ANTHEDON
Boiotia, Greece.
A Boiotian
harbor on the Gulf of Euboia, 13 km W of Chalkis and 2
km N of the village of Loukisia, at the foot of Mt.
Messapios.
Included in the catalogue of ships of the
Iliad (2.508),
it belonged to the Theban districts until 387 B.C. when it
became independent in the Boiotian Confederacy. Destroyed by Sulla at the same time as Larymna and Halai in 86 B.C., it was restored and its harbor rebuilt in the 4th c. A.D.
The site of Anthedon was occupied from Mycenaean
times and was still inhabited in the 6th c. A.D. According to ancient testimony, the city was fortified; its agora
was planted with trees and flanked with a double portico.
Inside the city was a Kabeirian temple and, close by,
another dedicated to Demeter and Kore, while outside
the city walls to the SE, was a Temple of Dionysos.
The gymnasium was consecrated to Zeus Karaios and
to Anthas, the eponym of the city. Partial excavations
have been conducted.
The rampart, which no doubt is Hellenistic, started
from the N mole then ran along the coast for 225 m
going W, circled the city to the W and 5, reached the
coastline NE of the acropolis and followed the slope of
the acropolis N down to the mole E of the port. The
city covered an area ca. 550-650 m from N to S and
600 m from E to W. To the NE the acropolis overlooks
the sea and the harbor from a height of some 20 m. Excavations there have yielded only two small crude walls
and some bronze objects of the 12th-11th c. The port,
which doubtless is very old, was rebuilt under the Late
Empire. Its nearly circular basin (130 x 120 m) is protected to the N and E by two moles built of large blocks,
and surrounded to the N, W, and S by quays along a
370 m length. The S quay is porticocd. To the S of the
portico the remains of an Early Christian basilica have
been excavated; it is apsed and paved with polychinome
marble. The little temple (ca. 10 x 6 m) discovered SE of
the city in 1889 may be that of Dionysos.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. C. Rolfe in
AJA 5 (1889) 443-60;
6 (1890) 96-107
PI; J. G. Frazer,
Paus. Des. Gr. V (1898)
92-95
P; K. Lehmann-Hartleben,
Die antiken Hafenanlagen, Klio 14 (1923) 77-78, 105; H. Schläger, D. J.
Blackman, & J. Schäfer, “Der Hafen von Anthedon,”
Arch. Anz. (1968) 21-102
MPI; N. Papahadjis,
Pausaniou
Hellados Periegesis V (1969) 125-28
MP; S. C. Bakhuizen,
Salganeus and the Fortifications on its Mountains (1970).
P. ROESCH
