Εμφανίζονται 8 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Πληροφορίες για τον τόπο στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ Αρχαία περιοχή ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ" .
ΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ (Αρχαία περιοχή) ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ
Acarnania (Akarnania: Akarnan, -anos, Acarnan,-anis), the most westerly
province of Greece, was bounded on the N. by the Ambracian gulf, on the NE. by
Amphilochia, on the W. and SW. by the Ionian sea, and on the E. by Aetolia. It
contained about 1571 square miles. Under the Romans, or probably a little earlier,
the river Achelous formed the boundary between Acarnania and Aetolia; but in the
time of the Peloponnesian war, the territory of Oeniadae, which was one of the
Acarnanian towns, extended E. of this river. The interior of Acarnania is covered
with forests and mountains of no great elevation, to which some modern writers
erroneously give the name of Crania. Between these mountains there are several
lakes, and many fertile vallies. The chief river of the country is the Achelous,
which in the lower part of its course flows through a vast plain of great natural
fertility, called after itself the Paracheloitis. This plain is at present covered
with marshes, and the greater part of it appears to have been formed by the alluvial
depositions of the Achelous. Owing to this circumstance, and to the river having
frequently altered its channel, the southern part of the coast of Acarnania has
undergone numerous changes. The chief affluent of the Achelous in Acarnania is
the Anapus (Anapos), which flowed into the main stream 80 stadia S. of Stratus.
There are several promontories on the coast, but of these only two are especially
named, the promontory of Actium and that of Crithote (Krithote), on the W. coast,
forming one side of the small bay, on which the town. of Astacus stood. Of the
inland lakes, the only one mentioned by name is that of Melite (Melige: Trikardho),
30 stadia long and 20 broad, N. of the mouth of the Achelous, in the territory
of the Oeniadae. There was a lagoon, or salt lake, between Leucas and the Ambracian
gulf, to which Strabo (p. 459) gives the name of Myrtuntium (Murtountion). Although
the soil of Acarnania was fertile, it was not much cultivated by the inhabitants.
The products of the country are rarely mentioned by the ancient writers. Pliny
speaks of iron mines (xxxvi. 19. s. 30), and also of a pearl-fishery off Actium
(ix. 56). A modern traveller states that the rocks in Acarnania indicate, in many
places, the presence of copper, and he was also informed, on good authority, that
the mountains produce coal and sulphur in abundance. (Journal of the Geographical
Society, vol. iii. p. 79.) The chief wealth of the inhabitants consisted in their
herds and flocks, which pastured in the rich meadows in the lower part of the
Achelous. There were numerous islands off the western coast of Acarnania. Of these
the most important were the Echiinades, extending from the mouth of the Achelous
along the shore to the N.; the Taphiae Insulae, lying between Leucas and Acarnania,
and Leucas itself, which originally formed part of the mainland of Acarnania,
but was afterwards separated from--the latter by a canal. (Respecting Acarnania
in general see Strab. p. 459, seq.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 488,
seq.; Fiedler, Reise durch Griechenland, vol. i. p. 158, seq.)
Amphilochia, which is sometimes reckoned a part of Acarnania, is spoken
of in a separate article.
The name of Acarnania appears to have been unknown in the earliest
times. Homer only calls the country opposite Ithaca and Cephallenia, under the
general name of Epeirus (epeiros), or the mainland (Strab. p. 451, sub fin.),
although he frequently mentions the Aetolians.1
The country is said to have been originally inhabited by the Taphii,
or Teleboae, the Leleges, and the Curetes. The Taphii, or Teleboae were chiefly
found in the islands off the western coast of Acarnania, where they maintained
themselves by piracy. The Leleges were more widely disseminated, and were also
in possession at one period of Aetolia, Locris, and other parts of Greece. The
Curetes are said to have come from Aetolia, and to have settled in Acarnania,
after they had been expelled from the former country by Aetolus and his followers
(Strab. p. 465). The name of Acarnania is derived from Acarnan, the son of Alcmaeon,
who is said to have settled at the mouth of the Achelous. (Thuc. ii. 102.) If
this tradition is of any value, it would intimate that an Argive colony settled
on the coast of Acarnania at an early period. In the middle of the 7th century
B.C., the Corinthians founded Leucas, Anactorium, Sollium, and other towns on
the coast. (Strab. p. 452.) The original inhabitants of the country were driven
more into the interior; they never made much progress in the arts of civilised
life; and even at the time of the Peloponnesian war, they were a rude and barbarous
people, engaged in continual wars with their neighbours, and living by robbery
and piracy. (Thuc. i. 5.) The Acarnanians, however, were Greeks, and as such were
allowed to contend in the great Pan-Hellenic games, although they were closely
connected with their neighbours, the Agraeans and Amphilochians on the gulf of
Ambracia, who were barbarian or non-Hellenic nations. Like other rude mountaineers,
the Acarnanians are praised for their fidelity and courage. They formed good light-armed
troops, and were excellent slingers. They lived, for the most part dispersed in
villages, retiring, when attacked, to the mountains. They were united, however,
in a political League, of which Aristotle wrote an account in a work now lost.
