Cynuria (ἡ Κυνουρία – Kynouria [1] or ἡ Κυνουριακή – Kynouriake [2] ) is an ancient district on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese, between the Argolis and Laconia, so called from the Cynurians, one of the most ancient tribes in the peninsula. It was believed to have taken its name from the mythical Cynurus.
Herodotus regarded the Cynurians as autochthones, but at the same time called them Ionians. [3] There can be little doubt, however, that they were Pelasgians; but in consequence of their maritime position, they were regarded as a different race from the Arcadian Pelasgians, and came to be looked upon as Ionians,[ according to whom? ] which was the case with the Pelasgians dwelling upon the coast of the Gulf of Corinth,[ citation needed ] in the district afterwards called Achaia.
They were a semi-barbarous and predatory tribe, dwelling chiefly in the eastern slopes of Mount Parnon; but their exact boundaries cannot be defined, as they were only a tribe, and never formed a political body. At a later time they were almost confined to the Thyreatis, or district of Thyrea. Originally they extended much further south.
Upon the conquest of Peloponnesus by the Dorians, the Cynurians were subdued by the Argeians, whose territory at one time extended along the eastern coast of Peloponnesus down to Cape Malea. [4] The Cynurians were now reduced to the condition of Argive Perioeci. [5] They continued as subjects of Argos for some time; but as Sparta rose in power, she endeavoured to increase her territory at the expense of Argos; and Cynuria, but more especially the fertile district of the Thyreatis, was a frequent subject of contention between the two states, and was in possession sometimes of the one, and sometimes of the other power.
As early as the reign of Echestratus, the son of Agis, who is placed about 1000 BCE, the Spartans are said to have gained possession of Cynuria, [6] but they were driven out of it subsequently, and it continued in the hands of the Argives till about 547 BCE, when the celebrated battle was fought between the 300 champions from either nation. [7] But the great victory of Cleomenes over the Argives near Tiryns, shortly before the Persian wars, was the event which secured to the Spartans undisputed possession of Cynuria for a long time. When the Aeginetans were expelled from their own island by the Athenians, at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE), the Spartans allowed them to settle in the Thyreatis, which at that time contained two towns, Thyrea and Anthene or Athene, both of which were made over to the fugitives. [8] Here they maintained themselves till the 8th year of the Peloponnesian war, when the Athenians made a descent upon the coast of the Thyreatis, where they found the Aeginetans engaged in building a fortress upon the sea. This was forthwith abandoned by the latter, who took refuge in the upper city (ἡ ἄνω πόλις) at the distance of 10 stadia from the sea; but the Athenians followed them, took Thyrea, which they destroyed, and dragged away the inhabitants into slavery. [9]
Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, gave back the Thyreatis to the Argives, and extended their territory along the coast as far as Glympeis and Zarax. [10] It continued to belong to the Argives in the time of Pausanias; [11] but even then the ancient boundary quarrels between the Argives and Spartans still continued. [12] Among the populated places noted by the ancient writers were: Thyrea, Anthene, Neris, and Eva.
The province of Kynouria (Greek : Επαρχία Κυνουρίας) was one of the provinces of the Arcadia prefecture. The province, established in the 19th century, covered only the northern half of the ancient region of Cynuria. It was abolished in 2006, and following the 2011 Kallikratis reform, its territory is occupied by the municipalities of North Kynouria and South Kynouria. [13] The region is also traditionally known as Tsakonia (Greek : Τσακωνία or Τσακωνιά) after the Tsakonians, who belong to a very ancient branch of the Greek language family.
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 27 km (17 mi) from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of the mythological hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king.
The Dorians were one of the four major ethnic groups into which the Hellenes of Classical Greece divided themselves. They are almost always referred to as just "the Dorians", as they are called in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey, where they already can be found inhabiting the island of Crete.
Acarnania is a region of west-central Greece that lies along the Ionian Sea, west of Aetolia, with the Achelous River for a boundary, and north of the gulf of Calydon, which is the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Today it forms the western part of the regional unit of Aetolia-Acarnania. The capital and principal city in ancient times was Stratos. The north side of Acarnania of the Corinthian Gulf was considered part of the region of Epirus.
