{{hatnote|For other cities of the same name, see Antikyra (disambiguation).}}{{distinguish|Antikythera}}{{Infobox Greek Dimos |name = Antikyra |name_local = Αντίκυρα |image_map = DE Andikyras.svg |map_caption = Location within the regional unit | periph = Central Greece | periphunit = Boeotia |municipality = Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra |pop_municunit = 1537 |population_as_of = 2011 |area_municunit = 23.332 |elevation = |coordinates = {{coord|38|23|N|22|38|E|format=dms|display=inline,title}} |postal_code = |area_code = |licence = ΒΙ |website = www.antikyra.gr |image_skyline = Antikira.JPG |caption_skyline = }}Antikyra or Anticyra ({{lang-el|Αντίκυρα}}) is a port on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth in modern Boeotia, Greece. It appeared in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships as the primary port of ancient Phocis. It was famed in antiquity for its black and white hellebore. Antikyra was destroyed and rebuilt during the 4th- and 3rd-century {{sc|bc}} wars of Macedonia and Rome and following a 7th-century {{sc|ad}} earthquake. During the 14th century, it was held by Catalan mercenaries. It now forms a unit of the unified municipality of Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra and is a center of Greek aluminum production. The municipal unit has an area of 23.332 km2.[1] Its population in 2011 was 1,537.{{anchor|Etymology|Toponymy}}
Name
Antikyra has been (erroneously) identified with the Cyparissus ({{lang-grc|Κυπάρισσος|Kyparissos}}, {{abbr|lit.|literally}} "Cypress") which appears in the Homeric Catalogue of Ships as the primary port of ancient Phocis. It became known as Antikirrha or Anticirrha (Ἀντίκιρρα)[2][3] from its position on the opposite side of a peninsula from Cirrha, Delphi's port on the Gulf of Corinth. This name then became Antikyrrha or Anticyrrha (Ἀντίκυρρα)[4] and then Antikyra. The last was followed by the Romans, Latinized as Anticyra. During its period under the Catalans, it was known as {{nowrap|Port de Arago}}. Under the Ottomans, it became known as {{nowrap|Aspra Spitia}} ({{lang-el|Άσπρα Σπίτια}}) for its white houses{{sfn|Cramer|1828|p=[https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=Ou0LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA157 157]}} but its former name was restored in the early 20th century. Under the former BGN/PCGN standard, it was romanized as Andikira in America and the United Kingdom until 1996.
Geography
Antikyra is situated on the {{nowrap|Bay of Antikyra}} ({{lang-la|Anticyranus Sinus}}) on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=124}} It lies {{convert|2|or|3|km|sp=us}} southwest of Paralia Distomou (also formerly known as "Aspra Spitia") and {{convert|10|km|sp=us}} southeast of Desfina. It is separated from Delphi by Mount Cirphis and from the Crissaean Gulf by the Opus peninsula ({{lang-la|Opus Promontorium}}). The municipal unit also contains the villages of Agia Sotira and Agios Isidoros.