(Akarnanon Politeia, Strab. p. 321.) Thucydides mentions a hill, named Olpae,
near the Amphilochian Argos, which the Acarnanians had fortified as a place of
judicial meeting for the settlement of disputes. (Thuc. iii. 105.) The meetings
of the League were usually held at Stratus, which was the chief town in Acarnania
(Xen. Hell. iv. 6. 4; comp. Thuc. ii. 80); but, in the time of the Romans, the
meetings took place either at Thyrium, or at Leucas, the latter of which places
became, at that time, the chief city in Acarnania (Liv. xxxiii. 16, 17; Polyb.
xxviii. 5.) At an early period, when part of Amphilochia belonged to the Acarnanians,
they used to hold a public judicial congress at Olpae, a fortified hill about
3 miles from Argos Amphilochicum. Of the constitution of their League we have
scarcely any particulars. We learn from an inscription found at Punta, the site
of ancient Actium, that there was a Council and a general assembly of the people,
by which decrees were passed. (Edoxe tai boulai kai toi koinoi ton Hakarnanon).
At the head of the League there was a Strategus (Stragegos) or General; and the
Council had a Secretary (grammateus), who appears to have been a person of importance,
as in the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. The chief priest (hierapolos) of the temple
of Apollo at Actium seems to have been a person of high rank; and either his name
or that of the Strategus was employed for official dates, like that of the first
Archon at Athens. (Bockh, Corpus Inscript. No. 1793.)
The history of the Acarnanians begins in the time of the Peloponnesian
war. Their hatred against the Corinthian settlers, who had deprived them of all
their best ports, naturally led them to side with the Athenians; but the immediate
cause of their alliance with the latter arose from the expulsion of the Amphilochians
from the town of Argos Amphilochicum by the Corinthian settlers from Ambracia,
about B.C. 432. The Acarnanians espoused the cause of the expelled Amphilochians,
and in order to obtain the restoration of the latter, they applied for assistance
to Athens. The Athenians accordingly sent an expedition under Phormio, who took
Argos, expelled the Ambraciots, and restored the town to the Amphilochians and
Acarnanians. An alliance was now formally concluded between the Acarnamians and
Athenians. The only towns of Acarnania which did not join it were Oeniadae and
Astacus. The Acarnanians were of great service in maintaining the supremacy of
Athens in the western part of Greece, and they distinguished themselves particularly
in B.C. 426, when they gained a signal victory under the command of Demosthenes
over the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots at Olpae. (Thuc. iii. 105, seq.) At the
conclusion of this campaign they concluded a peace with the Ambraciots, although
they still continued allies of Athens (Thuc. iii. 114.) In B.C. 391 we find the
Acarnanians engaged in war with the Achaeans, who had taken possession of Calydon
in Aetolia; and as the latter were hard pressed by the Acarnanians, they applied
for aid to the Lacedaemonians, who sent an army into Acarnania, commanded by Agesilaus.
