Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 8 - Myth and decolonization: Sparta’s colony at Herakleia Trachinia

  • Irad Malkin, Tel-Aviv University
  • Foreword by Nicholas Purcell, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean
    Published online:
    31 October 2024
    Print publication:
    13 June 2024, pp 219-235

  • 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.