Kleonai

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Location of Kleonai
The ancient quarry

Kleonai ( Greek  Κλεωναί ) was an ancient Greek city located 13 km southwest of Corinth and probably already settled in the Late Helladic . It is about 1.6 km east of today's Archees Kleones . The city had in the early 4th century BC BC a population of about 8000 inhabitants and ruled the road from the Isthmos of Corinth to the interior of the Peloponnese . Until the loss of independence in the 4th century BC At Argos she had control over the Nemean Games . Today the ancient quarry , which provided building material for the nearby sanctuary of Nemea , and the remains of a temple that can most likely be identified with the Temple of Heracles mentioned by Diodorus , are particularly worth seeing .

Tradition and History

Kleonai is said to be named after Kleones, a son of Pelops, or after Kleone, a daughter of the Asopos River . When Herakles came to Kleonai, he was taken in by the day laborer Molorchos . He sacrificed Zeus, the savior, after Heracles had killed the Nemean lion . In Kleonai, Heracles also killed the Siamese twins Kteatos and Eurytos , as they supported their rivals in the fight against Augias . After Homer , Kleonai took part in the Trojan War and belonged to the sphere of influence of the Mycenaean ruler Agamemnon .

With the conquest of the Peloponnese by the Herakleids , the inhabitants of Kleonai fled and later settled in Klazomenai . From now on the city was Dorian . The descendants of Temenos fled in the 7th century BC. BC before Pheidon from Argos to Kleonai. In the 6th century BC It was wealthy, had its own alphabet and was ruled by aristocratic oligarchs . 573 BC In BC Kleonai founded the Nemean Games together with Argos.

Probably during the 5th century BC. Kleonai received a democratic constitution. The city remained independent until 470 BC. Was defeated by Corinth. From now on she went to Argos' care. As Argos 468/7 BC BC Mycenae besieged they supported the Kleonaier and when the city fell many residents fled to Kleonai. Around 460 BC Kleonai was attacked by Sparta . At the Battle of Tanagra in 457 BC Kleonai fought on the side of Athens and Argos. The fallen from Argos and Kleonai received a state funeral in the Athens cemetery at Kerameikos .

430 BC During the Peloponnesian War the plague broke out in the city as well as in Athens . A prophecy of the Pythia was followed and a ram was sacrificed at sunrise. When the plague was defeated, a bronze ram was consecrated in Delphi . 418 BC BC Sparta destroyed the sanctuary of Nemea and Argos temporarily hosted the games. In the same year Kleonai fought in the First Battle of Mantineia on the side of Argos and Athens. 414 BC BC Sparta moved against Kleonai but because there was an earthquake they withdrew. After the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC There was hostility between Kleonai and Corinth. After 338 BC In BC Argos rebuilt the temple of Nemea and hosted the Nemean Games for a short time. At the end of the 4th century, Kleonai became more dependent on Argos.

Between 270 and 260 BC The Nemean Games were held together with the Heraia in Argos. 235 BC In BC Aratos of Sicyon defeated the tyrant Aristippos II of Argos in the battle of Kleonai and conquered the city, which now regained its independence and joined the Achaean League . Cleomenes III. controlled 223 BC The city. 197 BC BC Androsthenes of Corinth devastated the Cleonai and surrounding land. However, Nikostratus , the praetor of the Archaic League, was able to defeat and drive him away. After the destruction of Corinth by the Romans in 146 BC. The decline of Kleonai came. When Pausanias visited the place in the 2nd century, he found a "not big city" before but in the 3rd century AD it minted its own coins . Kleonai existed until early Byzantine times and was abandoned at an unspecified time.

exploration

The temple of Heracles. In the background you can see the Acropolis in the middle, the City Hill on the left and the Lower Acropolis on the right

