MYKALESSOS
(Rhitsona) Boiotia, Greece.
A town belonging to the earliest Boiotian League, flourishing from the 6th c. until its destruction and the massacre of its inhabitants by the Athenians in 413 B.C.
Strabo classed it as a village belonging to Tanagra.
There are a few remains of undated walls at Rhitsona,
which is generally accepted as the site of Mykalessos.
Excavations have concentrated on graves, largely of the
6th c., but also 5th c. and Hellenistic, which produced
material of considerable importance for the history of
Greek ceramics. Pausanias mentions a Sanctuary of
Mykalessian Demeter on the shore of the Euripos, which
was probably near the modern village of Megalovouno
above Aulis. The ancient wall which appears on both
sides of the road through the Anaghoritis pass marks the
Chalkis-Thebes boundary. Frazer suggested a nearby
location for the Hermaion mentioned in Thucydides'
account of the Athenian attack, while locating Livy's
Hermaion on the Euripos at a ferry terminus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thuc. 4.93.4, 7.29.30;
Strab. 9.2.11;
Livy 25.50;
Paus. 1.23.3, 9.19.4; J. G. Frazer,
Paus. Des.
Gr. (1898) v 66f;
BSA 14 (1907) 226f; S. C. Bakhuizen,
Salganeus and the Fortifications on its Mountains (
Chalcidean Studies III, 1970).
M. H. MC ALLISTER
