Five Spartan Villages

[Al Amos]

Can anyone supply me with the names of the five Spartan villages (obai)?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

al

[Romanus]

here are three if I my spelling of them is correct. Helos near the cost, Amyelees just to the south of Sparta and Therapne north and east on the other side of the river. These are the ones I know were part of Laconia but there are others which could be depending on the territory the Spartans held.

[Al Amos]

Thanks Romanus,

 

I had posted the same question with the Yahoo Group strategikonhellas. A member, by the first name of Kostas, responded with the following:

 

The Lakedaimonians districts where the citizens "Homoioi" came, were:

Konoura, Limnai, Mesoa, Pitana and later Amyklai. The Amykleans would

normally be Perioikoi. But they strongly resisted to Dorians and finally the

gained the right to be Homoioi (Similars). Perioikoi were most of Pelana and

Selasia. After several wars of conquest against their Greek brothers, they

added: Messena (most of the Helots), Kynouria, Belminatis and also Skyritis

where came the most of their psiloi.

[Romanus]

Thanks Romanus,

 

I had posted the same question with the Yahoo Group strategikonhellas. A member, by the first name of Kostas, responded with the following:

 

The Lakedaimonians districts where the citizens "Homoioi" came, were:

Konoura, Limnai, Mesoa, Pitana and later Amyklai. The Amykleans would

normally be Perioikoi. But they strongly resisted to Dorians and finally the

gained the right to be Homoioi (Similars). Perioikoi were most of Pelana and

Selasia. After several wars of conquest against their Greek brothers, they

added: Messena (most of the Helots), Kynouria, Belminatis and also Skyritis

where came the most of their psiloi.

I understand your problem as that answer is for districts and regions not the name of towns. If you look at Laconia proper during the time of the Peloponnesian wars you could add Tyros, Prasiai, Kyphanta, Zarax and many others into the mix. as far as Messena Messenia? It was a separate city state from Laconia and even though Sparta conquered it Messenia was never incorporated as part of the Laconian state. The use of the term Messena should be avoided as it's also the name of a region and historic state in West Africa.

[Al Amos]

Okay, let's try Corinth. Fred Ray, in his book "Land Battles in 5th Century B.C. Greece" states Corinth was made from the uniting of eight villages. Anyone know the names of these villages?

 

Thanks in advance,

al

[okamido]

Okay, let's try Corinth. Fred Ray, in his book "Land Battles in 5th Century B.C. Greece" states Corinth was made from the uniting of eight villages. Anyone know the names of these villages?

 

Thanks in advance,

al

 

This is the first I have heard of this, as Corinth was supposed to have been a Mycenean city palace that was able to resist the first Dorian invasion and was originally founded as a settlement in the neolithic period. I would be interested as well if anyone has further information.

[okamido]

I posed the "Conthian villages" question on another forum, and one of the members, Sylla, pointed me to a Strabo quote that seemingly has some answers concerning the villages in Corinthia that may have been absorbed into the polis of Corinth.

 

 

Strabo of Amaseia, Geoghraphika, Book VIII, Chapter VI,.Section XXII:

 

 

The beginning of the seaboard on the two sides is, on the one side, Lechaeum, and, on the other, Cenchreae, a village and a harbor distant about seventy stadia from Corinth. Now this latter they use for the trade from Asia, but Lechaeum for that from Italy. Lechaeum lies beneath the city, and does not contain many residences; but long walls about twelve stadia in length have been built on both sides of the road that leads to Lechaeum.

 

 

The shore that extends from here to Pagae in Megaris is washed by the Corinthian Gulf; it is concave, and with the shore on the other side, at Schoenus, which is near Cenchreae, it forms the "Diolcus." In the interval between Lechaeum and Pagae there used to be, in early times, the oracle of the Acraean Hera; and here, too, is Olmiae, the promontory that forms the gulf in which are situated Oenoe and Pagae, the latter a stronghold of the Megarians and Oenoe of the Corinthians. From Cenchreae one comes to Schoenus, where is the narrow part of the isthmus, I mean the "Diolcus"; and then one comes to Crommyonia. Off this shore lie the Saronic and Eleusinian Gulfs, which in a way are the same, and border on the Hermionic Gulf. On the Isthmus is also the temple of the Isthmian Poseidon, in the shade of a grove of pinetrees, where the Corinthians used to celebrate the Isthmian Games. Crommyon is a village in Corinthia, though in earlier times it was in Megaris; and in it is laid the scene of the myth of the Crommyonian sow, which, it is said, was the mother of the Caledonian boar; and, according to tradition, the destruction of this sow was one of the labors of Theseus.

 

Tenea, also, is in Corinthia, and in it is a temple of the Teneatan Apollo; and it is said that most of the colonists who accompanied Archias, the leader of the colonists to Syracuse, set out from there, and that afterwards Tenea prospered more than the other settlements, and finally even had a government of its own, and, revolting from the Corinthians, joined the Romans, and endured after the destruction of Corinth. And mention is also made of an oracle that was given to a certain man from Asia, who enquired whether it was better to change his home to Corinth: "Blest is Corinth, but Tenea for me." But in ignorance some pervert this as follows: "but Tegea for me!" And it is said that Polybus reared Oedipus here. And it seems, also, that there is a kinship between the peoples of Tenedos and Tenea, through Tennes the son of Cycnus, as Aristotle says; and the similarity in the worship of Apollo among the two peoples affords strong indications of such kinship.

[okamido]

One obai of Sparta that was not mentioned, was Neopolitae. This obai was created by Cleomenes III, in order to incorporate the newly enfranchised Spartiates due to his reforms. This brought the number to six until Amyclae gained a form of independence in the first century bce.