Pleuron (Aitolia)

Pleuron ( Greek  Πλευρών ) was an ancient Greek city.

The well-known remains of the ancient Pleuron can be found in the southwest of the Aitolian aiolis . According to Strabo, the inhabitants were referred to as Pleuronios ( Πλευρώνιος ) and Pleuroneus ( Πλευρωνεύς ), the landscape in which the city was located as Pleuronia ( Πλευρωνία ). The city is important even in mythological times . The city founder and eponymous hero is Pleuron , son of Aitolus and brother of Kalydon , who is considered an eponymous hero for the city of Kalydon . Oineus is said to have ruled both cities as a double king at the time of the Calydonian boar hunt . Meleager is said to come from Pleuron , as are the curetes . In the Homeric ship catalog of the Iliad , Pleuron is listed as an Aetolian city.

In historical times, according to information from Thucydides , Pleuron was in the 6th / 5th centuries. Century BC Detached by the Aitoliians. Towards the end of the 5th century BC The city became part of the Achaean Koinon ( Achaiischer Bund ). In the 4th century BC BC Pleuron became a member of the Aitolian Federation together with other neighboring states . Evidence for this can only be found in the 3rd century BC. BC, when Pleuron was able to fill government officials several times. After the city of 234 BC Was destroyed by Demetrios II of Macedonia , the inhabitants re- founded the city as New Pleuron in a safe, higher place. In the 2nd century BC The city belonged again to the Achaean League for a time. The city walls from around 230 BC are preserved today. BC with seven gates and 31 towers, the theater built around the same time , the agora , cisterns and building foundations from the Hellenistic period ( Kastro Irinis ). The port of Pleurons also had a fortification that connected it to the city. In Pleuron there was a cult of Athena on the Acropolis, later overbuilt by a Byzantine chapel. The poet Alexandros Aitolus was the son of the city.

The location of the older settlement of Pleuron is not certain; the city is believed to be in the coastal plain between the Acheloos and Euenos rivers , near Kalydon. Neu-Pleuron can be found on the southern slope of the Arakynthos Mountains near today's Kato Retsina . The new foundation is probably near the old city.

literature

• Ernst Meyer : Pleuron. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 4, Stuttgart 1972, Col. 928.
• Nicola Bonacasa:  Pleuron, Nea Pleuron, 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 .
• Klaus Friday : Kalydon [3]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 , Sp. 1134.
• Ernst Kirsten : Pleuron. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume 21, Stuttgart 1893ff., Col. 239-243.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Strabo 10,2,5.
2. ↑ Homer: Iliad 2,639.
3. ↑ Thucydides 3,102,5.
4. ↑ Strabo 10,2,4.
5. ↑ Pausanias 7:11, 3.
6. ^ Dionysios Calliphontus 57.
7. ↑ Strabo 10,2,23.
8. ↑ Fossey, J., J. Morin, G. Reger, R. Talbert, T. Elliott, S. Gillies: Places: 540961 (Nea Pleuron) . Pleiades. Retrieved January 18, 2012.

Coordinates: 38 ° 25 '  N , 21 ° 25'  E