Article
Abdera
James Maxwell Ross Cormack and Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond
Article
Abydos
Stephen Mitchell
Was the best harbour on the Asiatic side of the *Hellespont. In the Iliad (2. 836) an ally of Troy and then a Thracian settlement, it was colonized c.700
Article
Acanthus
Simon Hornblower
Article
Acarnania
W. M. Murray
Article
Achaea
Catherine A. Morgan
Article
Achaia
Antony Spawforth
Article
Acharnae
Charles William John Eliot and Simon Hornblower
Acharnae, the largest Attic *deme. (The figure of 3,000 hoplites at Thuc. 2. 20. 4, cf. 21. 3, may be too high; 1,200 is likelier and a possible emendation; another is that πολῖται should be read for ὁπλῖται, ‘citizens’ not ‘hoplites’). It lay around Menidi in the NW corner of the Attic plain, near the pass from the Thriasian plain along which *Archidamus II and the Spartans marched in 431
Article
Acrae
Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead and R. J. A. Wilson
Acrae (near mod. Palazzolo Acreide), founded by *Syracuse in 663
Article
Acraephnium
John Buckler
Acraephnium (mod. Karditza), city in NE *Boeotia, located above a small bay of Lake *Copais; perhaps the Homeric Arne. Fortifications and cemeteries have been excavated, the latter revealing splendid examples of early painted pottery. It entered the Boeotian Confederacy in 447
Article
Acragas
Arthur Geoffrey Woodhead and R. J. A. Wilson
Article
Actium
W. M. Murray
Article
Adriatic Sea
Max Cary and W. M. Murray
Article
Aecae
H. Kathryn Lomas
Article
Aedepsus
Antony Spawforth
Aedepsus (mod. Loutra Aidepsou), Euboean coastal town dependent on *Histiaea, famous in antiquity for its hot springs, known to Aristotle (Mete. 2. 366a) and still in use. It prospered in imperial times as a playground for the wealthy, equipped with luxurious swimming-pools and dining-rooms (Plut. Mor.
Article
Aegae
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond
In northern Pieria, overlooking the coastal plain of Macedonia. Founded by the first of the Temenid kings and thereafter the site of their tombs, it has been made famous by Manolis Andronikos, who excavated a pre-Temenid cemetery of tumuli and then, in 1977, three royal tombs of the 4th cent.
Article
Aegean Sea
Eric Herbert Warmington
Aegean Sea, between Greece and Asia Minor. To it the modern name Archipelago was originally applied, but the ancient Greeks derived the name Aegean variously from *Theseus' father *Aegeus, who drowned himself in it; from Aegea, Amazonian queen (see
Article
Aegina
Simon Hornblower
Aegina, island in Saronic Gulf, inhabited from late neolithic times and in contact with Minoan Crete and Mycenae. Early in the first millennium
Article
Aegium
Catherine A. Morgan
Article
Aegospotami
Simon Hornblower
‘Goat’s rivers’ in the *Hellespont, probably an open beach somewhere opposite *Lampacus, scene of the final and decisive sea-battle of the *Peloponnesian war, a victory over the Athenians by the Spartans under *Lysander (405). *Alcibiades, in exile in Thrace, had warned the Athenian generals (who included *Conon (1)) of the dangers of their exposed position, and may even have offered military help in the form of Thracians; but he was rebuffed. The accounts of how the battle started cannot be reconciled, but it is clear that, after several days of inactivity, the Athenians were caught with most of their ships unmanned.
Article
Aegosthena
John Salmon
Aegosthena, settlement and fortified place in the territory of *Megara, at the easternmost point of the Corinthian Gulf. The remnants of the Spartan army which was defeated at *Leuctra joined a relieving force at Aegosthena on their way back to Sparta (Xen. Hell. 6. 4. 26). The fortifications are (despite earthquake damage in the early 1980s) among the best preserved in Greece, but the history of the site is ill known, and their date is uncertain: they were probably not much, if at all, before 350, but may be 3rd-century. Aegosthena went into the *Achaean Confederacy when Megara joined in 243/2