Arcadia

The Stones of Greece

The Peleponnisos

Bassae****
450-400 BC
~12 km south of Andritsena

The Temple of Apollo Epikouros, Photo RWFG 1953
a by now historical photograph from a glorious morning in Bassae

When I returned in 1991 the temple had been transformed into a fanastic sailship stranded in the Arkadian mountains.
An earthquake (1986) had dislocated its columns, and the HMCT still (2012) attepts its restoration under the tent aided by a European grant.

The temple of Apollo Epikourios, one of the most important and most imposing temples of antiquity, stands in the barren, rocky landscape of Bassae, a day's march from any habitation. It is unique in the history of ancient Greek architecture because it combines a variety of novel ideas both in its external appearance and in its internal arrangements. Indeed, Pausanias considered it to be among the finest temples of the Peloponnese in terms of sheer beauty and harmony, second only to that of Tegea.

The building is dated to 420-400 BC and is, according to Pausanias, the work of Iktinos, who succeeded in combining masterfully several Archaic features imposed by the conservative tradition of the Arcadians with the characteristics of the new Classical style. The surviving temple is not the first one to have been constructed on the site. The earliest temple of Apollo erected in the late seventh century BC, possibly at the same location, was rebuilt at least twice in approximately 600 and 500 BC. Many architectural features from these two phases survive, including a large terracotta acroterion [sic!] with ornate painted decoration, roof-tiles and antefixes.

1 = Opisthodomos, 2 = Adyton, 3 = Naos, 4 = Pronaos (Wikipedia)

The temple has six columns on the short sides and fifteen on the long sides, instead of the usual ratio of 6:13, which gives it the elongated shape characteristic of Archaic temples. Inside the cella, on either side was a series of five Ionic half-columns engaged in buttresses, which projected from the sidewalls dividing the space into niches. The last pair of half-columns divided the cella diagonally, not at right angles like the others. Between them stood a single column. Its capital, recorded in the drawings of the first modern travellers (Cockerell), is the earliest known example of a Corinthian capital in the history of Greek architecture (fragments of the capital are now in the National Archaeological Museum).

According to one theory this column was in fact an aniconic representation of the deity (“Black Demeter”, c.f., Pausanias) in accordance with the earliest Arcadian traditions, while another theory suggests that the fifth pair of half-columns, which stood on either side of this one, was also Corinthian. The cult statue of Apollo was inside the adyton [2], which was located behind the Corinthian column. A door on the east wall led to the pteron, on the outside. The two-sloped roof had marble tiles of Corinthian type.

Only the inner metopes of the short sides were decorated: those on the pronaos had depictions of Apollo's return to Olympus and those on the opisthodomos contained the rape of the daughters of the Messenian king Leukippos by the Dioskouroi.

The pediments may have been undecorated. The temple's main decorative feature was a marble frieze supported by the Ionic half-columns of the cella. This frieze was thirty-one metres long and consisted of twenty-three marble slabs, of which twelve depicted battles between Greeks and Amazons and the remaining eleven showed battles between Lapiths and Centaurs. The frieze was unearthed by British antiquariens in 1812 and sold to the British Museum in 1815. It may have been the work of Paionios, who also executed the celebrated statue of Nike at Olympia.

The temple remained in use into the Hellenistic and Roman periods, its roof being repaired several times. After the building was abandoned, the decaying roof caved in causing extensive damage, further aggravated by human intervention with the removal of the metal clasps used in its construction. The temple, identified in 1765 by French architect J. Bocher, was first explored by a group of antiquaries in 1812. In 1902-6, the Greek Archaeological Society excavated and restored parts of the temple. In 1975 the newly founded Committee for the Conservation of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios launched a program for the monument's conservation and restoration. The Committee was reformed in 1982 and the Ministry of Culture has been overseeing the difficult task of restoring the monument ever since. A shelter, which will be removed at the end of the works, was erected in 1987 to protect the temple against the region's extreme weather conditions.
From HMCT Odysseus

Bassae, Aphrodite and Artemis Temple*

Pausanias tells us that there was an small, older temple sacred to Aphrodite and Artemis on Mt. Kotillon above the Apollo temple. RWFG 1991
There are only the foundation left, but it holds the key to the understanding of the architectural and spiritual oddities of the Apollo temple.

