SKILLOUS
Peloponnesos, Greece.
City in
Triphylia, 20 stades (3.5 km) S of Olympia, on the
Selinus River (
Xen. Anab. 5.3.11;
Strab. 8.343;
Paus.
5.6.4). The land of Skillous was fertile, as it is today,
and also abounded with game (
Xen. Anab. 5.3.7;
Paus.
5.6.5). In the 7th and early 6th c. B.C., Skillous, a close
friend and ally of Pisa, which at that time assumed
control of the Olympic sanctuary, built the heraion at
Olympia (
Paus. 5.16.1). In 570 B.C. the people of Skillous were evicted from the city after the total defeat of
their allies the Pisaians in battle with the Eleians (
Paus.
5.6.4, 6.22.4). In 400 B.C. Skillous was resettled by Sparta. After the peace of Antalkidas (King's Peace) the city
was proclaimed free (
Xen. Hell. 6.5.2) but shortly afterwards it came under the control of Sparta. The farm
assigned by Sparta to the Athenian exile, Xenophon,
was in the territory of Skillous. Xenophon erected a
shrine there which was a copy of the Temple of Ephesian Artemis (
Xen. Anab. 5.3.7f;
Paus. 5.6.4). A short
distance from the shrine, Pausanias (
5.6.6) saw the
tomb of Xenophon with his statue. In the area of
Skillous was also a remarkable Temple of Skillountian
Athena (
Strab. 8.343). After the battle of Leuktra (371
B.C.) Skillous again came under Eleian control. Skillous
was probably deserted in the Hellenistic period and for
this reason is not mentioned at all by Polybios. Pausanias, on the road to Olympia after Samikon, mentions
the uninhabited remains of Skillous in the distance to
the left; that is, in the area between the present communities of Krestaina, Makrysia, and Ladikou, where the city must have been.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Geyer in
RE III A (1929) 526, s.v.;
Partsch in
Olympia I 12;
Annales de la Faculte des Lettres d'Aix en Provence 29 (1955) ed. Delebeque 5ff;
E. Meyer,
Neue Peloponnesische Wanderungen (1957)
63ff
I; Themelis,
Deltion 23 (1968) A 284ff
MPI.
N. YALOURIS