When Charles Robert Cockerell visited the place in 1811, he found the remains of the Temple of Heracles next to the ruins of the Chani Kurtessa. In 1912 August Frickenhaus first exposed the sanctuary on the so-called Lower Acropolis, under the direction of Georgios P. Oikonomos. Afterwards he discovered some exedrene stones on the agora in the lower town and outside the city wall he examined the temple of Heracles. The outbreak of the Balkan Wars , however, prevented further investigation and due to his early death in 1925, Frickenhaus' excavation findings remained unpublished. From 2000, Kleonai will be carried out further investigations by the University of Trier under the direction of Torsten Mattern . In the years 2000–2001, the temple was exposed again and the remains of the architecture were taken. 2002–2005 the sanctuary on the Lower Acropolis and from 2005–2006 the northern area were explored again. In addition, the Lower Acropolis was geophysically recorded in 2006 and excavated in the agora. In 2008 and 2009, a larger area was included through an inspection. Andreas Vött from the University of Cologne carried out geoarchaeological drillings .

description

Kleonai ruled over an area of ​​about 135 km², which reached in the north to Mount Apesas , in the west to the sanctuary of Nemea , in the south to the Arachneo Mountains and in the east to the city of Tenea . Important trade routes ran here from Corinth and from the Isthmus of Corinth to Argolis, to Phleius and to the interior of the Peloponnese. The River Longopotamos flows about 400 m north of Kleonai and flows into the Gulf of Corinth at what is now Kato Assos .

Kleonai was built on two hills, with the acropolis on the eastern, approximately 80 × 180 m large hill. An extensive terrace southeast of the Acropolis is called the Lower Acropolis. A first city wall initially only enclosed the acropolis, including this terrace. Later the western town hill and the southern lower town were also included. The 2.3 km long wall now enclosed an urban area of ​​35  ha . Most of the course of the city wall can still be easily traced today. Early travelers saw walls made of polygonal masonry with towers. Even today some of the walls are still preserved.

The Temple of Athena on the Acropolis mentioned by Pausanias has not yet been located. It housed a statue of Athena by the sculptors Dipoinos and Skyllis . Only the foundations of a medieval tower have so far been discovered on the highest point of the Acropolis. It had a footprint of 8 × 5 m and was built from spolia . Early and late Mycenaean pottery shards ( SH I / II – IIIB; 1500–1190 BC) were found in a 300 × 250 m area on the western hill .

Lower Acropolis

Sanctuary on the Lower Acropolis
Propylon on the Lower Acropolis
Basilica on the agora

A sanctuary was found in the east of the Lower Acropolis. Before it was examined more closely, it was thought to be the traditional Temple of Athena. Geometric and archaic ceramics suggest that a sanctuary already stood here in the 8th or early 7th century. Between 600 and 580 BC A 14.50 × 14 m large paved plateau was built. A layer of gravel followed by a layer of clay served as the subsurface. Parallel strip foundations were then placed on top. On these foundations, 1.20 × 0.90 m large and 0.30 m thick paving stones were laid. In the northwest there was a pavement about 0.60 m higher and 20 × 2 m in size, which ran to the west. The actual sanctuary was located on a small hill south of this paving. It probably only consisted of an altar on which one sacrificed in the open air. However, this area was destroyed during later construction work. Since neither foundations nor openings were found, it can be ruled out that a temple or other building stood on the pavement. Rather, the paved area served people in the act of cult such as musicians and choirs. In the 5th or 4th century BC A two-step U-shaped staircase was built around the cult hill. Miniature vessels and other cult inventory were found in a pit. It has not yet been possible to clarify which deity was worshiped here. In the 6th century AD, an early Byzantine three-aisled basilica was built on the pavement . It was about 31 m long and 17 m wide, had a narthex in the west and a three-conch choir in the east . After the basilica was destroyed, a smaller chapel followed in the Middle Byzantine period, of which only ruins are left today. At that time there was a settlement in their vicinity.

In the northwest of the Acropolis, where the terrain slopes steeply to the east, about 170 m north of the sanctuary, the so-called terrace building was found. It consists of a 5.50 × 5.50 m foundation. This belonged to a four-column propylon in Ionic order from the Hellenistic period . The propylon led to a western peribolus . There was probably a shrine here. In the south, the stone base joins an approximately 10.50 m long peribolos wall. It was built a short time after the propylon. At the southern end of the wall a Hellenistic building was found made of spolia. To the east and parallel to the Peribolos Wall there was a terrace wall that secured a 3.60 m high drop in terrain.