Bassae, Pausanias' Spring
A short distance below the temple on the old foot-path to Andritsena

Pausanias VIII, 41, 10 :"There is a spring of water on mount Kotilon, and the man who recorded that this spring is the source of the river Lymax had neither seen what he was writing about nor heard about it from anyone who had seen it; personally I have done both. We saw the course of the river, and also the water of the spring on Kotilon; it does not travel far and soon disappears altogether. I have not studied where in Arkadia the head-spring of the Lymax is to be found. Above the sanctuary of Apollo Epikourosr there is a place called Kotilon, and Aphrodite had a temple there, which had lost its roof and the statue."

Megalopolis, Theater*
371 - 200 BC

The Theater

Megalopolis is known for its ancient ruins situated northwest of the town centre, on both banks of the river Elissonas. The ruins include a theatre that used to hold up to 20,000 people and was 30 m (100 feet) tall. Other landmarks include the Thersileon with 67 pillars and a temple (11.5 m × 5 m).The city was founded in 371 BC by the Theban general Epaminondas in an attempt to form a political counterweight to Sparta. It was one of the 40 places that were megále pólis (great city). Megalopolis became the seat of the Arcadian League in 370 BC, which in the 3rd century BC became the Achaean League. In 331 BC, Megalopolis was invaded by the Spartans and there was a battle with the Macedonians that came to Megalopolis' help. The Macedonians defeated the Spartans. In 223 BC, the Spartan king Cleomenes III burnt down the city but it was reinstated by Philopoemen, a Greek General of the Achaean League. The city declined during the Middle Ages. In Byzantine and Ottoman times the city was known as Sinano (Σινάνο). It was renamed Megalopoli after Greek Independence.
Wikipedia

Oresteion, Zeus' Smokestacks
8th cent BC...2000 AD

ΕΡΓΟΣΤΑΣΙΟ ΠΑΡΑΓΩΓΗΣ ΗΛΕΚΤΡΙΣΜΟΥ
Establishment Producing Electricty

Herodotus reports the ancient belief that this area was the battleground of the Titanomachy. The foundation for this apparently was the presence of lignite deposits, which are prone to catch fire in summer and can smoulder and scorch the earth for weeks. Zeus is supposed to have slain the Titans with lightning bolts, coupled with the presence of fossil bones of prehistoric elephants and rhinoceroses. Herodotus informs his readers that the bones of "Titans" were exhibited in various places in the surrounding area at least since the 5th century BC
Wikipedia

Mantinea*
5th- 3rd cent BC+1978 AD
30 km north of Tripolis

Inside the walls of the city there are a theater, rubble, and the most curious "modern" Greek Orthodox church (see below).
Note: the wall of the old city from outer space in Google-Maps, click on the link!

Mantineia (Greek: Μαντίνεια, formerly also Antigonia - Αντιγόνεια) was a city in ancient Greece that was the site of two significant battles in Classical Greek history:

The First Battle of Mantinea, in 418 BC, was the largest land battle of the Peloponnesian War. On one side were Sparta and its remaining allies, and on the other were Athens, its allies, plus the cities that had revolted against the Spartans. After Laches the Athenian commander was killed, the battle turned into a rout of the Athenian and allied armies, a result attributed to greater Spartan courage.

The Second Battle of Mantinea, in 362 BC, led to the fall of Thebes' hegemony. In that battle, Athens and Sparta were allied. Thebes won the battle, but its greatest general, Epaminondas, was killed in the fighting.

The Strange Church of St. Photini in Mantinea (1978!)

This church is of recent origin across from what is now known as Ancient Mantinea. The foundations were laid in 1969 and completed in 1973, though not opened till 1978. It is an architectural mixture of traditional Byzantine and Greco-Roman. The iconography and decor is classical. In other words, this church captures all the significant historical periods of the region bridging its historical and architectural history together.
John Sandipopoulos

Orchomenos (Arcadia)**
Mycenian times –3rd cent BC
North of Mantinea

Orchomenos, Acropolis in a wild mountain valley
The early Hellenistic theatre dated 4th/3d century B.C.

The city of Orchomenos was situated in a plain surrounded on every side by mountains. This plain was bounded on the south by a low range of hills, called Anchisia, which separated it from the territory of Mantineia; on the north by a lofty chain, called Oligyrtus, through which lie the passes into the territories of Pheneus and Stymphalus; and on the east and west by two parallel chains running from north to south, which bore no specific name in antiquity: the eastern range is in one part 5400 feet (1600 m) high, and the western about 4000 feet (1200 m).

