Herakleia Trachinia

Location of the twin city west of Thermopylae

Herakleia Trachinia ( ῾Ηράκλεια ἠ Τραχινία ) was the capital of the Malians founded by Sparta in the ancient Greek landscape of Trachis . It was west of Thermopylae between the Karvunaria and Sperchios rivers on the Gulf of Malia . It only bore the name "Herakleia Trachinia" since 426 BC. BC, before it was only called "Trachis".

Xerxes encamped on his march through Greece in July 480 BC. BC before Trachis, where he sent his army to march into the Thermopylae Gorge.

Even in Homer , the city is called ( Iliad 2, 682). It was last mentioned in Pausanias .

Archaeologists uncovered a late Mycenaean grave near Herakleia Trachinia .

literature

• Felix Staehelin : Herakleia 4. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VIII, 1, Stuttgart 1912, Col. 424-429.
• Yves Béquignon :  Herakleia Trachinia Central Greece . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
• Herwig Kramolisch: Herakleia 1: Herakleia Trachinia. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 5, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01475-4 , Sp. 364.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Raymond V. Schoder: Ancient Greece from the air . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1975, p. 213 .

Coordinates: 38 ° 49 ′ 13 ″  N , 22 ° 24 ′ 32 ″  E