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Destinations Guide

KORONIA (KPO), Ancient city, VIOTIA


Information on the area


Homeric world (1)

Greeks of the Homeric Catalogue of Ships

Trojan War

Coroneia participated in the war and is listed in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.503).

Mythology (3)

Ancient myths

Priestess Iodama

Priestess of Athena, turned to stone, fire placed daily on her altar.

Persons related to the place

Itonus

Son of Amphictyon, and husband of the nymph Melanippe, by whom he became the father of Boeotus and Chromia. The sanctuary of Itonian Athena named after him.

Eponymous founders or settlers

Coronus

Coronus, a son of Thersander, grandson of Sisyphus, and founder of Coroneia. (Paus. ix. 34.5)

Ancient literary sources (1)

Perseus Encyclopedia

Coronea

A town in Boeotia, battle of.

History (1)

Battles

Battle of Coronea, 394 BC

Agesilaus put the Thessalian cavalry to flight and passed through Thessaly, and again made his way through Boeotia, winning a victory over Thebes and the allies at Coronea. When the Boeotians were put to flight, certain of them took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena surnamed Itonia. Agesilaus, although suffering from a wound received in the battle, did not sin against the suppliants.

Monuments reported by ancient authors (4)

Ancient sanctuaries

Sanctuary of Itonian Athena

Before reaching Coroneia from Alalcomenae we come to the sanctuary of Itonian Athena. It is named after Itonius the son of Amphictyon, and here the Boeotians gather for their general assembly. In the temple are bronze images of Itonian Athena and Zeus; the artist was Agoracritus, pupil and loved one of Pheidias. In my time they dedicated too images of the Graces.

Sanctuary of Hera

With an ancient image, the work of Pythodorus of Thebes; in her hand she carries Sirens. For the story goes that the daughters of Achelous were persuaded by Hera to compete with the Muses in singing. The Muses won, plucked out the Sirens' feathers (so they say) and made crowns for themselves out of them.

Ancient altars

Altar of Hermes Epimelius

(Paus. 9,34,3).Epimelius (=keeper of flocks).

Altar of the winds

(Paus. 9,34,3).

Various locations (1)

Ancient place-names

Mount Libethrius

Mountain of Boeotia. The Libethrian nymphs and the spring Libethrias there.

Information about the place (4)

Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities

Coronea

   Koroneia. A town in Boeotia, southwest of Lake Copais, and a member of the Boeotian League. Here in B.C. 447, the Boeotians defeated the Athenians; and in B.C. 394, the allied Greeks were defeated by Agesilaus.

Perseus Project

Links

Coronea

  Greek city of Boeotia, west of Thebes.
  In mythology, Coronea was the kingdom of Athamas, a son of Aeolus and grandson of Hellen. He was married three times and was involved in a lot of troubles with his successive wives, which inspired several tragedies in classical times.
  From his first wife Nephele, Athamas had a son named Phrixus and a daughter named Helle. But he later abandonned Nephele to marry Ino, one of the daughters of Cadmus, the founder of nearby Thebes. With Ino, Athamas had two sons, Learchus and Melicertes, yet Ino was jealous of the children he had had with Nephele and decided to get rid of them. She managed to induce a famine in the country and to make her husband believe that the oracle of Delphi required the sacrifice of Phrixus to end it. But while Phrixus was led to the altar, Nephele gave him a ram with a golden fleece offered her by Hermes, on which Phrixus and his sister Helle could fly away.
  When Athamas learned what Ino had done, he ordered that she be sacrificed in place of Phrixus. But then, Dionysus saved her by surrounding her in a cloud and struck Athamas with madness, so that he killed his own son Learchus. When she heard that, Ino took her other son Melicertes and jumped with him in the sea. After that, Athamas was exiled from Boeotia and seeked refuge in Thessalia, where he founded another city named Alos and married for the third time.
  It is in Coronea that a battle took place in 447 between the Athenians supporting democratic regimes in Boeotia and Boeotian oligarchs led by Thebes. Athens was defeated and Thebes was thus able to reconstruct the Boeotian Confederacy under its leadership.

Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1999), ed.
This extract is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.


