Orchomenos
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- For other uses of Orchomenus or Orchomenos, see Orchomenus
Orchomenos (Greek: Ὀρχομενός), the setting for many early Greek myths, is a rich archaeological site in Boeotia, (modern Viotia, Greece) that was inhabited from the Neolithic through the Hellenistic periods. Population 10,732 (2001).
The Neolithic remains found at Orchomenos were first thought to be in situ (Bulle 1907), but it later appeared that they consisted of fill in a levelling deposit (Kunze 1931; Treuil 1983). Thus, the associated round houses (two to six meters in diameter) should not be dated to that period, but rather to the Early Bronze Age (2800-1900 BCE). Later in that period, houses were apsidal.
In the Bronze Age, Orchomenos became in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries a rich and important centre of civilisation in Mycenaean Greece, the rival to Thebes, which claimed Heracles for its champion. According to the founding myth of Orchomenos, its royal dynasty had been established by the Minyans, who had followed their eponymous leader Minyas from coastal Thessaly to settle the site. The palace, which had frescoed walls, and the great tholos tombs show the power of Orchomenos in Mycenaean times. A massive hydraulic undertaking drained the marshes of Lake Copaïs. Like many sites around the Aegean, Orchomenos was burned and its palace destroyed, ca 1200 BCE. Orchomenos is mentioned among the Achaean cities sending ships to engage in the Trojan War in Homer's "Catalogue of Ships" in Iliad: together with Aspledon they contributed thirty ships and their complement of men. Orchomenos seems to have been one of the city-states that joined the maritime Amphictyony in the seventhth century.
In historical times, Orchomenos joined the Boeotian League (600 BCE). Orchomenos struck its coinage from the mid-sixth century. The broad plain between Orchomenos and the acropolis of Chaeronea witnessed two battles of major importance in Classical antiquity; eventually Orchomenos was destroyed in 349 BCE. Classical Orchomenos was known for its sanctuary of the Charites, the oldest in the city, according to Pausanias (5.172-80); the monastery church of Panaghia Skripou probably occupies the long-sacred spot.[1] Here the Charites had their earliest veneration, in legend instituted by Eteocles; musical and poetical agonistic games, the Charitesia,[2] were held in their honour, in the theatre that was discovered in 1972.[3]. The Agrionia, a festival of Dionysus, involved the ritual pursuit of women by a man representing the God.
In 480-479 BCE, the Orchomenians joined their neighboring rivals the Thebans, to turn back the invading forces of Xerxes in the Greco-Persian Wars. In mid-century, Orchomenos sheltered the oligarchic exiles who freed Boeotia from Athenian control. In the fourth century the traditional rivalry with Thebes made Orchomenos an ally of Agesilaus II and Sparta against Thebes, in 395 and again in 394 BCE. The Theban revenge after their defeat of Sparta in the battle of Leuctra (371) was delayed by the tolerant policies of Epaminondas:[4] the Thebans' Boeotian Confederacy sacked Orchomenos in 364. Although the Phocians rebuilt the city in 355, the Thebans destroyed it again in 349.
In 338 BCE, after a whirlwind march south into central Greece, Philip II of Macedon defeated Thebes and Athens on the plain of Chaironeia, establishing Macedonian supremacy over the city-states, and demonstrated the young Alexander's prowess. During Alexander the Great's campaign against Thebes (335), Orchomenos took the side of the Macedonian. In recompense, Philip and Alexander rebuilt Orchomenos, when the theatre and the fortification walls, visible today, were constructed.
A second battle of Orchomenos was fought in 85 BCE between Rome and the forces of Mithridates VI of Pontus. Subsequently Orchomenos has remained little more than a village.
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[edit] Archaeology
In 1880-1886 Heinrich Schliemann's excavations (H. Schliemann, Orchomenos, Leipzig 1881) revealed the tholos tomb he called the "Tomb of Minyas", a Mycenaean monument that equalled the "Tomb of Atreus" at Mycenae itself. In 1893 A. de Ridder excavated the temple of Asklepios and some burials in the Roman necropolis. In 1903-1905 a Bavarian archaeological mission under Heinrich Bulle and Adolf Furtwängler conducted successful excavations at the site. Research continued in 1970-1973 by the Archaeological Service under Theodore Spyropoulos, uncovering the Mycenaean palace, a prehistoric cemetery, the ancient amphitheatre, and other structures.
[edit] See also
- Achaean Federation
- Orchomenus, a king in Greek mythology.
- Erginus, king of Orchomenus.
- Elara and her son Tityos
- Cephissus (Boeotia)
- Arcadian Orchomenos, a prehistoric and historic city in Arcadia, Greece
[edit] Notes
- ^ J. G. Frazer's note on Pausanias, 1898.
- ^ A. Schachter, Cults of Boiotia I, (1981), pp 140-44, provides the most complete modern account of the Charitesia.
- ^ Schachter 1981; John Buckler, "The Charitesia at Boiotian Orchomenos" The American Journal of Philology 105.1 (Spring 1984), pp. 49-53.
- ^ John Buckler, The Theban Hegemony 371-362 B. C. (Harvard University Press) 1980.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official website (in Greek)
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