Pale (Kefalonia)

Bronze coins

Antique bath around 1810 (probably destroyed by an earthquake)

Pale ( Greek Πάλη ) was a city-state in ancient times and later a city on the Greek island of Kefalonia . Since the Middle Ages, the city fell into disrepair and the citizens moved to Lixouri, only a few hundred meters away .

Part of the former urban area with some inconspicuous ruins is designated as an archaeological site. It is now in the urban area of Lixouri , to which the largest part of the peninsula belongs and which has been given the official name Dimos Palikis (which means Pali city) since the incorporation . The peninsula, once the dominion of the city-state, is still called Paliki ("the Palic") today .

history

Since the 5th century BC Kefalonia was divided into four city-states (" Kefalonian Tetrapolis "), of which Same and Pronnoi still exist as localities today, while the other two were abandoned because of the risk of malaria in favor of new localities: Pale in favor of Lixouri and Krane in favor of Argostoli .

According to Strabo , Pherecydes saw the Homeric Dulichion in Pale . This thesis has been taken up again by researchers in recent years.

Although Pale is mentioned in travelogues by both Herodotus and Pausanias , the importance (compared to metropolises like Athens or Corinth ) was rather minor. The numerous preserved and traded coins from the city at least suggest a greater economic importance. Polybios (Book V.3) writes that the area of the city was very rich in grain. In contrast to the rest of the island, Pale was not a member of the Attic League . In the year 218 BC The city was besieged unsuccessfully by Philip V of Macedonia .

In the Olympeion in Athens, the city erected a monument to the Roman emperor Hadrian .

The area has been sparsely populated since the 16th century and no longer has the character of a closed village.

literature

John R. Underhill: Relocating Odysseus' homeland . In: Nature Geoscience . Vol. 2, No. 07 , 2009, p. 455–458 ( full text [PDF; 503 kB ]).
Konrad Mannert: Geography of the Greeks and Romans illustrated from their writings . 1799, p. 91 .

Individual evidence

↑ Dalya Alberge: Lost island home of Odysseus found after 3,000 years: An amateur archaeologist has found Homer's Ithaca, previously thought to be an invention of the writer. The Times , September 30, 2005, accessed on March 18, 2011 (English): "James Diggle, Professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University and co-author of a book on the discovery, said that almost all of the 26 locations that Homer described in detail can be identified today in northern Paliki and its neighborhood. "

38.191388888889 20.421666666667Coordinates: 38 ° 11 ′ 29 ″ N , 20 ° 25 ′ 18 ″ E

[These-1] Dalya Alberge: Lost island home of Odysseus found after 3,000 years: An amateur archaeologist has found Homer's Ithaca, previously thought to be an invention of the writer. The Times , September 30, 2005, accessed on March 18, 2011 (English): "James Diggle, Professor of Greek and Latin at Cambridge University and co-author of a book on the discovery, said that almost all of the 26 locations that Homer described in detail can be identified today in northern Paliki and its neighborhood. "