Ilisos
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Ilisos Ιλισός |
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.jpg) View of Ilissos with the Temple of Zeus Olympios. Drawing by Edward Dodwell (1821) |
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| Data | ||
| location | Athens ( Greece ) | |
| River system | Ilisos | |
| source | at the Hymettos | |
| muzzle | in the Bay of Faliro ( Saronic Gulf ) Coordinates: 37 ° 56 ′ 23 " N , 23 ° 40 ′ 51" E 37 ° 56 ′ 23 " N , 23 ° 40 ′ 51" E
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The Ilisos ( Greek Ιλισός , also Ιλισσός, Ilissos ) is a small, mostly arid river in Greece that flows through the Athens plain . It rises in the Hymettos Mountains , flows southwest, touching the ancient center of the city and flows into the Saronic Gulf at Paleo Faliro . Today the river is built over by several important road axes.
Not far from the course of the Ilisos, the presumed remains of the school of Aristotle , the Lykeion , were found a few years ago . The river plays a special role in Greek mythology : Plato reports in Phaedrus that Oreithyia , the daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus, played on its bank when she was kidnapped by Boreas . In honor of Boreas, the Athenians later erected an altar near the river and introduced a festival called Boreasmos, as reported by Pausanias (Book I 19.1) and Apollonios of Rhodes ( Argonautica , I 212ff.). In addition, the river played a role in the smaller mysteries of Eleusis , the Myesis . As part of this initiation ritual, the priests cleaned themselves after sacrificing a pig in Ilisos.
There is a sanctuary on the banks of the Ilisos, in which, among other things, a statue of Aphrodite was found. It is identified as the sanctuary of Artemis Agrotera . In the 5th century, the Ilisos Basilica was built on an island in Ilisos. Also on the bank of the Ilisos and in the immediate vicinity of the sanctuary was the ancient Panathenaic Stadium (now also called Kallimarmaro due to the marble fittings), which was rebuilt for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 .