PELLENE
Achaia, Greece.
A city on the W
side of the Sys, near the modern village of Zougra, commanding the road from the coast of the Corinthian Gulf
at Xylokastro S to Trikkala. Homeric Pellene, whose site
is not known, was destroyed by Sikyon; the Classical city
dates from the 6th c. and was refortified in Late Roman
times. Pausanias mentions a gold-and-ivory statue by
Pheidias in the Temple of Athena, as well as Sanctuaries
of Eileithyia, Poseidon, Artemis, Dionysos, and Apollo
Theoxenios (god of strangers). Games called the Theoxenia were limited to native competitors; the famous Pellene cloaks were at one time given as prizes. Scattered remains of buildings and walls mark the site, which
is divided by a barren ridge, the main part of the city
being on the W side, the smaller on the E. There has
been some controversy over the location of Aristonautai,
the port of Pellene: it was probably at Xylokastro at the
mouth of the river. The ruins at Kamari, some 6 km to
the W at the mouth of the next river, are perhaps to be
identified with 4th c. Oluros, described by Pliny as the
fortress of the people of Pellene, but apparently no longer
of any significance in the time of Pausanias. The Sanctuary (Mysaion) and Sanatorium (Kyros) of Asklepios near Trikkala also belonged to Pellene.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Strab. 8.7.5;
Plin. 4.5;
Paus. 2.12.2,
7.6.1, 27.lf; W. M. Leake,
Morea (1830) III 214, 224,
389; W. M. Leake,
Peloponnesiaca (1846) 404
M; E.
Curtius,
Peloponnesos (1851-52) I 480
M; C. Bursian,
Geographie von Griechenland (1872) II 340f; J. G.
Frazer,
Paus. Des. Gr. (1898) IV 181; E. Meyer in
RE
19
I (1937) 354f; A. Philippson-Kirsten,
GL (1950-59)
III 168.
M. H. MC ALLISTER
