Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Maps
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note
- Introduction to the Second edition
- Introduction
- 1 The ‘colony of the Dorians’ and the Return of the Herakleidai
- 2 The Homeric king of Sparta: Menelaos in a Spartan Mediterranean
- 3 Spartan colonization in the Aegean and the Peloponnese
- 4 Taras: native hostility, territorial possession, and a new-ancient past
- 5 Foundation and territory: the cults of Apollo Karneios and Zeus Ammon
- 6 Myth and colonial territory: Libya
- 7 Promises unfulfilled: Dorieus between North Africa and Sicily
- 8 Myth and decolonization: Sparta’s colony at Herakleia Trachinia
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Myth and decolonization: Sparta’s colony at Herakleia Trachinia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Maps
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note
- Introduction to the Second edition
- Introduction
- 1 The ‘colony of the Dorians’ and the Return of the Herakleidai
- 2 The Homeric king of Sparta: Menelaos in a Spartan Mediterranean
- 3 Spartan colonization in the Aegean and the Peloponnese
- 4 Taras: native hostility, territorial possession, and a new-ancient past
- 5 Foundation and territory: the cults of Apollo Karneios and Zeus Ammon
- 6 Myth and colonial territory: Libya
- 7 Promises unfulfilled: Dorieus between North Africa and Sicily
- 8 Myth and decolonization: Sparta’s colony at Herakleia Trachinia
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 426, five years after the outbreak of its great war with Athens, Sparta founded a colony near Trachis, a short distance from Thermopylai – Herakleia Trachinia. By 394 decolonization had begun there, and by 370 nothing Spartan was left of it. The story of this colony is one of mismanagement, arbitrary rule, ethnic tension, and shifts in the control and composition of the citizenry. The foundation was marked by memories of Sparta’s Dorianism and Herakleid heritage. The myth of Herakles functioned in this colonization both through its geographical localization and through its content: Herakles spent his last days at Trachis as the guest of its king and died on the pyre on Mt Oita. In the more political versions of the myth Herakles becomes the original founder of Trachis, the conqueror and destroyer of the abhorrent brigands who infested the land. In slightly later versions which probably belong to the decolonization era, these same native ’brigands’ become Herakles’ friendly companions, the co-founders of Herakleia Trachinia.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean , pp. 219 - 235Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024