THE BALKANS AND MACEDONIA
Peloponnese is a geographical name for the southernmost part of the Balkans in the form of a peninsula, connected to the continental part of the Corinthian landmass – Isthmus. The coasts are very indented, with a large number of bays and peninsulas. The land is mountainous, Taygetus (2437 m), Pernon (1935 m), Erymantus (2244 m), Cyllene (2376 m) etc., with karst landforms. The rivers are Peneus, Alpheus, Eurotas and others.
Archaeological research by Pliman, Kountas, Blegen, Weiss, Papadimitrije, Milonas and others has established an abundance of archaeological materials for the sites of Argos, Mycenae, Piles, etc. According to the dominance of the Mycenaean culture, the periodization has been carried out in several phases of development, starting from the early 1600s to 1100 BC. Historians, based on archaeological findings, conclude that the Peloponnese was inhabited in the Mesohelladic period between 1900-1600 BC. The Argolid genealogy is taken as a reference, which can be traced back seventeen to eighteen generations from the Trojan War. Therefore, in the following description, Argolis will be presented first.
Colonization of the Pelasgians
Argolis in prehistoric times occupied the northeastern part of the Peloponnese. Through the Corinthian lands and the Isthmus, it bordered Attica, to the west with Achaia, and to the south with Laconia. Prehistoric cities included Argos, Nauplius, Tiryns, Mycenae, Sicyon, Epidaurus, Corinth, Troezen, Hermione, Lerna, and others.
Argos, as a city, has an onomastic name after King Argos, grandson of Inachus, god of the river of the same name in Argolis. In mythology, Inachus is of Pelasgian origin, from Asia Minor, son of Oceanus and Thetis, from whom the mythical history of Argolis begins and is mentioned as a contemporary of Erichthonius, the mythical king of Athens. Inachus brought people from the mountains when the ecological conditions were created for it, drained the Argolis swamps, regulated the rivers through canals, and cleared the forests.
Inachus is considered the ancestor of the Argive heroes and kings. His wife Melia gave birth to Phoroneus, Pelasgus, Agialeus, Argus, Mycenae, and Ia. Inachus established the cult of Argive Hera. 1
1 Pauzania, Periigissis tis Ellados, II, 15, 5, (trans. Pasini: Vodič po Heladi), Logos, Split, 1988.
Phoroneus, as king, united the people who lived far apart in common settlements, taught them to use fire and to honor the gods. His daughter was Niobe , the first mortal whom Zeus loved, from whose relationship the Argive hero Argus, founder of the city of Arga, was descended. Argus traded with Liberia from where he imported grain and taught his countrymen to grow grain.
The name Pelasgian refers to numerous mythical heroes from Arga, Thessaly, and Arcadia, regions whose inhabitants boasted of being natives. One of the Argive heroes named Pelasgian was the son of Triope, who hospitably received the goddess Demeter while she was searching for her daughter Cora (Persephone). He erected a sanctuary to Demeter, near which he was buried. He built the fortress of Larissa, named after his daughter Larissa. By Poseidon, Larissa had sons Pelasgian, Achaeus, and Phthius, who left the Peloponnese and conquered Thessalian Phthia, which had been inhabited by savage tribes until then. 2 One of the Argive kings named Pelasgian, son of the native Palechthon, provided refuge for the Egyptian colonists led by Danaus and his daughters.
2 Pauzania, Periigissis tis Ellados, I, 14. 2, II, 22, (prev. Pasini: Vodič po Heladi), Logos, Split, 1988.
The Pelasgians are Pelasgians from the northern part of the Peloponnese, on the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, with the arrival of the Achaeans named Achaea. The Cauconians are Pelasgians from the northwestern part of the Peloponnese in the area of Elis.
