Thyrea

Thyrea (Ancient Greek: Θυρέα), also Thyraea, Thyreae or Thyreai (Θυρέαι), was a town of Cynuria, and was fought over between ancient Argolis and ancient Laconia. Its territory was called the Thyreatis (Θνρεᾶτις). According to Pausanias, Thyrea was named after a mythological figure: Thyraeos, the son of Lycaon.[1]

History

Thyrea enters history as the location of the Battle of the Champions (c. 546 BCE) between Argos and Sparta. According to Herodotus, Sparta had surrounded and captured the plain of Thyrea. When the Argives marched out to defend it, the two armies agreed to let 300 champions from each city fight, with the winner taking the territory.[2] In 464 BCE when we hear of the Thyreans assisting the Spartans put down the helot uprising.

When the Aeginetans were expelled from their own island by the Athenians, at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War (431 BCE), the Spartans allowed them to settle in the Thyreatis, which at that time contained two towns, Thyrea and Anthene or Athene, both of which were made over to the fugitives.[3] Here they maintained themselves till the 8th year of the Peloponnesian War, when the Athenians made a descent upon the coast of the Thyreatis, where they found the Aeginetans engaged in building a fortress upon the sea. This was forthwith abandoned by the latter, who took refuge in the upper city (ἡ ἄνω πόλις) at the distance of 10 stadia from the sea; but the Athenians followed them, took Thyrea, which they destroyed, and dragged away the inhabitants into slavery.[4] Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, gave back the Thyreatis to the Argives, and extended their territory along the coast as far as Glympeis and Zarax.[5] It continued to belong to the Argives in the time of Pausanias;[6] but even then the ancient boundary quarrels between the Argives and Spartans still continued.[7]
Territory

The Thyreatis, or territory of Thyrea, was a district of Cynuria, and was one of the most fertile plains in the Peloponnesus. It extends about 6 miles (10 km) in length along the coast, south of the pass Anigraea and the mountain Zavitsa. Its breadth is narrow, as the projecting spurs of Mount Parnon are never more than 3 miles (5 km), and sometimes only about a mile (1.6 km) from the coast. It is watered by two streams; one on its northern, and the other on its southern extremity. The former called Tanus (Τάνος)[8] or Tanaus (Τάναος)[9] formed the boundary between the Argeia and Laconia in the time of Euripides, who accordingly represents it as the boundary between the two states in the heroic age.[9] The stream, which waters the southern extremity of the plain, is smaller than the Tanus; it also rises in Mt. Parnon, and appears in ancient times to have borne the name of Charadrus, which is described by Statius,[10] as flowing in a long valley near Neris. The bay between the two rivers was called the Thyreatic Gulf (ὁ Θυρεάτης κόλπος).[8]

Current situation

Its site is tentatively located near the modern Kastraki Meligou,[11][12] in Arcadia prefecture, North Kynouria municipality, northwest of Astros.

Source

Homer does not name Thyreae, although the others often speak of it; and it was concerning Thyreae that a contest arose between the Argives and the Lacedaemonians, three hundred against three hundred; but the Lacedaemonians under the generalship of Othryadasa won the victory. Thucydides says that this place is in Cynuria on the common border of Argeia and Laconia. Strabo Book VIII, Chapter 6

Herodotus Book 1

It chanced, however, that the Spartans were themselves just at this time engaged in a quarrel with the Argives about a place called Thyrea, which was within the limits of Argolis, but had been seized on by the Lacedaemonians. Indeed, the whole country westward, as far as Cape Malea, belonged once to the Argives, and not only that entire tract upon the mainland, but also Cythera, and the other islands. The Argives collected troops to resist the seizure of Thyrea, but before any battle was fought, the two parties came to terms, and it was agreed that three hundred Spartans and three hundred Argives should meet and fight for the place, which should belong to the nation with whom the victory rested. It was stipulated also that the other troops on each side should return home to their respective countries, and not remain to witness the combat, as there was danger, if the armies stayed, that either the one or the other, on seeing their countrymen undergoing defeat, might hasten to their assistance. These terms being agreed on, the two armies marched off, leaving three hundred picked men on each side to fight for the territory. The battle began, and so equal were the combatants, that at the close of the day, when night put a stop to the fight, of the whole six hundred only three men remained alive, two Argives, Alcanor and Chromius, and a single Spartan, Othryadas. The two Argives, regarding themselves as the victors, hurried to Argos. Othryadas, the Spartan, remained upon the field, and, stripping the bodies of the Argives who had fallen, carried their armour to the Spartan camp. Next day the two armies returned to learn the result. At first they disputed, both parties claiming the victory, the one, because they had the greater number of survivors; the other, because their man remained on the field, and stripped the bodies of the slain, whereas the two men of the other side ran away; but at last they fell from words to blows, and a battle was fought, in which both parties suffered great loss, but at the end the Lacedaemonians gained the victory. Upon this the Argives, who up to that time had worn their hair long, cut it off close, and made a law, to which they attached a curse, binding themselves never more to let their hair grow, and never to allow their women to wear gold, until they should recover Thyrea. At the same time the Lacedaemonians made a law the very reverse of this, namely, to wear their hair long, though they had always before cut it close. Othryadas himself, it is said, the sole survivor of the three hundred, prevented by a sense of shame from returning to Sparta after all his comrades had fallen, laid violent hands upon himself in Thyrea.

Herodotus Book 6

Cleomenes, having arrived upon the banks of this river, proceeded to offer sacrifice to it, but, in spite of all that he could do, the victims were not favourable to his crossing. So he said that he admired the god for refusing to betray his countrymen, but still the Argives should not escape him for all that. He then withdrew his troops, and led them down to Thyrea, where he sacrificed a bull to the sea, and conveyed his men on shipboard to Nauplia in the Tirynthian territory.