Louisiana's connections to ancient Greece might surprise you

“Not everything in Louisiana is Cajun land,” Harris said. "Greek culture was important to many of the early settlers in northern Louisiana. From my study in some of the early educational institutions in places like Ruston, Homer, and Mount Lebanon, Greek, and Latin were as much a part of the curriculum as arithmetic in those days.”

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) - Those who study Greek mythology may have noticed similarities between towns like Homer, Castor, Alexandria, Athens, Eros, Sparta, Urania and Arcadia, Louisiana, and the people, places, and things of ancient Greece.

Wesley Harris, the historian of Lincoln Parish and the Claiborne Parish Library, says it's no accident these historic northern Louisiana settlements have names straight out of Greek legend.

“Not everything in Louisiana is Cajun land,” Harris said. "Greek culture was important to many of the early settlers in northern Louisiana. From my study in some of the early educational institutions in places like Ruston, Homer, and Mount Lebanon, Greek, and Latin were as much a part of the curriculum as arithmetic in those days.”

Homer the poet & Homer, Louisiana

The town of Homer in Claiborne Parish was named after the author of ancient epic poems.

The town of Homer, Louisiana, became Claiborne Parish's seat after the nearby Athens courthouse burned in 1849. The courthouse square design was laid out in 1850, with Tillinghast Vaughn’s son, Frank, choosing the name ‘Homer’ from classic literature.

Today, the town of Homer has a population of around 2500 residents.

Harris says he's noticed a few settlements in south Louisiana with names referencing Greek culture, but not as many as he finds in the northern part of the state.

Harris thinks differences in historic Louisiana cultures might be at play regarding names on the Louisiana state map. But to determine what cultural differences might be at play, we first need to have a few eureka moments.

Eureka the moment & Eureka, Louisiana

What's a eureka moment?

Eureka was the sentiment the ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes exclaimed after he stepped into a bath and noticed the water level rose. This led him to form The Archimedes Principle. "Eureka" means “I have found it.”

If you’d like to have an Eureka moment without straining your brain too hard, head to Union Parish. Eureka, Louisiana, is about fifteen miles from Monroe, twenty from Ruston, and a mere four from Calhoun. It's such a small community, and the population isn't listed on the U.S. Census.

Antioch, the massive Roman city & Antioch, Louisiana

The ancient Greek city of Antioch in Syria, also known as Antioch on the Orontes River, was the third-largest city in the Roman Empire. The only two Roman Empire cities larger than Antioch were Rome and Alexandria.

One of the oldest settlements in Claiborne Parish, Antioch, Louisiana, was established about nine miles east of present-day Homer.

Dr. Bruce Magee is the Robert C. Snyder professor of English at Louisiana Tech University and a recognized expert on Louisiana literature. He also studies Louisiana's history, Greek language, and culture and says Louisiana's Greek town names are not here by accident.

Magee said that some of these Greek names became town names in Louisiana because, in the 18th and 19th centuries, many people in the United States were fascinated with ancient Greek and Roman culture.

Castor the half-twin brother & Castor, Louisiana

Castor and Pollux are twin half-brothers in Greek mythology. How are twin half-brothers even possible? Legend has it that their mom spent the night with two men, one mortal and one immortal.

Greek mythology says Castor and Pollux shared immortality, as only one of them was the son of an immortal. When Castor died and went to Hades, his brother was said to switch places with him every other day.

The twins born later became siblings to Helen of Troy, whose beauty caused the Trojan War.

Castor, Louisiana, was already a thriving settlement by 1853 when Reverend S.J. Graves was assigned to be the circuit pastor of the Methodist church, which boasted 122 members. Located in Bienville Parish, 230 residents live in the community as of 2020. Castor, Louisiana, was once famous for producing Castor oil. The settlement was near Homer, Athens, Arcadia, Sparta, Antioch, where Pat Garrett was growing up, and several other communities with ancient Greek names.

"All of these mythological names were part of civic education back then," says Dr. Magee."(Early settlers) built a courthouse in the middle of Homer that looks like it belongs in Greece or Italy, and that's why it was one of the first things they built. But now we've almost forgotten why."

Alexandria, Egypt & Alexandria, Louisiana

An ancient learning center in northern Egypt was named Alexandria, Egypt, after the Greek ruler Alexander the Great. Taught in his childhood by Aristotle in the disciplines of philosophy, medicine, and science, Alexander built the Macedonian Empire, the largest empire in the world in the 4^th century B.C. Even the Roman Empire would not grow as large as the one Alexander the Great created.

Alexandria, Louisiana, was founded in 1805 and designed as a French Fort to guard rapids and waterfalls on the Red River. When he laid out the city, Alexander Fulton named the settlement after his daughter Alexandria.

