Aonia

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Aonia was a district of ancient Boeotia, containing the mountains Helicon and Cithaeron, and thus sacred to the Muses, who are called by Alexander Pope the "Aonian maids." Aonia may have been an early name for ancient Boeotia, a region of Greece. Pausanias, for instance, described the defeat of the Aones, a Boeotian tribe, by Cadmus (9.5.1ff). In Roman literature and thereafter, "Aonia" was used more or less as a poetic term for Boeotia, and especially for Mt. Helicon, home of the Muses and the birthplace of the Greek poet Hesiod. Hence the adjective "Aonian" meant "Heliconian" and usually referred to the Muses. In Paradise Lost John Milton "intends to soar / Above the Aonian mount" (1.14-15). Alexander Pope, in a similar gesture, says the bard must surpass the "Aonian Maids" (Messiah 4). In a sonnet, the Italian poet Ugo Foscolo addresses his Muse as "Aonia Diva" (Sonnet 11).

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• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.