Stymfalia ( el, Στυμφαλία; grc, Στύμφαλος ''Stymphalos'') is a village and a former municipality in
Corinthia
Corinthia ( el, Κορινθία ''Korinthía'') is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated around the city of Corinth, in the north-eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula.
Geography
Cori ...
,
Peloponnese
The Peloponnese (), Peloponnesus (; el, Πελοπόννησος, Pelopónnēsos,(), or Morea is a peninsula and geographic regions of Greece, geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmu ...
,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
, previously known by the name Matsiza (small cat in Albanian) due to its Arvanite population. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has formed part of the municipality of
Sikyona
Sikyona ( el, Σικυώνα) is a municipality in Corinthia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is in Kiato. Sikyona takes its name from the ancient city Sicyon, which was located in the same territory.
Municipality
The municipality Sikyona wa ...
, of which it is a municipal unit.
The municipal unit has an area of 205.07 km
2,
while its population as of 2011 was 2,427. The seat of the municipality was in Kalianoi, 41 km southwest of the town of
Kiato
Kiato ( el, Κιάτο) is a town in the northern part of Corinthia in the Peloponnese, Greece. It is the seat of the municipality of Sikyona. Kiato is situated on the Gulf of Corinth, near the mouth of the river Asopos. It has much tourist activit ...
. The municipal unit occupies a mountain valley with an average altitude of 600 metres.
Mount Kyllene
Mount Kyllini or Mount Cyllene (; grc, Κυλλήνη , ; sometimes , ), is a mountain on the Peloponnese in Greece famous for its association with the god Hermes. It rises to above sea level, making it the second highest point on the peninsu ...
dominates it to the NW, rising to a height of c. 2,400 metres. The largest village is Kaisari, but the principal antiquities are just south of the modern village of Stymfalia, a hamlet of c. 150 inhabitants.
History
![Stymphalian bird](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Stymphalian_bird.jpg)
In
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
, Stymphalos, lying in this valley of northwestern
Arcadia
Arcadia may refer to:
Places Australia
* Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
* Arcadia, Queensland
* Arcadia, Victoria
Greece
* Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese
* Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...
, was famous as the site of one of the
Labors of Hercules
The Labours of Hercules or Labours of Heracles ( grc-gre, οἱ Ἡρακλέους ἆθλοι, ) are a series of episodes concerning a penance carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, whose name was later romanised as ...
, the slaying of the
Stymphalian birds. Hera, whose presence is never far from
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
, was venerated at the site in an archaic form in which she took three phases, as maiden, matron, and even widow.
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...
mentions an
Olympic victor in the mule-cart race (a man called Hagesias) in his sixth Olympian Ode, and urges the members of the choir to venerate their virginal
Hera
In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; grc-gre, Ἥρα, Hḗrā; grc, Ἥρη, Hḗrē, label=none in Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she ...
, who was apparently a survival of pre-Olympian religion. Pausanias mentions a statue of Dromeus, a long-distance runner from Stymphalos who won at all the
Panhellenic Games
Panhellenic Games is the collective term for four separate sports festivals held in ancient Greece. The four Games were:
Description
The Olympiad was one of the ways the Greeks measured time. The Olympic Games were used as a starting point, year ...
in the mid-5th century BC. Little else is known of Stymphalos from ancient literature. Artemis was the principal divinity of the town and her temple seems still to have been in use in Roman times. One unusual aspect of the goddess is that her sanctuary is referred to in an inscription of the early 2nd century BC as that of
Brauron
Brauron (; grc, Βραυρών) was one of the twelve cities of ancient Attica, but never mentioned as a ''deme'', though it continued to exist down to the latest times. It was situated on or near the eastern coast of Attica, between Steiria and ...
ian Artemis, an Athenian cult. An inscription commemorating Stymphalian hospitality to the people of Elateia was to be set up in the agora of Elateia and in the sanctuary of Brauronian Artemis at Stymphalos. Demeter and Hermes are also epigraphically attested.
Anastasios Orlandos Anastasios Orlandos ( el, Αναστάσιος Ορλάνδος, 23 December 1887 – 6 October 1979) was a Greek architect and historian of architecture.
Biography
A descendant of Ioannis Orlandos, Anastasios was born and died in Athens. He s ...
excavated parts of the site for the
Archaeological Society of Athens
The Archaeological Society of Athens (Greek: Εν Αθήναις Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία) is an independent learned society. Also termed the Greek Archaeological Society, it was founded in 1837 by Konstantinos Bellios, just a fe ...
between 1924 and 1930. Since 1982, excavations of the site on the north shore of
Lake Stymphalia
Lake Stymphalia (Greek: Λίμνη Στυμφαλία - ''Límnē Stymphalía'') is located in the north-eastern part of the Peloponnese, in Corinthia, southern Greece.
It is a closed karst basin with a wetland area and an agrarian area. The lake ...
have been under way, directed by Hector Williams for the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
. Archaeological surveys and excavations have revealed a town refounded in the 4th century BC.
[The Bronze Age and early classical Stymphalos has not been precisely located.] The later city was laid out on a grid plan, with six-meter-wide roads running north–south every thirty metres, which intersected major east–west avenues at intervals over a hundred metres. Houses have also been identified, as have a theatre, a palaestra, a fountain house, several temples, and the sanctuary, where an inscription preserving the letters POLIAD... ("of Athena Polias") found by Orlandos in 1925, but now lost, seems to indicate
Athena Polias
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
as the divinity worshipped, though no further confirmation of this has been found. A graffito on a sherd from the site refers to the goddess of childbirth, Eilythyia. Large quantities of jewelry (mostly copper or bronze) suggest a sanctuary frequented by women; the partially preserved statue of a child supports the kourotrophic interpretation of the cult. In an annex to the temple, several dozen loom weights suggest the further presence of Athena in a weaving workshop. The sanctuary was destroyed, probably by the Romans in 146 BC, but later seems to have been at least revisited to judge from early to mid Roman pottery lamps from the area.
There are four early Christian cemeteries. Just to the north of the ancient city are the remains of the medieval
Cistercian
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...
monastery of Zaraka, also partially excavated by the
Royal Canadian Institute
The Royal Canadian Institute for Science (RCIScience), known also as the Royal Canadian Institute, is a Canadian nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting the public with Canadian science.
History
The organization was formed in Toronto as t ...
. There are various other smaller sites scattered around the valley, but as yet there has been no systematic survey of them.
References
External links
Stymphalos ExcavationsKiato Greater Area
{{Sikyona div
Populated places in Corinthia