Agora

The Agora of Kleonai was located to the south in the lower town only about 100 m north of the city wall. Already in 1881 Johannes Schmidt found a block of an exedra named by the Argive sculptors Xenophilos and Straton, which was made at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century BC. Worked. To date, six exedra stones belonging to three different exedrons have been found.

The oldest finds in the agora date from the first half of the 5th century BC. Public buildings and other structures with construction phases in the 5th and 4th centuries BC were found. Ceramics and Severan coins were found from the Roman Empire and construction activities were carried out. Otherwise the finds from the first four centuries AD are sparse. In the 5th century there was renewed bloom and a large basilica was built on the agora. Antique stone blocks and columns were used for the construction. It was only partially exposed. In the east it had an apse, the central nave is paved with a stone slab and under the floor and in the vicinity some Christian graves were found. The agora was abandoned at the end of the 7th century.

sons and daughters of the town

  • Timanthes, an Olympic champion in Pankration 456 BC. Chr.

literature

  • Marcel Piérart : Kleonai . In: Mogens Hermann Hansen, Thomas Heine Nielesen (Ed.): An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, pp. 610 f .
  • Rudolf Scheer: Kleonai . In: Siegfried Lauffer (Ed.): Greece. Lexicon of Historic Places . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1989, p. 332 .
  • Torsten Mattern : Kleonai 2000–2001. Preliminary report on the work in Herakleion. , AA 2002/2
  • Richard A. Tomlinson: Argos and the Argolid: From the End of the Bronze Age to the Roman Occupation , London 2015, ISBN 978-1138019935
  • Klaus Tausend: Traffic routes of the Argolis: Reconstruction and historical significance ( Geographica Historica , Volume 23), Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3515089432 , pp. 42, 83, 105
  • Torsten Mattern: The "well-built Kleonai". New excavations in a city of "Third Greece" in Ancient World , Volume 2, 2012, pp. 46–54 ( online )
  • Torsten Mattern: Kleonai. New research in a city of "Third Greece" in Athenaia , Volume 4, 2013, pp. 323–332 ( online )

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ioanna Kralli: The Hellenistic Peloponnese: Interstate Relations. , 2017, ISBN 978-1-910589-60-1 , p. 66
  2. ↑ Diodor: Historical Library , 4, 33, 3
  3. ^ Pausanias : Travels in Greece, 2, 15, 1
  4. ↑ Apollodor von Athens : Libraries , 2, 74-75
  5. ↑ Apollodorus of Athens: Libraries , 2, 140
  6. ↑ Homer: Iliad , 2, 570
  7. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 7, 3, 9
  8. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 7, 25, 6
  9. ↑ Plutarch : Kimon , 17, 2
  10. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 1, 29, 7
  11. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 10, 11, 5
  12. ↑ Thucydides : History of the Peloponnesian War , 5, 67-74
  13. ↑ Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War , 6, 95
  14. ↑ Plutarch: Aratos, 25
  15. ↑ Polybios : Geschichte , 2, 52
  16. ↑ Titus Livius : Roman History , 33, 14-15
  17. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 2, 15, 1
  18. ^ Max Maas: Archaeological review in Kunstchronik , Volume 25, Leipzig 1914, p. 241 ( online )
  19. ↑ Archaeological finds in 1912 in the yearbook of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute , Volume 28, Berlin 1913, pp. 113–116 ( online )
  20. ↑ Torsten Mattern: Kleonai 2000-2001. Preliminary report on the work in Herakleion in Archäologischer Anzeiger , 2nd half volume 2002
  21. ↑ Ioanna Kralli: The Hellenistic Peloponnese: Interstate Relations. , 2017, ISBN 978-1-910589-60-1 , p. 81
  22. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece , 2, 15, 1
  23. Jump up ↑ Catherine Morgan : The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary: The Late Bronze Age Settlement and Early Iron Age Sanctuary , Princeton 1999, ISBN 978-0876619384 , pp. 359, 469
  24. ↑ Johannes Schmidt: Communications from Greece in communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Athenian Department , Volume 6, Athens 1881, pp. 355–356 ( online)
  25. ↑ IG IV 489 ( online )

Coordinates: 37 ° 49 ′ 28 ″  N , 22 ° 46 ′ 33 ″  E