Sestos
Sestos (, ) was an ancient city in Thrace. It was located at the Thracian Chersonese peninsula on the European coast of the Hellespont, opposite the ancient city of Abydos, and near the town of Eceabat in Turkey. In Greek mythology, Sestos is presented in the myth of Hero and Leander as the home of Hero. History Classical period Sestos is first mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'' as a Thracian settlement, and was allied with Troy during the Trojan War. The city was settled by colonists from Lesbos in c. 600 BC. In c. 512, Sestos was occupied by the Achaemenid Empire, and Darius I ferried across from the city to Asia Minor after his Scythian campaign. Alongside Byzantium, Sestos was considered to be one of the foremost Achaemenid ports on the European coast of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont. In 480, at the onset of the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Xerxes I bridged the Hellespont near Sestos. In 479 BC, after the Greek victory at the Battle of Mycale, Sestos was be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Artayctes
Artaÿctes (; died 479 BC) is a historical figure described in Herodotus' '' The Histories''. Artaÿctes, the son of Cherasmis, was a Persian general who commanded the Macrones and Mossynoeci forces in the army of Xerxes during the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480-479 BC. During that period, Artaÿctes was also a tyrant in Sestos where he was captured and crucified by Athenian forces in 479. Background After the defeat of the Persian army in the Battle of Plataea and the Battle of Mycale, the remaining Persians and their allies made for Sestos, the strongest town in the Thracian Chersonesos. The Greek fleet sailed to the Hellespont to destroy the pontoon bridges placed there by the Persians when they had crossed from Asia Minor to Greece but found that this had already been done. The Peloponnesians then sailed home, but the Athenians, commanded by Xanthippus, decided to try to retake the Thracian Chersonesos from the Persians. The Athenian army landed on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Xanthippus
Xanthippus (; , ; 520 – 475 BC) was a wealthy Ancient Athens, Athenian politician and general during the Greco-Persian Wars. He was the son of Ariphron and father of Pericles, both prominent Athenian statesmen. A marriage to Agariste, niece of Cleisthenes, linked Xanthippus with the Alcmaeonidae, Alcmaeonid clan, whose aristocratic interests he often represented in government.Herodotus, ''The Histories'' 6.131. He was Ostracism, ostracized in 484 BC,David Sacks, Lisa R. Brody, and Oswyn Murray, ''Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World'' (New York City, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2009), p. 370. likely arising from his rivalry with Themistocles,Plutarch, ''Comparison of Aristides and Marcus Cato'' 2.3. but he was recalled from exile when the Achaemenid Empire, Persians invaded Greece. He commanded the Athenian fleets in the Battle of Mycale and the Greco-Persian Wars, Siege of Sestos. It is possible that he participated in the Battle of Marathon and Battle of Salamis. Early li ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hero And Leander
Hero and Leander (, ) is the Greek myth relating the story of Hero (, ''Hērṓ''; ), a priestess of Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology) who dwelt in a tower in Sestos on the European side of the Hellespont, and Leander (, ''Léandros''; or Λείανδρος), a young man from Abydos on the opposite side of the strait. The myth Leander falls in love with Hero and swims every night across the Hellespont to spend time with her. Hero lights a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. Leander's soft words and charms—and his argument that Aphrodite, as the goddess of love and sex, would scorn the worship of a virgin—convince Hero, and they make love. Their secret love affair lasts through a warm summer, but when winter and its rougher weather looms, they agree to part for the season and resume in the spring. One stormy winter night, however, Leander sees the torch at the top of Hero's tower. He attempts to go to her, but halfway through his swim, a strong winter w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Second Persian Invasion Of Greece
The second Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC) occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece (492–490 BC) at the Battle of Marathon, which ended Darius I's attempts to subjugate Greece. After Darius's death, his son Xerxes spent several years planning for the second invasion, mustering an enormous army and navy. The Athenians and Spartans led the Greek resistance. About a tenth of the Greek city-states joined the 'Allied' effort; most remained neutral or submitted to Xerxes. The invasion began in spring 480 BC, when the Persian army crossed the Hellespont and marched through Thrace and Macedon to Thessaly. The Persian advance was blocked at the pass of Thermopylae by a small Allied force under King Leonidas I of Sparta; simultaneously, the Persian fleet was blocked by an Allied fleet at the straits of Artemisium ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abydos (Hellespont)
