Listed 11 sub titles with search on: Ancient literary sources for wider area of: "PIRAEUS Prefectural seat ATTIKI" .
EGALEO (Mountain) ATTIKI
The hill in Attica whence Xerxes saw the battle of Salamis.
SKANDIA (Ancient city) KYTHIRA
A town in Cythern, which is mentioned by Homer (Il. 10.268).
FALIRON (Ancient demos) PIRAEUS
A port of Attica, old seaport of Athens, distant twenty furlongs from Athens, scene of a battle between the Pisistratids and the Spartans, destroyed by Aeginetans, Xerxes' fleet there, flight of Persian ships thither.
FREATYS (City quarter) PIRAEUS
Athenian court of justice in Piraeus
METHANA (Ancient city) METHANA
Stretching out far into the sea from Troezenia is a peninsula, on the coast of
which has been founded a little town called Methana. Here there is a sanctuary
of Isis, and on the market-place is an image of Hermes, and also one of Heracles.
Some thirty stades distant from the town are hot baths. They say that it was when
Antigonus, son of Demetrius, was king of Macedon that the water first appeared,
and that what appeared at once was not water, but fire that gushed in great volume
from the ground, and when this died down the water flowed; indeed, even at the
present day it wells up hot and exceedingly salt. A bather here finds no cold
water at hand, and if he dives into the sea his swim is full of danger. For wild
creatures live in it, and it swarms with sharks.
I will also relate what astonished me most in Methana. The wind called
Lips (a S.W. wind), striking the budding vines from the Saronic Gulf, blights
their buds. So while the wind is still rushing on, two men cut in two a cock whose
feathers are all white, and run round the vines in opposite directions, each carrying
half of the cock. When they meet at their starting place, they bury the pieces
there.
Such are the means they have devised against the Lips. The islets,
nine in number, lying off the land are called the Isles of Pelops, and they say
that when it rains one of them is not touched. If this be the case I do not know,
though the people around Methana said that it was true, and I have seen before
now men trying to keep off hail by sacrifices and spells.
Methana, then, is a peninsula of the Peloponnesus. (Paus. 2.34.1-4)
SKANDIA (Ancient city) KYTHIRA
Seaport in Cythera.
TRIZIN (Ancient city) GREECE
City, founded by Pittheus, Herakles ascends from Hades at, Theseus at, Aegeus lodges with Pittheus at, in Argolis, entrusted with the island of Hydrea, mother-city of Halicarnssus, its contingent in the Greek fleet, in the force at the Isthmus, in Pausanias' army, Troezenians in the battle of Mycale, receives Dorian colony, subject to Argos, city described.
AEGINA, AIGINA (Island) GREECE
Aegina is the name of a place in Epidauria;
and it is also the name of an island lying off this part of the mainland--the
Aegina of which the poet means to speak in the verses just cited; and it is on
this account that some write "the island Aegina" instead of "who held Aegina,"
thus distinguishing between places of the same name. Now what need have I to say
that the island is one of the most famous? for it is said that both Aeacus and
his subjects were from there. And this is the island that was once actually mistress
of the sea and disputed with the Athenians
for the prize of valor in the sea fight at Salamis
at the time of the Persian War. The island is said to be one hundred
and eighty stadia in circuit; and it has a city of the same name that faces southwest;
and it is surrounded by Attica,
Megaris, and the Peloponnesus
as far is Epidaurus, being
distant about one hundred stadia from each; and its eastern and southern sides
are washed by the Myrtoan
and Cretan Seas; and around
it lie small islands, many of them near the mainland, though Belbina
extends to the high sea. The country of Aegina is fertile at a depth below the
surface, but rocky on the surface, and particularly the level part; and therefore
the whole country is bare, although it is fairly productive of barley. It is said
that the Aeginetans were called Myrmidons,--not as the myth has it, because, when
a great famine occurred, the ants became human beings in answer to a prayer of
Aeacus, but because they excavated the earth after the manner of ants and spread
the soil over the rocks, so as to have ground to till, and because they lived
in the dugouts, refraining from the use of soil for bricks. Long ago Aegina was
called Oenone, the same name as that of two demes in Attica,
one near Eleutherae, "to
inhabit the plains that border on Oenone
and Eleutherae;" and another,
one of the demes of the Marathonian
Tetrapolis, to which is applied the proverb, "To Oenone
--the torrent." Aegina was colonized successively by the Argives,
the Cretans, the Epidaurians,
and the Dorians; but later the Athenians
divided it by lot among settlers of their own; and then the Lacedaemonians
took the island away from the Athenians
and gave it back to its ancient settlers. And colonists were sent forth by the
Aeginetans both to Cydonia
in Crete and to the country
of the Ombrici.
