BURA
BURA (
Βοῦρα: Eth.
Βουραῖος, Eth.
Βούριος), a town of Achaia, and one of the 12 Achaean cities, situated on a height 40 stadia from the sea, and SE. of Helice.
It is said to have derived its name from Bura, a daughter of Ion and Helice. Its name occurs in a line of Aeschylus, preserved by Strabo.
It was swallowed up by the earthquake, which destroyed Helice, B.C. 373 [
HELICE], and all its inhabitants perished except those who were absent from the town at the time. On their return they rebuilt the city, which was visited by Pausanias, who mentions its temples of Demeter, Aphrodite, Eileithyia and Isis. Strabo relates that there was a fountain at Bura called Sybaris, from which the river in Italy derived its name. On the revival of the Achaean League in B.C. 280, Bura was governed by a tyrant, whom the inhabitants slew in 275, and then joined the confederacy.
A little to the E. of Bura was the river Buraïcus; and on the banks of this river, between Bura and the sea, was an oracular cavern of Heracles surnamed Buraicus. (
Hdt. 1.145; Pol. 2.41; Strab. pp. 386, 387, and 59;
Diod. 15.48;
Paus. 7.25.8, seq.)
The ruins of Bura have been discovered nearly midway between the rivers of
Bokhusia (Cerynites), and of
Kalavryta (Buraicus) near
Trupia. (Leake,
Morea, vol. iii. p. 399,
Peloponnesiaca, p. 387.) Ovid says that the ruins of Bira, like those of Helice, were still to be seen at the bottom of the sea; and Pltny makes the same assertion. (
Ov. Met. 15.293;
Plin. Nat. 2.94.) Hence it has been supposed that the ancient Bura stood upon the coast, and after its destruction was rebuilt inland; but neither Pausanias nor Strabo states that the ancient city was on the coast, and their words render it improbable.
