Triphylians ( grc, Τριφύλιοι or Τρίφυλοι) were an ancient
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
tribe. They were residents of the western
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 ...
region, which in Homeric times was called Pylos and later
Triphylia
Triphylia ( el, Τριφυλία, ''Trifylia'', "the country of the three tribes") was an area of the ancient Peloponnese. Strabo and Pausanias both describe Triphylia as part of Elis, and it fell at times under the domination of the city of Eli ...
. The name Triphylia, literally emerged from the fact of the establishment of three different tribes in the area. The Homeric cities of
Pylos
Pylos (, ; el, Πύλος), historically also known as Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is th ...
, Kyparisieis and
Dorion enjoyed great growth and prosperity. Triphylia and its residents had the benefit of independence and self-government until the
second Messenian war
The Second Messenian War was a war which occurred ca. 660–650 BC between the Ancient Greek states of Messenia and Sparta, with localized resistance possibly lasting until the end of the century. It started around 40 years after the end of the Fi ...
, in 628 BC, when they fell into the authority of the
Spartans
Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred t ...
, who later handed Triphylia over to the
Eleans
Elis () or Eleia ( el, Ήλιδα, Ilida, grc-att, Ἦλις, Ēlis ; Elean: , ethnonym: ) is an ancient district in Greece that corresponds to the modern regional unit of Elis.
Elis is in southern Greece on the Peloponnese, bounded on ...
. Triphylians remained enslaved under the sovereignty of Eleans throughout the
Peloponnesian war
The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. The war remained undecided for a long time until the decisive intervention of th ...
, excluding a short period during which they managed to recover their autonomy. In 366 BC Triphylians fell again to the jurisdiction of Elis, until the establishment of the
Achaean League
The Achaean League (Greek: , ''Koinon ton Akhaion'' "League of Achaeans") was a Hellenistic-era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese. The league was named after the region of Achaea in the northwestern Pel ...
, when they gain their independence as part of the confederation’s members.
In the years 220–217 BC, Trifylia was conquered by the king
Philip V Philip V may refer to:
* Philip V of Macedon (221–179 BC)
* Philip V of France (1293–1322)
* Philip II of Spain, also Philip V, Duke of Burgundy (1526–1598)
* Philip V of Spain
Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was ...
and came under the influence of Macedonia. In the early Roman times, a large part of Triphylia regained its autonomy.
[Lampsas Giannis, ''Dictionary of the Ancient World (Lexiko tou Archaiou Kosmou)'', Vol. IV, Athens, Domi Publications, 1984, p. 704.]
References
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Triphylians