Abydos (, ) was an ancient city and bishopric in Mysia. It was located at the Nara Burnu promontory on the Asian coast of the Dardanelles, Hellespont (the straits of Dardanelles), opposite the ancient city of Sestos, and near the city of Çanakkale in Turkey. Abydos was founded in at the most narrow point in the straits, and thus was one of the main crossing points between Europe and Asia, until its replacement by the crossing between Lampsacus and Gelibolu, Kallipolis in the 13th century, and the abandonment of Abydos in the early 14th century. In Greek mythology, Abydos is presented in the myth of Hero and Leander as the home of Leander. The city is also mentioned in ''Rodanthe and Dosikles'', a novel written by Theodore Prodromos, a 12th-century writer, in which Dosikles kidnaps Rodanthe at Abydos. Archaeology In 1675, the site of Abydos was first identified, and was subsequently visited by numerous classicists and travellers, such as Robert Wood (antiquarian), Robert Wood, R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thracian Chersonese
The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning 'beautiful city', the original name of the modern town of Gelibolu. In antiquity, the peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese (; ). The peninsula runs in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean Sea, between the Dardanelles (formerly known as the Hellespont), and the Gulf of Saros (formerly the bay of Melas). In antiquity, it was protected by the Long Wall, a defensive structure built across the narrowest part of the peninsula near the ancient city of Agora. The isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadthHerodotus, ''The Histories''vi. 36 Xenophon, ibid.; Pseudo-Scylax, ''Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax'', 67PDF) or about , but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern extremity, Cape Mastusia, was 42 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eceabat
Eceabat is a small town in Çanakkale Province in the Marmara Region of Turkey, located on the eastern shore of the Gelibolu Peninsula, on the Dardanelles Strait. It is the seat of Eceabat District.İlçe Belediyesi Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 1 March 2023. Its population is 5,636 (2021). The town lies at sea level. It is an almost entirely modern town. Eceabat is the departure point for the annual swim across the to on the other side of the Dardanelles Strait. Eceabat is the nearest town to the [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of Mycale
The Battle of Mycale was one of the two major battles (the other being the Battle of Plataea) that ended the second Persian invasion of Greece during the Greco-Persian Wars. It took place on 27 or 28 August, 479BC on the slopes of Mount Mycale, which is located on the coast of Ionia opposite the island of Samos. The battle was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens and Corinth; and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I. The previous year, the Persian invasion force, led by Xerxes himself, had scored victories at the battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium, and conquered Thessaly, Boeotia and Attica; however, at the ensuing Battle of Salamis, the Greek navy had won an unlikely victory, and therefore prevented the conquest of the Peloponnese. Xerxes then retreated, leaving his general Mardonius with a substantial army to finish off the Greeks the following year. In the summer of 479BC, the Greeks assembled an army, and marched to confront Mardon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trojan War
The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mythology), Paris of Troy took Helen of Troy, Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology, and it has been Epic Cycle, narrated through many works of ancient Greek literature, Greek literature, most notably Homer's ''Iliad''. The core of the ''Iliad'' (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the ''Odyssey'' describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a Epic Cycle, cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Latin literature, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Delian League
The Delian League was a confederacy of Polis, Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, founded in 478 BC under the leadership (hegemony) of Classical Athens, Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece. The League functioned as a dual –offensive and defensive– alliance (''Symmachia (alliance), symmachia'') of autonomous states, similar to its rival association, the Peloponnesian League. The League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, the island of Delos, where congresses were held within the sanctuary of the Temple of Apollo; contemporary authors referred to the organization simply as "the Athenians and their Allies". While Sparta excelled as Greece's greatest power on land, Athens turned to the seas becoming the dominant naval power of the Ancient Greece, Greek world. Following Sparta's withdrawal from the Gr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Byzantium
Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a name of Constantinople sporadically and to varying degrees during the thousand-year existence of the Eastern Roman Empire, which also became known by the former name of the city as the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium was colonized by Greeks from Megara in the 7th century BCE and remained primarily Greek-speaking until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1453 CE. Etymology The etymology of ''Byzantium'' is unknown. It has been suggested that the name is of Thracian origin. It may be derived from the Thracian personal name Byzas which means "he-goat". Ancient Greek legend refers to the Greek king Byzas, the leader of the Megarian colonists and founder of the city. The name '' Lygos'' for the city, which likely corresponds to an earlier T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |