Location information

Arsinoi Community

  Arsinoi is situated on the west of the Eva Mountain and on the south of the Ithome Mountain, at an altitude of 330m, at a distance of 2km from ancient Messini. It is a small traditional village with several stone houses. Around 746, farmers and stockbreeder inhabited it. Τhe original name of the village is unknown. Several years later, Arvanites from the villages of Soulima, Trifylia settled in the village and they were the first to give it the name Syriza, a distortion of which later gave the name Simiza. The first official appearance of the name Simiza is in the census carried out by the Venetians in 1700. Based on that census 19 families with 31 men and 29 women lived in the village.
  Arsinoi contributed to the 1821 War for the Independence two great fighters, Yiannis Tsiros and Yiannis Lekkas or Lekopoulos who served as an officer. Up to 1833 it belonged to the province of Implakia. In 1836 it became part of the newly founded municipality of Ithome. In the beginning of the 20th century and up to 1927 it was part of the community of Mavromati and had 238 inhabitants. From that moment on it became a separate village with 241 inhabitants, until 1998 when it was incorporated in the Municipality of Ithome.
  The Primary School of Arsinoi that operated since 1937 moved to a new building in 1952. The village was linked to the water network in 1958. The church was built in 1970, which was also the year the community office was built and the remodeling of the village square begun.
This text is cited April 2003 from the Municipality of Ithomi tourist pamphlet.