When Union gunboats became stuck in the Red River’s rapids and waterfalls at Alexandria during the Civil War, Union troops tore down many of the buildings in Alexandria to build a dam to free their ships. When water levels are low in the Red River today, artifacts from the Union dam are still visible, though the rapids and waterfalls were tamed decades ago.

Today, Alexandria is the 9th largest city in Louisiana and the seat of Rapides Parish, which by its very name means rapids in French. As Alexandria is often called, Alec sits almost in the state's geographic center. Around 45,000 people live within the city limits.

Arcadia the utopic wilderness & Arcadia, Louisiana

Arcadia was a utopic wilderness in ancient Greek mythology with a vast, bubbling swamp and man-eating vultures. But Arcadia was also described as heaven on earth, where Pan played his flute, nymphs roamed, and nature flourished.

Bienville Parish’s seat of power today, Arcadia, Louisiana, is mostly famous for being the location where Bonnie and Clyde's bodies were taken after they were killed by lawmen. Nestled in the pines of hill country, positioned precisely lawmen killed them and Monroe, the town's first postmaster (Shadrick P. Sutton) once gave Arcadia the name which means "beautiful hills." Approximately 2,600 people live in the town originally founded in the 1820s.

But Magee says there's something else quite interesting about Arcadia.

The meaning of Acadia, Acadiana & Cajun

"Acadia is essentially the same word as Arcadia," he says. "In South Louisiana, you've got Greek names that we might not recognize because they're pronounced and spelled differently."

Magee and Harris point out that English was commonly spoken in oft-Protestant Northern Louisiana, while French was more commonplace in oft-Catholic Southern Louisiana. But it is Magee that notes the word Acadiana actually means "land of Arcadia," and "Cajun" is a regional short form of "Arcadian."

Both the names Acadia and Arcadia are representative of the ancient Green paradise where nature reigned and Pan played his flute.

Magee says the founding of Louisiana settlements that celebrated ancient Greek names wasn't about religion. It was about freedom.

"In the late 1700s, we had the American Revolution, and then we wrote our U. S. Constitution," says Magee. "We looked to Greece and Rome for political inspiration and built a constitution based on the Roman Republic. We built a city (Washington D.C.) based on the founder of our country, just as Rome was built based on Romulus. Our system is ancient. We named people, towns, parishes, counties, and even regions after Greece and Rome so that we would never forget--we are a republic."

Sparta, Greece, Sparta, Louisiana & the Sparta Aquifer

Sparta was a prominent city-state and dominant military power in ancient Greece, with its social system and constitution. As Spartans grew in power and conquered others, it began to dawn upon their neighbors that they would need to form alliances to defeat Sparta. And so Sparta was conquered by those it had once conquered.

Have you ever known a parish seat that went extinct? Two parish seats of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, are no longer recognizable as towns. One of them is Sparta, Louisiana, a deserted village that now sleeps silently within the borders of modern-day Bienville Parish.

When the Louisiana State Legislature created Bienville Parish out of Claiborne Parish in 1848, it insisted that the parish seat be chosen somewhere in the geographic center of the parish. Area towns, such as Athens, Homer, and Arcadia, already had names established from Greek mythology and history. Sparta was named and chosen as the first parish seat of the newly formed Bienville Parish.

The parish seat was moved to Arcadia in 1893, and the village of Sparta was deserted in 1894. Today, almost nothing of old Sparta remains. Ironically, Homer conquered Athens, and Arcadia conquered Sparta in the political battles to control the parish seats.

The Sparta Aquifer also sits under portions of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama.

"People must be educated because it's not just about the rulers. It's about the people. You have to be trained to run the country," says Magee. "You can't walk through Washington D.C. without seeing ancient Greece and Rome on every block, and that architecture shows us something. We're supposed to govern ourselves."

The naming of settlements in Louisiana wasn't about ancient Greek gods--it was about freedom. It was about a newly formed republic, a separation from monarchy. It was about rule by the people, for the people.

Athens, Greece & Athens, Louisiana

Athens, Greece was founded more than 5,000 years ago and houses works of historic architecture such as the Acropolis, begun in 447 B.C.E. Greek culture flourished in this Greek city-state during the first millennium B.C.E., before Athens fell to Sparta.

In 1846, Athens, Louisiana was selected to be the seat of Claiborne Parish. An old schoolhouse became the courthouse, and local legend says that a wagon stuffed with civil documents raced away from the courthouse late one night as flames burned down the seat of Claiborne Parish. The documents have never been recovered.

Today, Athens is a tiny village with a population of approximately 220 people. The old parish seat was moved down the road from old Athens after the first railroad was built in the area.

But settlement names aren't the only ties to Greek mythology in Louisiana.