Colonization of the Peloponnese by the Aeolian Lapiths and Tyrians
Thomson 3 states that on the basis of archaeological findings of the "Minean pottery" from the Dimini culture of the Peloponnese it can be concluded that the bearers of that culture were the Aeolians, the Lapiths and the Tyrians. Both of these genealogical trees were first established in Thessaly, who from the north of the Balkans stopped there first, and then, on the way, through Boeotian Orchomenus spread south. Their traces can be proven for the Lapiths in Attica, Athens, Corinth, Elis, Arcadia and in Argolis, and also on the Cycladic Islands, even on the smallest island of Serifos.
3 Thomson, G.: I Arhaia Eilliniki Koinonia-to Proistoriko Algaio, p. 268, Athena, 1954.
The descendants of the Aeolian Tyrians can be traced to Corinth, Elis, Messene, and elsewhere.
The first Lapith to become king of Argos was Forbantes , after his return from Rhodes, and his son was Triops. In the Rhodian-Cnidian myth, Forbantes is the son of Triops. According to Argive tradition, Triops had sons Ias, Agenor, and Pelasgus. Ias, after his father's death, ruled the Peloponnese with his brothers Agenor and Pelasgus. Ias's daughter was Iea , a princess, priestess of the goddess Hera, lover of the supreme god Zeus. Jealous Hera chased Ia away, and Zeus, to save her, turned Ia into a white cow.
He pursued her from place to place, from country to country, from Europe she crossed into Asia through the Bosphorus (cow passage) and reached Egypt, where Zeus restored her to her original appearance and peace, and on the way he impregnated her. In Egypt, Ia gave birth to a son to Zeus, Epaphus, who became king of Egypt. With the daughter of the Nile, Memphis, Epaphus had three daughters: Libya, Lysiana and Thebes, and is considered the ancestor of Danaus and Cadmus. Later, Epaphus is identified with the Egyptian Apis (Apis). Apis is celebrated in Egypt as a bull god, and with the colonization of Argolis by the Danaids, the Peloponnese, especially Argolis, is named Appia, while the inhabitants are Apians-Apids.
Peloponnese
The cunning did not deceive Hera, who sent an angry stork to Ia, who stabbed and
Triops' grandson, Agenor's son Crotopus , was king of Argos. He had two children, a son Sthenelus and a daughter Psamathe. Crotopus was purified by Apollo after killing Python, a dragon in the Delphic region at the foot of Parnassus. After the death of Crotopus, who is buried in Argos, his son Sthenelus became king of Argolis. He was succeeded by his son Gelanor , who ruled Argolis as king until the arrival of the Egyptian colonists, the Danaans. Aeolus' son Sisyphus was the wisest and most cunning of mortals, the father of Glaucus and the grandfather of Bellerophon. He was king of Aephyrus and the founder of Corinth in the Peloponnese. Sisyphus is considered the father of another great cunning man, Odysseus. Homer 4 states: “…
4 Homer, Iliad and Odyssey, II, VII, 152, Novi Sad, 1985 (trans. M.N. Gyurig).
There is a city of Ephyrus in the middle of Argos, which gives horses,/ where Sisyphus, that most cunning man,/ Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, had Glaucus for his son,/ Glaucus the blameless fathered the hero Bellerophon…” After death, Sisyphus is severely punished for having revealed divine secrets to men, for impiety, and for having raped Tyra, the daughter of his brother Salmoneus. In Hades, Sisyphus pushes a huge rock up a hill, and when he reaches the top, the rock rolls back and falls to the bottom, and this great sinner, in sweat, without water, and in dust, must perform this futile work – “Sisyphos’s work” – from the beginning. Glaucus succeeded his father Sisyphus as king of Corinth – Ephyrus and was known as a horse breeder.
He is considered the founder of the Isthmian Games. His son, the Corinthian hero Bellerophon , because of the murder of Bellerophon, after whom he was named, had to leave Corinth, and then Tiryns, where King Praet cleansed him of sin, went to Lycia in Lesser Azgia with the help of his winged horse Pegasus. In Lycia, Bellerophon performed many heroic deeds and was revered as a great hero, and also in Corinth. The myth of this hero was elaborated by Euripides.
