Aphidnai

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Fortification of Aphidnai on Kotroni Hill. Polygonal masonry and on the left the remains of a round tower

Aphidnai , Aphidnae or Aphidna ( ancient Greek Ἀφίδναι or Ἀφίδνα ) was an ancient place northeast of Athens . He belonged to the Attic phyle Aiantis . Remains of the so-called Castle of Theseus were excavated on the 366 meter high Kotroni Hill, which is now three kilometers south of Kapandriti. From here you can see the entire plain. One kilometer to the south is the Marathon Lake and six kilometers to the northwest is the town of Afidnes - the modern Aphidnai.

Lore

Aphidnai was one of the twelve demes of Kekrops I. Theseus is said to have hid the stolen Helena here. His mother Aithra is said to have taken care of her. The Dioscuri , Helena's brothers, had finally found out their whereabouts according to a version of Plutarch of Akademos , according to a version of Herodotus of the decelations , conquered the city, freed Helena and carried away Aithra in prison. 412 BC The Spartans conquered the important frontier fortress and cut off Athens from the supply of grain from Euboea . An inscription from Athens from the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian proves that Aphidnai was still inhabited at that time and that it belonged to a Klaudia Tertulla .

The Athenian generals Callimachos and Kallistratos came from Aphidnai.

exploration

George Finlay first located Aphidnai on Kotroni Hill. The fortified castle hill has an extension of about 125 meters in a north-south direction and a width of about 40 meters. The wall thickness is about two meters. The exact age of the wall cannot be determined from the current state of research. However, dating to the Hellenistic period seems likely. The sherds found here date from the Middle Helladic and Mycenaean times , and there were also Hellenistic black varnish ceramics and ceramics from the Byzantine period .

One mile south of the hill, on the other side of the Charadra River, George Finlay first examined a tumulus with a diameter of 24 m. However, he only found two clay jugs repaired with lead. In October and November 1894, the Swedish researchers Sam Wide and Lennart Kjellberg undertook another study of the tumulus. They found 13 graves there - six pithos graves, two box graves and five shaft graves - and a pottery that was unknown up to that time. Today it is assigned to the Middle Helladic period.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marianne Mehling (ed.): Knaurs Kulturführer in Farbe, Athens and Attica , p. 7
  2. ^ Strabon , Geographica , 9, 1, 20.
  3. ↑ Plutarch, Theseus , 31-34.
  4. ^ Herodotus, Historien , 9, 73.
  5. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus , 3, 128.
  6. ^ Strabo, Geographica , 9, 1, 17.
  7. ^ Thucydides , The Peloponnesian War , 7, 28.
  8. ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) II 2776 , lines 96-97.
  9. ↑ John Murray (Ed.): Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom (1839) , Vol III, Part I, pp. 396-406.
  10. ↑ Josiah Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian land frontier, 404-322 BC , (Mnemosyne, Vol Suppl. 84), Brill, Leiden 1997, ISBN 9004072438 , pp. 140-141.
  11. ↑ Ernst Curtius (ed.); Johann August Kaupert (Ed.), Maps of Attika (Booklet III-VI): Explanatory Text , Berlin, 1889, p. 59  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / diglit.ub.uni-heidelberg.de  
  12. ^ Curtius, Ernst (ed.); Johann August Kaupert (Ed.), Karten von Attika: Karten , Berlin, 1895–1903, Sheet XIX  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / diglit.ub.uni-heidelberg.de  
  13. ↑ Communications from the Imperial German Archaeological Institute, Athenian Department , Volume 21, 1896, pp. 385-409.
  14. ^ Martin P. Nilsson, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology , p. 135.

Web links

Commons : Aphidnai  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Marianne Mehling (Ed.): Knaurs Kulturführer in Farbe, Athens and Attica . Weltbild, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-8289-0689-3 .
  • Martin P. Nilsson: The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology . First in 1932. Several new editions, most recently Bibliobazaar, 2009, ISBN 0-559-05787-3 .
  • Erwin Freund: Aphidnai. In: Siegfried Lauffer (Hrsg.): Greece, Lexicon of historical sites . CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-33302-8 , p. 123.

Coordinates: 38 ° 11 ′ 15 ″  N , 23 ° 52 ′ 45 ″  E