Achilles the Greek warrior & Achilles the Civil War soldier from Athens, Louisiana

Achilles is one of the main characters in Homer's ancient poem The Iliad. Of all the soldiers in the Greek army, Achilles was indisputably the best. Later legends would call him invulnerable, with the exception of his Achilles heel, and women would come to think him irresistible. But without question, his name has been linked to heroic courage and choosing to die in battle and receive glory in death instead of living a long life with one's family and evaporating into eternity, forgotten.

This is where things get weird in Louisiana history.

"Becky, you wish me at home, but Becky as long as you can do without me, I want to stay in the army," wrote Achilles of Athens, Louisiana to his wife, who was waiting for him back home in Athens in 1861.

John Achilles Harris was a member of Company D in the 18th Louisiana Infantry during the Civil War. Surviving letters sent home to Becky follow him through the war, from training near Tangipahoa in 1861 to the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. His story is worth the read, no matter how you feel about the Civil War. And read it you must if you want to find out if he, like the Achilles of ancient times, lived or died in battle.

Homer's The Iliad & The Homer Iliad

As if it's not odd enough to have Achilles of Athens, there's also The Homer Iliad. This anti-Confederate, pro-Union, and abolitionist newspaper was published by W. Jasper Blackburn in Homer, Louisiana, before, during, and after the Civil War. Blackburn intentionally named the newspaper after Homer's epic poem the Iliad, and yes, Homer was named after Homer.

Magee says Greek studies served an important role during this period in American history because Greek names played important roles were meant to remind us that we are a republic.

But in the days leading up to and during the Civil War, the republic became divided.

Achilles and the Iliad became pieces of a much larger story that is Homerian history, and the same can be said in ancient Greece or in Civil War-era northern Louisiana.

Urania the mythological Greek muse & Urania, Louisiana

Urania was one of the nine muses in Greek mythology, and this particular muse was focused on astronomy, astrology, and universal love.

In the late 1890s, the man considered to be Louisiana's first conservationist established the town of Urania, Louisiana in what is now La Salle Parish. Henry E. Hardtner was a lumber magnate who took the name Urania from Greek mythology. Approximately 700 people live within Urania's borders today.

Magee says that after we became a nation, our founding fathers were out to build a new city that was strictly a capital. They hired the greatest architect of the day, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, and connected him to Thomas Jefferson.

The Lincoln Memorial bears a striking resemblance to the Acropolis.

Eros the Greek god of love & Eros, Louisiana

In Greek mythology, Eros was called the god of love. His characteristics are also similar to those of Cupid, the ancient Roman god.

Only two towns in the United States are named Eros, and one of them is in Jackson Parish, Louisiana. The other just so happens to be in Arkansas. The Arkansan Eros is named after the Greek god of love, but Louisiana’s version is not--but then again, it is.

Eros, Louisiana, dates back to a lumber mill built in 1898 and a woman named Pearl Collins who loved astronomy. She was reading about the 433^rd asteroid documented, and she already wanted her community to have its own post office. So what did she do? Collins applied for her community to be named Eros after the asteroid.

But the asteroid was named after the Greek god of love, so you decide if Eros, Louisiana, was named after Eros, the asteroid, or Eros from Greek mythology. Either way, Collins received approval for the post office’s name on October 23, 1899 and Eros has been called Eros ever since.

By design, the Statue of Liberty is built to the scale of the original Colossus of Rhodes. The Colossus of Rhodes stood for a century until it was toppled by an earthquake in approximately 226 B.C. However, aside from the inspiration for the statue's scale, the French built and shipped it to America in 1885. It was meant to remind Americans of the assistance the French lent us during the American Revolution.

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus is still inscribed on Lady Liberty's pedestal, offering the freedoms a new kind of republic in the New World.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The New Collosus by Emma Lazarus

With the statue of Lady Liberty and Lazarus' poem, our forefathers left behind us yet another ancient Greek reminder of who we are meant to be: they designed our constitution so that we might be a republic.

And those who established the villages, towns, and cities of early settler Louisiana didn't want us to forget that we are citizens of a republic, either.

Greek Mythology & Mardi Gras Krewes

There's no better time than Mardi Gras to see Louisiana's Greek heritage on full display. From the Krewe of Endymion, named for the Olympian god of fertility of eternal youth, to the Krewes of Bacchus, Orpheus, Sparta, Centaur, Hermes, Muses, Morpheus, Nyx, Proteus, and many more, there are plenty of opportunities to see at least one parade that celebrates the link between Louisiana history, Greek history, and the establishment of this democracy.

And speaking of freedom, Dr. Magee says that Ben Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention when a woman asked him if we had a republic or a monarch.

"Do you know what he said?" Magee asked.

"No," said this reporter.

"He said it's a republic, Ma'am, if you can keep it."

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