The name Pelasgians was used by Classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all the indigenous inhabitants of the Aegean Sea region and their cultures, and British historian Peter Green comments on it as "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world".
The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire and Greek city-states that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek-inhabited region of Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to control the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike.
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes from which the Greeks considered themselves to have derived during the ancient period; the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. The Ionian dialect was one of the three major linguistic divisions of the Hellenic world, together with the Dorian and Aeolian dialects.
Tegea was a settlement in ancient Arcadia, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Tripoli municipality, of which it is a municipal unit with an area of 118.350 km2. It is near the modern villages of Alea and Episkopi.
At the Battle of Sepeia, the Spartan forces of Cleomenes I defeated the Argives, fully establishing Spartan dominance in the Peloponnese. The Battle of Sepeia is infamous for having the highest number of casualties within a battle during the classical Greek period.
The Corinthian War was a conflict in ancient Greece which pitted Sparta against a coalition of city-states comprising Thebes, Athens, Corinth and Argos, backed by the Achaemenid Empire. The war was caused by dissatisfaction with Spartan imperialism in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, both from Athens, the defeated side in that conflict, and from Sparta's former allies, Corinth and Thebes, who had not been properly rewarded. Taking advantage of the fact that the Spartan king Agesilaus II was away campaigning in Asia against the Achaemenid Empire, Thebes, Athens, Corinth and Argos forged an alliance in 395 BC with the goal of ending Spartan hegemony over Greece; the allies' war council was located in Corinth, which gave its name to the war. By the end of the conflict, the allies had failed to end Spartan hegemony over Greece, although Sparta was weakened by the war.
Pheidon was an Argive ruler, usually dated to the first half of the 7th century BCE. While his dating is a matter of dispute and much of the information about him is fragmentary, he is almost always described as a powerful and expansionist ruler. He consolidated Argive control over the surrounding region of the Argolid. If the 7th-century dating is correct, then he defeated Sparta at the Battle of Hysiae in 669/8. He is also remembered for forcibly taking control of the presidency over the Olympic games and creating or standardizing weights and measures which were then used throughout the Peloponnese and called Pheidonian after him. He may have intervened in the affairs of other Greek city-states on other occasions, and one late author claims that he died while involved in civil conflict in Corinth. He was remembered as a tyrant, perhaps for his demonstration of power at the Olympic festival.
Pagae or Pagai, or Pegae or Pegai was a town of ancient Megaris, on the Alcyonian or Corinthian Gulf. According to some sources of greek mythology Pagae had been the home town of Tereus. It was the harbour of Megaris on the western coast, and was the most important place in the country next to the capital. According to Strabo it was situated on the narrowest part of the Megaric isthmus, the distance from Pagae to Nisaea being 120 stadia. When the Megarians joined Athens in 455 BCE, the Athenians garrisoned Pagae, and its harbour was of service to them in sending out an expedition against the northern coast of Peloponnesus. The Athenians retained possession of Pagae a short time after Megara revolted from them in 454 BCE; but, by the thirty years' truce made in the same year, they surrendered the place to the Megarians. At one period of the Peloponnesian War (424 BCE) we find Pagae held by the aristocratical exiles from Megara. Pagae continued to exist until a late period, and under the Roman emperors was a place of sufficient importance to coin its own money. Strabo calls it τὸ τῶν Μεγαρέων φρούριον. Pausanias visited in the 2nd century and saw there a chapel of the hero Aegialeus, who fell at Glisas in the second expedition of the Argives against Thebes, but who was buried at this place. He also saw near the road to Pagae, a rock covered with marks of arrows, which were supposed to have been made by a body of the Persian cavalry of Mardonius, who in the night had discharged their arrows at the rock under the impulse of Artemis, mistaking it for the enemy. In commemoration of this event, there was a brazen statue of Artemis Soteira at Pagae. From 193 BCE Pagae was a member of the Achaean League. Pagae is also mentioned in other ancient sources, including Ptolemy, Stephanus of Byzantium, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Hierocles, and the Tabula Peutingeriana, where it is called Pache.