The latter ravaged the country, but his expedition was not attended with any lasting
consequences (Xen. Hell. iv. 6). After the time of Alexander the Great the Aetolians
conquered most of the towns in the west of Acarnania; and the Acarnanians in consequence
united themselves closely to the Macedonian kings, to whom. they remained faithful
in their various vicissitudes of fortune. They refused to desert the cause of
Philip in his war with the Romans, and it was not till after the capture of Leucas,
their principal town, and the defeat of Philip at Cynoscephalae that they submitted
to the Romans. (Liv. xxxiii. 16-17.) When Antiochus III. king of Syria, invaded
Greece, B.C. 191, the Acarnanians were persuaded by their countryman Mnasilochus
to espouse his cause; but on the expulsion of Antiochus from Greece, they came
again under the supremacy of Rome. (Liv. xxxvi. 11-12.) In the settlement of the
affairs of Greece by Aemilius Paulus and the Roman commissioners after the defeat
of Perseus (B.C. 168), Leucas was separated from Acarnania, but no other change
was made in the country. (Liv. xlv. 31.) When Greece was reduced to the form of
a Roman province, it is doubtful whether Acarnania was annexed to the province
of Achaia or of Epeirus, but it is mentioned at a later time as part of Epeirus.
The inhabitants of several of its towns were removed by Augustus to Nicopolis,
which he founded after the battle of Actium; and in the time of this emperor the
country is described by Strabo as utterly worn out and exhausted. (Strab. p. 460.)
The following is a list of the towns of Acarnania. On the Ambracian
gulf, from E. to W.: Limnaea Echinus (Echinos, Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. iv. 2; Ai
Vasili), Heracleia (Plin. iv. 2; Vonitza), Anactorium, Actium. On or near the
west of the Ionian sea, from N. to S.: Thyrium, Palaeibus, Alyzia, Sollium, Astacus,
Oeniadae. In the interior from S. to N.: Old Oenia, Coronta, Metropolis, Stratus,
Rhynchus (Hpunchos), near Stratus, of uncertain site (Pol. ap. Ath. iii. p. 95,
d.); Phytia or Phoeteiae, Medeon. The Roman Itineraries mention only one road
in Acarnania, which led from Actium along the coast to Calydon in Aetolia.
1 In the year B.C. 239, the Acarnanians, in the embassy which they sent to
Rome to solicit assistance, pleaded that they had taken no part in the expedition
against Troy, the ancestor of Rome, being the first; time probably, as Thirlwall
remarks, that they had ever boasted of the omission of their name from the Homeric
catalogue. (Justin, xxviii. 1; Strab. p. 462; Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol.
viii. pp. 119, 120.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΚΟΡΟΝΤΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ
Coronta (ta Koronta: Eth. Koronteus: near Proldhromo), a small town
in the interior of Acarnania, probably lying between Metropolis and Old Oenia.
At a mile from Prodhromo Leake discovered on an insulated hill the ruins of Hellenic
walls, which are probably the remains of Coronta. (Thuc. ii. 102; Steph. B. s.
v.; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 514.)
ΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ (Αρχαία περιοχή) ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ
A western division of Greece, bounded on the north by the Ambracian
Gulf, on the west and southwest by the Ionian Sea, on the northeast by Amphilochia,
which is sometimes included in Acarnania, and on the east by Aetolia, from which,
at a later time, it was separated by the Achelous. The name of Acarnania does
not occur in Homer. In the most ancient times the land was inhabited by the Taphii,
Teleboae, and Leleges, and subsequently by the Curetes. At a later time a colony
from Argos, said to have been led by Acarnan, settled in the country. In the seventh
century B.C. the Corinthians founded several towns on the coast. The Acarnanians
first emerge from obscurity at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, B.C. 431.
They were then a rude people, living by piracy and robbery, and they always remained
behind the rest of the Greeks in civilization and refinement. They were good slingers,
and are praised for their fidelity and courage. The different towns formed a league,
which met at Stratus, and subsequently at Thyrium or Leucas.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ
A city of Acarnania, on the shore of the Ionian Sea, and opposite the island of Carnus.
ΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ (Αρχαία περιοχή) ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ
Region of central western Greece,
north of the entrance of the gulf of Calydon
along the shores of the Ionian
Sea.
Acarnania owed its name to Acarnan, a son of Alcmaeon (the leader
of the expedition of the Epigones against Thebes)
and grandson of Amphiaraus (a king of Argos
and a member of the expedition of the seven against Thebes),
who was said to have first settled the region.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Total results on 7/5/2001: 187 for Acarnania, 18 for Akarnania.
ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΑ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΑΙΤΩΛΟΑΚΑΡΝΑΝΙΑ
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