Остров Брач

Legends

How Brac Island got its name

The famour Trojan warrior, Antenor, once entertained the renowned Greek heros, Odysseus and Menelaus, during the Greek siege of Troy and tried to negotiate with them the return of Helen to the Hellenes, which would bring the war to an end. The Greeks, after taking and sacking Troy, did not forget his hospitality. They took him with them to live in Greek Ambracia. From there, according to tradition, he sailed to an island which he named Bracia, after his Greek home.

He brought with him a shepherd, Brachus (Loda, in Nazor’s works), a sailor, Elaphus (who built the town on Elaphus on the site of modern Bol) and the farmer Silenus. Silenus brought a vine and a young olive tree to the island, in the branches of which was an insect larva, which hatched into a cricket. Antenor left his companions on the island and sailed to Venice, where he built the city, according to legend, on the lagoon.