Elis. It is situated on an elevated rocky site, among some of the highest mountains in the Peloponnese, the most conspicuous being Mt Cotylium and Mt Elaeum
; the identification of the latter is uncertain.
Name
The name Phigalia was more ancient than that of Phialia, but the original name had again come into use in the time of Pausanias.[5] The city was said to have derived its more ancient name to from Phigalus, a son of Lycaon, its legendary original founder, and its later name from Phialus, a son of Lycaon, its second founder.[5][6]
History
In 659 BC, Phigalia was taken by the
Heraea, from which they made excursions against Phigalia.[8] During the struggle between the Achaean and Aetolian leagues in 221 BC it was held by Dorimachus, who left it on the approach of Philip V of Macedon. In common with the other cities of Arcadia, it appears in Strabo to have fallen into utter decay under Roman
rule.
Situation and remains
Phigalia was surrounded by mountains, of which Pausanias mentions two by name,
Theseum at Athens the best preserved of the temples of Greece. It stands in a glen (whence the name Βᾶσσαι, Doric for Βήσση, Βῆσσαι) near the summit of Mt. Cotilium, in the midst of a wilderness of rocks, studded with old knotty oaks. Nineteenth-century British scholar William Mure who visited the site wrote that “there is certainly no remnant of the architectural splendour of Greece more calculated to fascinate the imagination than this temple; whether by its own size and beauty, by the contrast it offers to the wild desolation of the surrounding scenery, or the extent and variety of the prospect from its site.”[10] A spring rises about ten minutes walk southwest of the temple, and soon afterwards loses itself in the ground, as Pausanias has described. North of the temple was the highest summit of the mountain, which one reaches in ten minutes' time by a broad road constructed by the Greeks. This summit was called Cotilum (Κώτιλον), whence the whole mountain derived the name of Cotilian; here was a sanctuary of Aphrodite
, of which there are still some traces. The grandeur of the ruins of the temple have given to the whole of the surrounding district the name of the Columns (στοὺς στύλους or κολόνναις). The temple is at least two and a half hours walk from the ruins of the city, and consequently more than the 40 stadia, which Pausanias mentions as the distance from Phigalia to Cotilium; but this distance perhaps applies to the nearest part of the mountain from the city.
The ruins of the Temple of Athena in Phigalia
Several curious cults were preserved near Phigalia, including that of the fishtailed goddess
Eurynome and the Black Demeter with a horse's head, whose image was renewed by Onatas. Notices of it in Greek history are rare and scanty. Though its existing ruins and the description of Pausanias
, who describes it as situated upon a lofty and precipitous hill, the greater part of the walls being built upon the rocks, show it to have been a place of considerable strength and importance, no autonomous coins of Phigalia are known. Nothing remained above ground of the temples of Artemis or Dionysus and the numerous statues and other works of art which existed at the time of Pausanias' visit, about AD 170.
A great part of the city wall, built in fine Hellenic masonry, partly polygonal masonry and partly isodomic ashlar, and a large square central fortress with a circular projecting tower, are the only remains now traceable, at least without the aid of excavation. The walls, once nearly 2 miles (3.2 km) in circuit, are strongly placed on rocks, which slope down to the little river Neda.
The rock, upon which the city stood, slopes down towards the Neda; on the western side it is bounded by a ravine and on the eastern by the torrent
Eurynome, supposed to be a surname of Artemis, which was opened only once a year. In the same neighbourhood, and at the distance of 12 stadia from the city, were some warm baths, traces of which are visible at the village of Tragói, but the waters have long ceased to flow.[12]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Middleton, John Henry; Gardner, Ernest Arthur (1911). "Phigalia". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 366–367.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Phigalia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
