TENEA
Corinthia, Greece.
Tenea was a city
in the S Corinthia where Oedipus was said to have spent
his childhood. The city had a famous Sanctuary of
Apollo. It supplied most of the colonists when Corinth
founded Syracuse in the late 8th c. B.C. It became an
independent city, probably in the Hellenistic period and,
thanks to its good relations with the Romans, continued
to exist after Lucius Mummius sacked Corinth in 146
B.C. (The chief ancient sources are Soph.
Oed. Tyr. 774,
827, 936, 939;
Xen. Hell. 4.4.19; Cic.
Att. 6.2.3;
Strab.
8.6.22;
Paus. 2.5.4.)
Ruins of the large ancient city extend from the S edge
of the modern town of Chiliomodhion to the village of
Klenia, a distance of about 2 km. A dramatic mountain
pass (Haghionorion) opens to the S of Tenea and leads
to Argolis. Chance finds have resulted in the excavation
of several burials ranging in date from the Early Geometric period to late Roman times. There are Roman
chamber tombs on a ridge projecting N from Klenia and
a small cloth-dyeing establishment was excavated near
its NW base in 1970. The so-called Tenean Apollo, an
archaic kouros, was found not at Tenea but on a ridge
about 20 minutes by foot to the SE of the modern town
of Athikia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S. Charitonides, “A Geometric Grave at
Clenia near Corinth,”
AJA 59 (1955) 125-28; I. Papachristodoulou,
ArchDelt 24 (1969)
Chronika 103-4; J. R. Wiseman,
The Land of the Ancient Corinthians (forthcoming).
J. R. WISEMAN