History
Ancient
It was a town of considerable importance in ancient times.[5] In antiquity, Antikyra was associated with the still-older settlement of Kyparissos which was noted as the primary port of Mycenaean Phocis in Homer's Iliad. The name literally means "cypress" but was glossed as deriving from the town's mythical founder Cyparissus, son of Orchomenus and brother of Minyas. The Catalogue of Ships states the Phocians who joined the Trojan War sailed from Kyparissos to join the main fleet at Aulis before it sailed for Troy.[6] The reputed graves of the heroes Schedios and Epistrophos, the Phocian admirals, were maintained through Roman times.[7]
The name Antikyra was said to have derived from an "Antikyreos" or "Anticyreus" who cured Hercules's insanity with local hellebore.[8][9] Black and white hellebore were the main reason for the town's fame in the ancient world.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=124}} Both grew nearby and were regarded by Greek medicine as cures for forms of insanity, melancholy, gout, and epilepsy.[10][11][12]{{sfn|Hahnemann|1812}} The circumstance gave rise to a number of Greek and Latin expressions, like Αντικυρας σε δει or "naviget Anticyram," and to frequent allusions in Greek and Roman literature.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=124}} Pausanias claims that black hellebore was used as a laxative, whilst white hellebore was used as an emetic.[13]
Antikyra was destroyed in 346 {{sc|bc}} by Philip II of Macedon amid the Third Sacred War.[14][15] It recovered enough to quickly begin construction of a temple to Artemis with a cult statue commissioned to Praxiteles by 330 {{sc|bc}}.[16] Antikyra was then besieged, destroyed, and rebuilt several times during the Roman Republic's Macedonian Wars. In 198 {{sc|bc}}, it was sacked by Titus Quinctius Flamininus, who choose it as winter base for his army.[17]
During the 2nd century {{sc|bc}}, Antikyra struck autonomous bronze coins with the head of Poseidon on the obverse and Artemis bearing a torch and an arch on the reverse.{{sfn|Sideris|2001|pp=122-123}}
Pausanias visited the city during the third quarter of the 2nd century and gave a detailed account of it in his Description of Greece. He notes the grave of Schedios and Epistrophos, a temple to Poseidon with a bronze statue of the god standing with one foot resting on a dolphin, a hand upon this thigh and a trident in his other hand,[18] two gymnasia (one including a statue of Xenodamos, who won the pangration at the Olympics in {{sc|ad}} 67 owing to the participation of the emperor Nero), an agora with many bronze statues, a sheltered well, and two temples of Artemis outside the town walls. One was dedicated to Artemis Diktynna; the other held Praxiteles's sculpture and, according to a newly discovered inscription, was dedicated to Artemis Eileithyia.[19]{{sfn|Dasios|1997|p=450}}
Medieval
Under the Byzantines, the city served as a bishopric. (A large 5-nave basilica with a mosaic floor was unearthed in the 1980s.) A large earthquake destroyed most of the city around {{sc|ad}} 620. During the 14th century, the city was named Port de Arago while its fortress was held by the Catalans, probably under the aegis of the county of Salona (mod. Amphissa). It became known as Aspra Spitia{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=124}} or Asprospitia{{sfn|Arrowsmith|1832|p={{page needed|date=February 2017}}}} under the Turks.
Modern
Aspra Spitia's connection with the ancient Antikyra was established by William Martin Leake in 1806 when he found an inscription mentioning its name. The area was subsequently excavated by Lolling,{{who|date=July 2015}} Dittenberger,{{who|date=July 2015}} Fossey,{{who|date=July 2015}} the 10th Archaeological Ephorate,{{clarify|date=July 2015}} and the 1st Byzantine Ephorate. During this period, an archaic temple of Athena was discovered, along with its Sever-style{{clarify|date=July 2015}} bronze idol, a large part of the 4th-century {{sc|bc}} ashlar fortification with 2 rectangular towers, and an early Christian bath with a hypocaust.{{sfn|Sideris|2001|pp=114-120}}
The community became an independent municipality (including Desfina) in 1836, following Greek independence. In 1912, Aspra Spitia split into the two communities of Desfina and Antikyra. In the 1950s and '60s, Aluminum of Greece developed the country's largest aluminum plant to exploit nearby bauxite deposits.[20] A new town was developed for its workers under the name Aspra Spitia; this is now known as Paralia Distomou. Greenpeace has complained of the effects of the red mud dumped into the bay from the plant.[21] At the 2010 Kallikratis reform, Antikyra was merged with its neighbors to form Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra.[22][23]
