Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "KOPES Ancient city THIVES" .
KOPES (Ancient city) THIVES
Kopai: Eth. Kopaieus, (Thuc.Kopa+tes, Steph. B.: Topolia). A town
of Boeotia, and a member of the Boeotian confederacy, was situated upon the northern
extremity of the lake Copais, which derived its name from this town. It is mentioned
by Homer; but it was a small place, and its name rarely occurs in Grecian history.
It was still in existence in the time of Pausanias, who mentions here the temples
of Demeter, Dionysus and Sarapis. The modern village of Topolia occupies the site
of Copae. It stands upon a promontory in the lake which is connected with the
mainland by only a narrow causeway.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
An ancient town in Boeotia, on the north side of the lake Copais, which derived its name from this place.
The inhabitants of the modern village have used much of the building material of the ancient town to build their houses. From this building material one can see the wealth and majesty of the old town.
A city on the N bank of the former Lake Kopais, now Topolia, to the
NW of the Mycenaean fortress of Gla.
A small town living on the rich pasture lands of the Kopais and eel-fishing
in the Melas river, Kopai made up one of the 11 Boiotian districts from 447 to
387 and 378 to 338, together with Akraiphia and Chaironeia. Thereafter it was
autonomous in the Boiotian League. Its territory consisted of all the NE section
of the Kopais up to Cape Phtelio at the foot of Akraiphia, where an inscription
engraved in the rock marks the boundary of the two territories. At the end of
the 4th c. Krates of Chalkis attempted to drive a tunnel to carry off the waters
of the Kopais to the sea; the beginnings of galleries and a line of well-shafts
are still extant. The hill of Kopai, broken off from the shore of the ancient
lake, is linked to it by a raised causeway some 100 m long; it formed a peninsula
in the dry season and an island in times of flood. Made of large stone blocks,
the causeway was joined to a surrounding wall, part of which is preserved to the
N. To the E of the road, Frazer saw a broken bit of wall built of rough and rather
small stones; to the W the wall was polygonal, made of roughly bonded stones of
different sizes. Nothing can be seen of it today. The acropolis, on the hilltop,
was Underneath the modern village; the walls of the latter contain many ancient
stones, architectural blocks, and inscriptions, especially the Church of the Panagia.
A 6th c. B.C. relief of an Amazon and a metric epitaph of the 5th c. are in the
Thebes Museum. Kopai had a Sanctuary to Demeter Tauropolos (the bull is represented
on its coins), one to Dionysos, and one to Sarapis. The necropolis is N of the
causeway, on the mainland side. No excavations have been carried out at Kopai.
P. Roesch, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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