Phlius or Phleius (Φλειοῦς) was an independent polis (city-state) in the northeastern part of Peloponnesus. Phlius' territory, called Phliasia (Φλιασία), was bounded on the north by Sicyonia, on the west by Arcadia, on the east by Cleonae, and on the south by Argolis. This territory is a small valley about 900 feet (270 m) above the level of the sea, surrounded by mountains, from which streams flow down on every side, joining the river Asopus in the middle of the plain. The mountain in the southern part of the plain, from which the principal source of the Asopus springs, was called Carneates (Καρνεάτης). The territory of Phlius was celebrated in antiquity for its wine. According to Strabo, the ancient capital of the country was Araethyrea (Ἀραιθυρέα) on Mt. Celosse, which city is mentioned by Homer; but the inhabitants subsequently deserted it and built Phlius at the distance of 30 stadia. Pausanias, however, does not speak of any migration, but says that the ancient capital was named Arantia (Ἀραντία), from its founder Aras, an autochthon, that it was afterwards called Araethyrea from a daughter of Aras, and that it finally received the name of Phlius, from Phlias, a son of Ceisus and grandson of Temenus. The name of Arantia was retained in the time of Pausanias in the hill Arantinus, on which the city stood. Hence the statement of grammarians that both Arantia and Araethyrea were ancient names of Phlius. According to Stephanus of Byzantium, Phlius derived its name from Dionysus and Chthonophyle. Phlius was subsequently conquered by Dorians under Rhegnidas, who came from Sicyon. Some of the inhabitants migrated to Samos, others to Clazomenae; among the settlers at Samos was Hippasus, from whom Pythagoras derived his descent.
The Battle of the 300 Champions, known since Herodotus' day as the Battle of the Champions, was fought in roughly 546 BC between Argos and Sparta. Rather than commit full armies both sides agreed to pitting 300 of their best men against each other.
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years in Ancient Greece, marked by much of the eastern Aegean and northern regions of Greek culture gaining increased autonomy from the Persian Empire; the peak flourishing of democratic Athens; the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars; the Spartan and then Theban hegemonies; and the expansion of Macedonia under Philip II. Much of the early defining mathematics, science, artistic thought, theatre, literature, philosophy, and politics of Western civilization derives from this period of Greek history, which had a powerful influence on the later Roman Empire. Part of the broader era of classical antiquity, the classical Greek era ended after Philip II's unification of most of the Greek world against the common enemy of the Persian Empire, which was conquered within 13 years during the wars of Alexander the Great, Philip's son.
Thyrea, also Thyraea, Thyreae or Thyreai (Θυρέαι), was a town of Cynuria, and was fought over between ancient Argolis and ancient Laconia. Its territory was called the Thyreatis (Θυρεᾶτις). According to Pausanias, Thyrea was named after a mythological figure: Thyraeos, the son of Lycaon.
The history of Sparta describes the history of the ancient Doric Greek city-state known as Sparta from its beginning in the legendary period to its incorporation into the Achaean League under the late Roman Republic, as Allied State, in 146 BC, a period of roughly 1000 years. Since the Dorians were not the first to settle the valley of the Eurotas River in the Peloponnesus of Greece, the preceding Mycenaean and Stone Age periods are described as well. Sparta went on to become a district of modern Greece. Brief mention is made of events in the post-classical periods.
Anthene, or Anthana (Ἀνθάνα), or Athene (Ἀθήνη), was a town in Cynuria, originally inhabited by the Aeginetans, and mentioned by Thucydides along with Thyrea, as the two chief places in Cynuria.
The Tanos or Tanus (Τάνος), also called the Tanaus or Tanaos (Τάναος) is a river of the Peloponnese, Greece. In antiquity it was the northern border of the Thyreatis, or territory of the city of Thyrea, in the ancient region of Cynuria. It waters one of the most fertile plains in the Peloponnesus. The river rises in the summits of Mount Parnon, and falls into the sea, at present north of Astros, but earlier south of the latter place. It formed the boundary between the Argeia and ancient Laconia in the time of Euripides, who accordingly represents it as the boundary between the two states in the heroic age.
Cynuria or Kynouria was a district in ancient Arcadia mentioned only upon the occasion of the foundation of Megalopolis. It was situated north of Phigalice and Parrhasia. We may infer from the name that these Cynurians were the same as the Cynurians on the east coast of the ancient Peloponnesus, but we have no account of any historical connection between them.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Cynuria". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography . London: John Murray.| International | |
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