Population
Year
Town population
Community population
1981
2,045
-
1991
2,271
-
2001
2,812
2,984
2011
1,448
1,537
See also
List of settlements in Boeotia
Notes
1. ^{{cite web|url=http://dlib.statistics.gr/Book/GRESYE_02_0101_00098%20.pdf |publisher=National Statistical Service of Greece |title=Population & housing census 2001 (incl. area and average elevation) |language=el |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921212047/http://dlib.statistics.gr/Book/GRESYE_02_0101_00098%20.pdf |archivedate=2015-09-21 }} 2. ^Dicaearch. 3. ^Strabo 4. ^Eustath. 5. ^{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Anticyra|volume=2|page=}} 6. ^Homer, Il. II.519. 7. ^{{cite book |author= |title= Μεγάλη Ελληνική Εγκυκλοπαίδεια |chapter= Σχεδίος (Μυθολ.) |publisher= "Pyrsos" Co. Ltd. |url= |year= 1933 |place= Athens - Greece |pages= 684 |isbn= }} 8. ^Ptolemy, Geography, ΙΙ.184.12. 9. ^Stephen of Byzantium, "Antikyra". 10. ^Dioscorides, De materia medica, IV.148-152, 162 11. ^Pliny, N.H., XXII.64, XXV.21 12. ^Ptolemaeus, Geogr. Hyph. ΙΙ 184. 12. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. «Aντίκυρα» 13. ^Pausanias 10.36.7 14. ^Diodorus Siculus, XVI.59-60. 15. ^Pausanias, Description of Greece, Χ.3.1-3. 16. ^{{harvnb|Rizzo|1932 |p=13}}; {{harvnb|Lacroix|1949|pp=309–310}}; {{harvnb|Corso|1988|pp=182–184}}; and {{harvnb|Rolley|1999|p=244}}. 17. ^Polybius, XVIII.28, 45.7, XXVII.14, 16.6. 18. ^{{Cite Pausanias|10.36.8}} 19. ^RE,{{clarify|date=July 2015}} “Diktynna”, col. 584-588. 20. ^{{citation |contribution=Greece: Aluminum under Pressure |contribution-url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899116,00.html |date=11 March 1966 |title=Time }}. 21. ^{{citation |title=Proposal for the Creation of a Marine Reserve in the Corinthian Bay |url=http://www.greenpeace.org/greece/Global/greece/report/2007/6/corinth-bay-marine-reserve.pdf |publisher=Greenpeace }}. 22. ^EETAA local government changes 23. ^Kallikratis law Greece Ministry of Interior {{el icon}}
References
{{citation |last=Arrowsmith |first=John |year=1832 |url=http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~33867~1170019:Turkey-in-Europe,-by-J--Arrowsmith |title=Turkey in Europe}}
{{citation |last=Corso |first=A. |date=1988 |title=Prassitele. Fonti Εpigrafiche e letterarie. Vita et opere, Vol. 1 |location=Roma |page=182–184 |language=it}}
{{citation |last=Cramer |first=John Anthony |title=A Geographical and Historical Description of Ancient Greece with a Map and a Plan of Athens, Vol. II |url=https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=Ou0LAAAAYAAJ |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |date=1828 }}
{{citation |last=Hahnemann |first=Samuel |title=Dissertatio Historico-Medica de Helleborismo Veterum ["Medical Historical Dissertation on the Helleborism of the Ancients"] |url=https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=RDTiwKPlMiEC&pg=PA569 |location=Leipzig |date=1812 |publisher=reprinted 2004 in New Delhi as pp. 569–615 of Robert Ellis Dudgeon's Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann |language=la|isbn=9788170211242 }}
{{citation |last=Lacroix |first=L. |title=Les reproductions de statues sur les monnaies grecques |location=Liége |date=1949 |pages=309–310 |language=fr}}
{{citation |contribution=Anticyra |title=Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. II |editor-last=Baynes |editor-first=Thomas Spencer |display-editors=0 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location=New York |date=1878 |ref={{harvid|EB|1878}} |p=127 }}.
Sideris Α., [https://fhw.academia.edu/AthanasiosSideris/Papers/472051/Antikyra_An_Ancient_Phokian_City "Antikyra: An ancient Phokian City"], Emvolimo 43–44 (Spring–Summer 2001), pp. 110–125 (in Greek)
Further reading
Sideris A., [https://www.academia.edu/10619719/Antikyra._History_and_Archaeology_%CE%91%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%AF%CE%BA%CF%85%CF%81%CE%B1._%CE%99%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1_and_%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%B1_full_text_bilingual_book_EN_and_GR_ Antikyra. History and Archaeology], (Athens 2014), {{ISBN|978-618-81336-0-0}} (fulltext book online, bilingual GR & EN edition)
External links
{{EB9 poster|Anticyra}}
Official website {{el icon}}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070702223102/http://www.gtp.gr/LocPage.asp?id=5770 Antikyra on GTP Travel Pages]
{{Distomo-Arachova-Antikyra div}}
4 : Populated places in Ozolian Locris|Gulf of Corinth|Populated places in Phocis|Phocis