GREEK City of Amisos in Asia Minor -
Bronze 22mm (11.5 grams) Struck 300-250 B.C.
Reference: Sear 3639; B.M.C. 13.18,61
Head of Perseus right, wearing Phrygian helmet.
Pegasus standing left, drinking; in exergue, ΑΜΙΣΟΥ and two monograms.
Amisos was a flourishing Greek city on the Black Sea coast
commanding an important trade route to the south, Amisos was founded in the 6th
century B.C. It was re-settled by Athenians in the following century and they
renamed the place Peiraeus.
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Perseus
(Περσεύς)[note
1], the
legendary founder of
Mycenae and
of the
Perseid dynasty there, was the first of the mythic heroes of
Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters
provided the
founding myths in the cult of the
Twelve Olympians. Perseus was the hero who killed
Medusa and
claimed
Andromeda, having rescued her from a sea monster.
Piraeus, a name which roughly means 'the place over the passage', has been
inhabited since the 26th century BC.[7]
In
prehistoric times, Piraeus was a rocky island consisted of the steep hill of
Munichia,
modern day Kastella, and was connected to the mainland by a low-lying stretch of
land that was flooded with sea water most of the year and was used as a salt
field whenever it dried up. Consequently it was called the Halipedon, meaning
the 'salt field', and its muddy soil made it a tricky passage. Through the
centuries, the area was increasingly silted and flooding ceased, thus by early
classical times the land passage was made safe. In
ancient Greece, Piraeus assumed its importance with its three deep water
harbours, the main port of Cantharus and the two smaller of Zea and Munichia,
and gradually replaced the older and shallow
Phaleron harbour, which fell into disuse.
In the late
6th
century BC
Hippias and four years later Piraeus became a
deme of
Attica by
Cleisthenes. In 493 BC,
Themistocles initiated the fortification works in Piraeus and later advised
the Athenians to take advantage of its natural harbours' strategical potential
instead of using the sandy bay of Phaleron.[8]
In 483 BC, the mighty Athenian fleet was transferred to Piraeus and was built in
its shipyards, distinguishing itself at the
battle of Salamis against the
Persians in 480 BC. Since then Piraeus was permantly used as the navy base
for the developed and powerful fleet of Athens. After the
second Persian invasion of Greece, Themistocles fortified the three harbours
of Piraeus and created the neosoikoi (ship houses); the Themistoclean
Walls were completed in 471 BC, turning Piraeus into a great military and
commercial harbour. The city's fortification was farther reinforced later by the
construction of the
Long Walls
under Cimon and
Pericles,
with which Piraeus was connected to Athens. Meanwhile, Piraeus was rebuilt to
the famous
grid plan of architect
Hippodamus of Miletus, called Hippodamian plan, thus the main
agora of the city
was named after him as an honour. As a result, Piraeus flourished and became a
port of high security with a great commercial activity and a city throbbing with
life.
During the
Peloponnesian War, Piraeus suffered the first breakdown. In the second year
of the war the first cases of the
Athens plague were recorded in Piraeus.[9]
In 404 BC, the
Spartan fleet under
Lysander
blockaded Piraeus and subsequently Athens surrenderred to the Spartans who put
an end to the
Delian League and the war itself. Piraeus would follow the fate of Athens
and was to bear the brunt of the Spartan rage, as the city's walls and the Long
Walls were torn down, the Athenian fleet surrendered to the winners and some of
the triremes
were burnt, while the neosoikoi were also pulled down. As a result the
unfortified and tattered port city was not able to compete with prosperous
Rhodes, which
controlled the commerce. In 403 BC, Munichia was seized by
Thrasybulus and the exiles from
Phyle in the
battle of Munichia where the Phyleans defeated the
Thirty Tyrants of Athens, but in the following
battle of Piraeus the exiles were defeated by the Spartan forces.
After the reinstatement of
democracy, Conon
rebuilt the walls in 393 BC, founded the temple of
Aphrodite
Euploia and the sanctuary of
Zeus Sotiros and
Athena, and
built the famous Skevothiki of Philon, the ruins of which have been discovered
at Zea harbour. The reconstruction of Piraeus went on during the period of
Alexander the Great, but this revival of the town was quashed by
Roman
Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who captured and totally destroyed Piraeus in 86 BC.
The destruction was completed in 395 AD by the
Goths under
Alaric I.
Piraeus was led to a long period of decline which lasted for fifteen centuries.
During the
Byzantine period the harbour of Piraeus was occasionally used for the
Byzantine fleet, but it was very far from the capital city of
Constantinople. The city lost even its ancient and original name that was
forgotten, named Porto Leone by the
Venetians in 1317, meaning 'Lion's Port' from the
Piraeus
Lion standing at the harbour's entrance, and Porto Draco by the
Franks.
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