nineteenth century version/imagining on a map by the geographer Heinrich Kiepert:

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