Ephorus says that silver was first coined in Aegina, by Pheidon; for the island,
he adds, became a merchant center, since, on account of the poverty of the soil,
the people employed themselves at sea as merchants, and hence, he adds, petty
wares were called "Aeginetan merchandise." (Strabo 8.6.16)
The poet (Homer)... connects Mases
with Aegina, although it is in Argolis
on the mainland.(Strabo 8.6.17)
METHANA (Ancient city) METHANA
Between Troezen and Epidaurus there was a strong hold called Methana, and also a peninsula of the same name. In some copies of Thucydides the name is spelled "Methone," the same as the Macedonian city in which Philip, in the siege, had his eye knocked out. And it is on this account, in the opinion of Demetrius of Scepsis, that some writers, being deceived, suppose that it was the Methone in the territory of Troezen against which the men sent by Agamemnon to collect sailors are said to have uttered the imprecation that its citizens might never cease from their wall-building, since, in his opinion, it was not these citizens that refused, but those of the Macedonian city, as Theopompus says; and it is not likely, he adds, that these citizens who were near to Agamemnon disobeyed him. (Strabo 8.6.1)
SALAMINA (Island) ATTIKI
On the voyage from Nisaea to Attica one comes to five small islands. Then to Salamis,
which is about seventy stadia in length, though some say eighty. It contains a
city of the same name; the ancient city, now deserted, faces towards Aegina and
the south wind (just as Aeschylus has said, "And Aegina here lies towards the
blasts of the south wind"), but the city of today is situated on a gulf, on a
peninsula-like place which borders on Attica. In early times it was called by
different names, for example, "Sciras" and "Cychreia," after certain heroes. It
is from one of these heroes that Athena is called "Sciras," and that a place in
Attica is called "Scira," and that a certain sacred rite is performed in honor
of "Scirus," and that one of the months is called "Scirophorion."
And it is from the other hero that the serpent "Cychreides"
took its name--the serpent which, according to Hesiod, was fostered by Cychreus
and driven out by Eurylochus because it was damaging the island, and was welcomed
to Eleusis by Demeter and made her attendant. And the island was also called Pityussa,
from the tree. But the fame of the island is due to the Aiacidae, who ruled over
it, and particularly to Aias, the son of Telamon, and also to the fact that near
this island Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks in a naval battle and fled to his
homeland. And the Aeginetans also shared in the glory of this struggle, since
they were neighbors and furnished a considerable fleet. And there is in Salamis
a river Bocarus, which is now called Bocalia.
At the present time the island is held by the Athenians, although
in early times there was strife between them and the Megarians for its possession.
Some say that it was Peisistratus, others Solon, who inserted in the Catalogue
of Ships immediately after the verse, "and Aias brought twelve ships from
Salamis," the verse, "and, bringing them, halted them where the battalions
of the Athenians were stationed," and then used the poet as a witness that
the island had belonged to the Athenians from the beginning. But the critics do
not accept this interpretation, because many of the verses bear witness to the
contrary. For why is Aias found in the last place in the ship-camp, not with the
Athenians, but with the Thessalians under Protesilaus, "Here were the ships
of Aias and Protesilaus."
And in the Visitation of the troops, Agamemnon "found Menestheus
the charioteer, son of Peteos, standing still; and about him were the Athenians,
masters of the battle-cry. And near by stood Odysseus of many wiles, and about
him, at his side, the ranks of the Cephallenians." And back again to Aias
and the Salaminians, "he came to the Aiantes," and near them, "Idomeneus
on the other side," not Menestheus. The Athenians, then, are reputed to have
cited alleged testimony of this kind from Homer, and the Megarians to have replied
with the following parody: "Aias brought ships from Salamis, from Polichne,
from Aegeirussa, from Nisaea, and from Tripodes"; these four are Megarian
places, and, of these, Tripodes is called Tripodiscium, near which the present
marketplace of the Megarians is situated.
Some say that Salamis is foreign to Attica, citing the fact that the
priestess of Athena Polias does not touch the fresh cheese made in Attica, but
eats only that which is brought from a foreign country, yet uses, among others,
that from Salamis. Wrongly, for she eats cheese brought from the other islands
that are admittedly attached to Attica, since those who began this custom considered
as "foreign" any cheese that was imported by sea. But it seems that
in early times the present Salamis was a separate state, and that Megara was a
part of Attica. And it is on the seaboard opposite Salamis that the boundaries
between the Megarian country and Atthis are situated--two mountains which are
called Cerata.
TRIZIN (Ancient city) GREECE
Troezen is sacred to Poseidon, after whom it was once called Poseidonia. It is
situated fifteen stadia above the sea, and it too is an important city. Off its
harbor, Pogon by name, lies
Calauria, an isle with a circuit
of about one hundred and thirty stadia. Here was an asylum sacred to Poseidon;
and they say that this god made an exchange with Leto, giving her Delos
for Calauria, and also with
Apollo, giving him Pytho
for Taenarum. And Ephorus
goes on to tell the oracle:
"For thee it is the same thing to possess Delos
or Calauria, most holy Pytho
or windy Taenarum."
And there was also a kind of Amphictyonic League connected with this temple, a
league of seven cities which shared in the sacrifice; they were Hermion,
Epidaurus, Aegina,
Athens, Prasieis,
Nauplieis, and Orchomenus
Minyeius; however, the Argives
paid dues for the Nauplians,
and the Lacedaemonians for
the Prasians. The worship
of this god was so prevalent among the Greeks that even the Macedonians,
whose power already extended as far as the temple, in a way preserved its inviolability,
and were afraid to drag away the suppliants who fled for refuge to Calauria;
indeed Archias, with soldiers, did not venture to do violence even to Demosthenes,
although he had been ordered by Antipater to bring him alive, both him and all
the other orators he could find that were under similar charges, but tried to
persuade him; he could not persuade him, however, and Demosthenes forestalled
him by suiciding with poison. Now Troezen and Pittheus, the sons of Pelops, came
originally from Pisatis;
and the former left behind him the city which was named after him, and the latter
succeeded him and reigned as king. But Anthes, who previously had possession of
the place, set sail and founded Halicarnassus;
but concerning this I shall speak in my description of Caria
and Troy. (Strabo 8.6.14)
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