The plain is divided into two by hills projecting on either side from the eastern and western ranges, and which approach so close as to allow space for only a narrow ravine between them. The western hill, on account of its rough and rugged form, was called Trachy (Τραχύ) in antiquity; upon the summit of the western mountain stood the acropolis of Orchomenus. The northern plain is lower than the southern; the waters of the latter run through the ravine between Mount Trachy and that upon which Orchomenus stands into the northern plain, where, as there is no outlet for the waters, they form a considerable lake.[2] The acropolis of Orchomenus, stood upon a lofty, steep, and insulated hill, nearly 3000 feet (900 m) high, resembling the strong fortress of the Messenian Ithome, and, like the latter, commanding two plains

Wikipedia continues with more historical stories, but there is no archeological information availabble in the internet

Gortys- Kynouria**
400 - 200 BC
30 km northwest of Megalopolis

“Bath” in the older Asklepios sanctuary 5th-4th cent BC.- a nympaion?

The ancient city of Kynouria lay on the banks of the Gortynios river, ca. 7 km N of presentday Elliniko. Little is known of the history of the place. After the founding of Megalopolis (Paus. 8.27.3) Gortys had to give up some of its population, and sank to the status of a village. It nonetheless had enough power, and was prestigious enough, to build its imposing fortifications and to hire Skopas to do the sculpture for one of the two Asklepios temples. Later a member of the Achaian League, it was no more than a village in Pausanias' day (8.28.1).

Another photo of the sanctuary from travel.webshots

Two Asklepios sanctuaries were found :
The first dates from the 4th cent BC, and if the marble fragments of Doric columns found in the vicinity belonged to the temple for which Skopas did the sculptures

The second to the SW of the S fortification is older. It is also inscriptionally assured. The sanctuary contained the foundations of a temple of the 5th-4th cent BC, a bath, shown above, and an adyton.
Perseus

Tegea*
9th cent -300 BC - 4th cent AD
15 km south of Tripolis

Ruins of the Athena-Alea temple.
It was first investigated by A. Milchhöfer in 1879 and by W. Dörpfeld in 1882

Ancient Tegea was one of the oldest and most powerful cities of Arkadia. The temenos was founded by Aleus, Pausanias was informed. Votive bronzes at the site from the Geometric and Archaic periods take the forms of horses and deer; there are sealstones and fibulae. In the Archaic period the nine villages that underlie Tegea banded together in a synoecism to form one city.

Tegea struggled against Spartan hegemony in Arcadia and was finally conquered ca 560 BC. In the 4th century Tegea joined the Arcadian League and struggled to free itself from Sparta. The Temple of Athena Alea burned in 394 BC and was magnificently rebuilt, to designs by Scopas of Paros, with reliefs of the Calydonian boar hunt in the main pediment.

At ca. 395 AD Tegea was destroyed by the Goths, but was rebuilt under the name Nikli. It became one of the most important Byzantine cities in the Peloponnese, and the seat of a barony of the Principality of Achaea.
Wikipedia
Perseus

Thyreatis, Villa of Herodes Atticus*
2nd cent AD

The fenced-in site, Photo, Panoramio

It seems there is no official description of this large excavation site by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism at Thyreatis near Astros-Loukou

From a blog by Henrietta Hobby, a visitor to the Monastery next door.

"Across the road from the convent, looking like a building site with a tall crane perched above it is the massive site of the Villa of Herodes Atticus.
Covering an area of over 20,000 square metres and hugely ostentatious it has been compared to Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. Herodes Atticus was a Greek from a rich family who took Roman citizenship in the 2nd century AD. He became even richer and built villas all over the place.

A lot of money had obviously been spent consolidating the site and preparing to construct a roof over it. Large concrete piers had been built all around the massive central courtyard (no doubt with gardens and pool), the crane was there to put the roofing in place and huge numbers of wooden panels (for flooring?) lay around. There was a tall fence all around the site but the main gate was open with an unlocked padlock hanging on it.

There was nobody on the site so we went in and spent some time looking around. It was quite obvious that no work had been done on the site for some time so it is anyone's guess when it will be finished. Still it was great to be able to look around and it could be a fantastic site when the work is completed.

Make a note to return in 20 years or so! The scale of the site is daunting, and I was particularly impressed by the extensive bath complex with the heating and water flows clearly visible. Under the protective gauze and aggregate we know that there are mosaics. If all of the protected areas are mosaics then it should be spectacular when they are on display." - A future Greek Disneyland?