Glaucus was succeeded by Sisyphus's next son, Orinus , and after him Thoas, his son, became king of Corinth. During the reign of his great-grandsons, the Dorides and the Hyantides, the Hellenes, under the leadership of Aletes, conquered Corinth in 1100 BC.
The Lapiths eventually colonized the western Peloponnese. This was first done by Forbantes, the eldest son of the Lapith king, who colonized Elis, the northwestern part of the Peloponnese where the Cauconian Pelasgians were located.
According to the Elis tradition, Forbantes from Thessaly crossed over to the city of Olene, in Achaea, west of Patras, and here he helped King Alector in the fight against Pelops, who was bringing new Achaean colonists from Phthia to Thessaly. As a token of gratitude, Alector divided his kingdom with the newcomer. To cement their friendship, Alector married Forbantes' daughter Diogenes, and Forbantes took Alectores' sister Hirmina as his wife. Forbantes had two sons, Actor and Augeus, who shared the rule of Elis after their father's death.
Actor , king of Elis, fathered the Molionids with Molione, the twins Eurytus and Cteatus. They were the strongest of their generation. They lost their lives in the prime of their youth, when Heracles killed them in an ambush near Kelon, where they had set out for the Isthmian Games as representatives of Elis. Since then, the people of Elis have never participated in these games. The second son of Forbantus, Augeas , as king of Elis, was famous for his wealth. He participated in the expedition of the Argonauts in 1225 BC. He owned the best and most numerous herds and flocks in the world, three hundred white-footed black bulls and two hundred breeding cows.
In his cattle yards and stables, the scum had not been cleaned for several years. When Eurystheus, king of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Midea, of the Egyptian dynasty of the Danaids, ordered Heracles to clean out all the neglected stables, Augeas rejoiced because a terrible stench spread from the garbage and threatened the land. The king of Elis even promised Heracles a tenth of his cattle, because he did not believe that he could complete the job in one day.
When Heracles cleaned the stables and courtyards, Augeas refused to give him the promised reward, claiming that he had been deceived because he had not done the work himself, but rather the river gods who had diverted them to the waters of the nearby rivers Alpheus and Peneus.
Augeas ruled Elis for a long time and died in old age. After his death, his people participated in the hunt for the Calydonian boar. The next king of Elis was Megetus, son of Phileus. His mother was the daughter of Laertes, sister of Odysseus, sister of Helen and Clytemnestra.
Following the Lapith genealogy of southwestern Greece, Pausanias 5 states that from Thoas , king of the Aetolians, son of Andromeno and founder of the city of Amphis in Aetolia, through Thoas' son Haemon and his son Oxylus to Endymion , there were six generations of kings of Elis of Lapith origin. His son Epeius was king of Elis when the Lydian Pelops captured Pisa and neighboring Olympia, separating it from the Epeian land. Since Epeius had no children, his brother Aetolus succeeded to the throne, and Paeon fled to Macedonia.
5 Pausania, Periigissis tis Ellados, V , 3, (trans. Pasini: Vodič po Heladi), Logos, Split, 1989.
Aetolus was married to Pronia, daughter of Phorbantes, who bore him sons Pleuron and Calydon, eponymous heroes of the Aetolian cities. When Aetolus later accidentally killed the Peloponnesian king Apides of Pallantium, he fled north to Aetolia where he fought with the Curetes and the area was named Aetolia after him. Thus the Lapiths became masters of Aetolia, a mountainous region west of Phocis, east of Acarnia, and north of the Gulf of Corinth and the Gulf of Petra.