Greek & Roman Geography (ed. William Smith)

Coroneia

  Koroneia: Eth. Koroneus, the name...derived from korone, a hill. A town of Boeotia, and a member of the Boeotian league, is described by Strabo as situated upon a height near Mt. Helicon. Its territory was called Koroneiake. (Strab. ix.) The town stood upon an insulated hill at the entrance of a valley leading southwards to Mt. Helicon, the principal summit of which is seen at the head of the valley. From this hill there is a fine view over the lake Copais, and at its foot there is a broad plain extending as far as the marshes of the lake. On either side of the hill flowed two streams, one on the eastern or right hand side, called Coralius or Cuarius, and the other on the left, named Phalarus: a tributary of the latter was the Isomantus or Hoplias. Coroneia is said to have been founded by the Boeotians from Arne in Thessaly, after they had been driven out of their original homes by the Thessalians; and they appear to have called it Coroneia after the Thessalian town of this name. At the same time they built in the plain in front of the city a temple of Athena Itonica, also named after the one in Thessaly, and likewise gave to the river which flowed by the temple the name of Cuarius or Curalius, after the Thessalian river. In this temple was held the festival of the Pamboeotia, which was common to all the Boeotians. (Strab. ix.; Paus. ix. 34. § 1.) The Thessalian origin of Coroneia is also attested by Pausanias, who ascribes its foundation, as well as that of Haliartus, to Athamas and his descendants, who came from Thessaly (ix. 34. § 7, seq.).
  Coroneia is mentioned by Homer in conjunction with Haliartus. (Il. ii. 503.) In historical times several important battles were fought in the plain in front of the town. It was here that the Athenians under Tolmides were defeated by the Boeotians in B.C. 447, in consequence of which defeat the Athenians lost the sovereignty which they had for some years exercised over Boeotia. (Thuc. i. 113.) The plain of Coroneia was also the scene of the victory gained by Agesilaus over the Thebans and their allies in B.C. 394. (Xen. Hell. iv. 3. 15, seq.; Plut. Ages. 17.) In the Sacred War Coroneia was twice taken by the Phocians under Onomarchus. (Diod. xvi, 35, 58.) Philip, after the conquest of the Phocians, gave up the town to the Thebans. (Dem. de Pac. p. 62, Philip. ii. p. 69.) Coroneia espoused the cause both of Philip and of Perseus in their wars with the Romans. (Polyb. xx. 7, xxvii. 1, xxix. 6, a.; Liv. xxxiii. 29, xlii. 44, 67.)
  Pausanias says (ix. 34. § 3) that the most remarkable objects in Coroneia were altars of Hermes Epimelius and of the winds, and a little below them the temple of Hera. The principal remains of the ancient city are those of the theatre, of the temple of Hera, and of the agora. The coins of Coroneia are very rare. The one annexed is a hemidrachma, with the Boeotian shield on one side, and on the other a full-faced mask or Gorgonian head, with the epigraph graph KOPO.

This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks


Archaeological findings (1)

Ancients' feasts, games and rituals (1)

Festivals for gods and gods' deeds

Pamboeotia

Pamboeotia (pamboiotia), a festive panegyris of all the Boeotians, which the grammarians compare with the Panathenaea of the Atticans, and the Panionia of the Ionians. The principal object of the meeting was the common worship of Athena Itonia, who had a temple in the neighbourhood of Coronea, near which the panegyris was held (Strabo, ix. p. 411; Pans. ix. 34, § 1). From Polybius (iv. 3, ix. 34) it appears that during this national festival no war was allowed to be carried on, and that in case of a war a truce was always concluded. This panegyris is also mentioned by Plutarch (Amat. Narrat. p. 774 f.). It is a disputed point whether the Pamboeotia had anything to do with the political constitution of Boeotia, and with the relation of its several towns to Thebes. The question is discussed in Sainte-Croix, Des Gouvernements federat. p. 211, &c.; Raoul-Rochette, Sur la Forme et l'Administr, de l??tat federatif des Beotiens, in the Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. vol. viii. (1827), p. 214. It seems probable that its object was religious, not political, though, as at other panegyreis, there were no doubt political harangues [PANEGYRIS]. The state and constitution of Boeotia is discussed under BOEOTARCHES (See also Gilbert, Staatsalterthumer, ii. 53.)

This text is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks


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