Munychia

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Munychia ( Greek  Μουνιχία ; alternative spellings Munichia or Mounychia ) is the ancient name of the 86.5 m high hill on the Piraeus peninsula in Greece . The modern name for this elevation is Kastella .

Athens and Piraeus in ancient times.
The Kastella hill in Piraeus, the ancient Munychia.

The Munychia rises directly at the entrance of the Piraeus Peninsula and drops to the northwest to the Piraeus Bay, to the southwest to the Zea Bay and to the southeast to the Bay of Phaleron . On the hill there was a sanctuary of the Bendis and from the 5th century BC Every year on the 16th Munichion (April / May) a festival was held here in honor of Artemis in memory of the victory at Salamis , which was one of the most important cultic festivals in Athens. There was also a theater dedicated to Dionysus on the western slope of the hill .

The tyrant Hippias caused in the year 511/0 BC The expansion of Munychia into a fortification, which housed a permanent garrison, which guarded the ports of Kantharos (the great port of Piraeus), Zea and Munychia (today Mikrolimano) on the peninsula. Since then, this hill has had great strategic importance for Athens , as control over it also guaranteed control of the Piraeus ports, on which the city's maritime power was based. With the Long Walls , he incorporated himself into Athens' defense concept for the control and defense of its most important port. At the foot of the hill in 404 BC. The democratic opposition Athens won the decisive victory over the thirty tyrants of it.

A foreign occupation of Munychia was tantamount to a restriction of the political sovereignty of Athens, since one could cut off the supply of the city from it. After the defeat in the Lamian War in 322 BC. In BC Athens had to hand over the Munychia to a Macedonian occupation force (commanders: Menyllos , Nikanor , Dionysios), which only came after a siege by Demetrios Poliorketes in 307 BC. Could be driven out again. During the Tyrannis des Lachares (300-294 BC), the democratic opposition was based on Munychia. After Demetrios Poliorketes in 294 BC After entering Athens a second time, the People's Assembly willingly gave him control of the hill. Just like the Long Walls, the fortress on Munychia was probably built after the siege of Piraeus in 86 BC. Razed by Sulla .

However, there is evidence of a settlement since pre-Greek times. This is particularly evident in the caves of the Aretousa and Serangeion, which are commonly associated with the Minyer culture .

literature

  • TRB Dicks: Piraeus: The Port of Athens , In: The Town Planning Review , Vol. 39 (1968), pp. 140-148.

annotation

  1. ↑ Pausanias , Attika (1), 1, 4.
  2. ↑ Thucydides 8, 93, 1.
  3. ^ Aristotle , Athenaion politeia 19, 2.
  4. ↑ Xenophon , Hellenika 2, 4, 11; Diodorus 14, 33.
  5. ↑ Plutarch , Phocion 27; Diodorus 18, 18 and 20, 45.
  6. ↑ Plutarch, Demetrios 34.
  7. ^ Strabo 9, 1, 15.

Coordinates: 37 ° 56 '  N , 23 ° 39'  E