Pleuron, son of Aetolian and Pronoin, was the eponymous hero of the city of Pleuron in Aetolia. He had a sanctuary in Sparta, with a monument to him. Tyndareus's sons by his mother, Castor and Polydeuces, were descended from Pleuron. 6
6 Pausania, Periigissis tis Ellados, III, 13, (trans. Pasini: Vodič po Heladi), Logos, Split, 1989.
Calydon, Pleuron's brother, became the eponymous hero of the city of the same name in Aetolia. The city later became famous in Greece for the collective hunt of the bravest warriors from all over the country for Artemis's wild boar, which destroyed crops, cows and farmers. In mythology, this event is known as the "Hunt of the Calydonian Boar", during the reign of the Calydonian king Aeneas, son of Pleuron. Aeneas was the first mortal to whom Dionysus, Zeus' youngest immortal son, gave a bunch of grapes and named the wine after himself. It is said that his eldest shepherd, Stephilus (grape), noticed a goat eating a previously unknown fruit. The shepherd picked this fruit and, after crushing it, obtained juice. King Aeneas "patented" this drink, naming it after himself, ionos-wine. He was known far and wide for his hospitality, as he hosted many heroes and gods at his court. In addition to Dionysus, his guests were Heracles, Bellerophon, Agamemnon, Menelaus, etc. Aeneas had many children, including his son Meleager and his daughter Deianira.
Meleager is one of the heroes of the myth of the Calydonian Boar Hunt. His mother is Althea, daughter of Thestia, king of the city of Pleuron in Aetolia. He was married to Cleopatra, who bore him a daughter, Polydora, while with Atalanta he had a son, Parthenopeus. Polydora married Protesilaus, a Thessalian hero from Phylacus, a participant in the Trojan War with 40 ships who fell victim to the war immediately after landing. He was killed by Hetcor. His tragedy was described by Euripides.
Meleager's son Parthenopeus grew up in Argos in the Peloponnese and was distinguished by his exceptional beauty and gigantic stature. He died during the campaign of the Seven against Thebes. His son Promachus participated in the campaign of the Epigonians against Thebes.
Meleager participated in the expedition of the Argonauts and in the funeral games organized on the occasion of the death of Pelias at Iolcus. During the Hunt of the Calydonian Boar, a quarrel arose over the skin of the boar. Then, Meleager thoughtlessly killed his two uncles from the city of Pleuron, where the Curetes tribe lived, but, in the quarrel, he also died, while others claim that he died in a war with the Curetes of Apollo. Later, when Heracles descended into the Underworld to search for Cerberus, Meleager's shadow told him his evil fate and asked him to marry his sister Deianira. The fate of Meleager was treated by Euripides and Sophocles.
After leaving the kingdom of Hades, Heracles went to Calydon where he married Deianira and set off for his homeland. The newlyweds came to the Euen River, where the centaur Nessus, son of King Ision and Nephele - Lapiths of Thessaly, was transporting travelers across the river. Since the river had become wild from the winter rains and was threatening with its rapids and whirlpools, Nessus suggested to Heracles that he swim across the river himself, and that Deianira entrust him with her. Heracles accepted the proposal and paid for the transportation. When Heracles found himself on the other bank of the river, he heard the cry for help of his wife whom Nessus had raped. Then Heracles mortally wounded the centaur with his arrow. To take revenge on his murderer, Nessus advised Deianira to collect his blood and semen and make a mixture from it and use it in case she lost her husband's love. Diana took advantage of this later, when Heracles, in a war with the Phoenicians-Euchalians of Chalkidiki, captured the daughter of King Eurytus, Iola, whose exceptional beauty brought misfortune to her family and to Heracles' homeland.
The Acarnanians are neighbors of Aetolia. Acarnania is also a mountainous karst region on the coast of the Ionian Sea, west of the Achelous River. The eponymous hero of the Acarnanians is the Aeolian Acarnanus , son of Alcmaeon and Callirhoe, a descendant of Melanpodes from Argos in the Peloponnese.
To be continued
Written by: ACADEMICIAN A. SHKOKLYEV-DONCHO AND SLAVE KATIN
