Editing Helike (section)

==History==
[[File:Towns of ancient Achaia.svg|thumb|500px|Map of area. Helike marked "Ελίκη".]]
[[File:Helikeausgrabungen.jpg|thumb|400px|A Hellenistic-era building, possibly used as a dye-works]]
[[File:Helike-coin.jpg|thumb|A coin from Helike]]
Helike was founded in the Early [[Bronze Age]] (c. 3000–2200 BC) as a proto-urban town with large rectilinear buildings and cobbled streets; walls and occupation layers rich in pottery of the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean period]] (c. 1750–1050 BC) were also found,<ref>Archaeological Institute of America, (July 24, 2023),[https://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/the-helike-project/ "The Helike Project"]</ref> becoming the principal city of [[Achaea (ancient region)|Achaea]]. In the ''[[Iliad]]'', the poet [[Homer]] states that the city of Helike participated in the [[Trojan War]] as a part of [[Agamemnon]]'s forces.<ref>Homer, Iliad, 2.575</ref> In the space of a possible little [[Poseidon]] temple, beginning around 850 BC, religious artifacts like bronze and clay items such as figurines, clay chariot wheels, iron weapons, and pottery dating to the [[Archaic Greece|Archaic period]], a bronze snake head and rare golden necklace were found.<ref>Archaeology, (August 28, 2023). [https://www.archaeology.org/news/11710-230828-greece-poseidon-temple "Excavation Uncovers Potential Greek Cult Center of Poseidon"], Archaeological Institute of America.</ref>

Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Helike led the [[Achaean League]], an association that joined twelve neighboring cities in an area including today's town of [[Aigio]]. Helike, also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words ''dodeka'' meaning 'twelve' and ''polis'' meaning 'city'), became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage. Finds from ancient Helike are limited to two 5th-century copper coins, now housed in [[Bode Museum]], [[Berlin]]. The obverse shows the head of [[Poseidon]], the city's patron, and the reverse his trident.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ikmk.smb.museum/object?id=18204551&lang=en|title = MK-B &#124; Helike vor 373 v. CHR.}}</ref> There was a temple dedicated to the Helikonian Poseidon. Ancient Greeks would travel to Helike to be blessed by Poseidon and to trade.

Helike founded colonies including [[Priene]] in [[Asia Minor]] and [[Sybaris]] in [[Southern Italy]]. Its [[wikt:panhellenic|panhellenic]] temple and sanctuary of Helikonian Poseidon were known throughout the [[classical world]], and second only in religious importance to [[Delphi]].<ref name="Katsonopoulou2002a">{{cite journal | last = Katsonopoulou | first = Dora | year = 2002 | title = Helike and her Territory in Historical Times | journal = Pallas | volume = 58 | pages = 175–182 | issn =0031-0387 }}</ref>

===Destruction===
The ancient account puts Helike's destruction in 373 BC, two years before the [[Battle of Leuctra]], during a winter night. Several events were construed in retrospect as having warned of the disaster: some [[Earthquake lights|"immense columns of flame"]] appeared, and five days previously, all animals and vermin fled the city, going toward [[Keryneia, Greece|Keryneia]].<ref name = Aelian>Aelian; Scholfield, A.F., trans. (1959)  [https://archive.org/details/L448AelianCharacteristicsOfAnimalsII611/page/n195 ''On the Characteristics of Animals''] [Latin: ''De Natura Animalium''], vol. 2 (in Greek and English),  London, England:  William Heinemann Ltd.  Book 11, Chapter 19, pp. 384–387.</ref> The city and a space of 12 [[Stadion (unit)|stadia]] below it sank into the earth and were covered over by the sea. All the inhabitants perished without a trace, and the city was obscured from view except for a few building fragments projecting from the sea. Ten [[Sparta]]n ships anchored in the harbour were dragged down with it. An attempt involving 2,000 men to recover bodies was unsuccessful.<ref name="Lafond1998">{{cite book |title=Naturkatastrophen in der antiken Welt |chapter=Die Katastrophe von 373 v. Chr. und das Versinken der Stadt Helike in Achaia |language=de |last=Lafond |first=Yves |editor=Olshausen, E. |editor2=Sonnabend, H. |year=1998 |publisher=Steiner |location=Stuttgart |series=Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur historischen Geographie des Altertums |volume=6 |isbn=3-515-07252-7 |pages=118–123 }}</ref> [[Aigio]]n took possession of its territory.<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece'', 7.25.4</ref>

[[Strabo]] recounts how the city was submerged by a tsunami triggered by an earthquake, and argued that this was caused by "the anger of Poseidon", because the inhabitants of Helike had refused to give their statue of Poseidon to the [[Ionia]]n colonists in Asia, or even to supply them with a model. According to some authorities, the inhabitants of Helike and Bura had even murdered the Ionian deputies. An account by [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] claims the sea destroyed the city after an appearance of a [[Great Comet of 371 BC|comet]].<ref name="Seneca">{{citation| last=Seneca|title=Natural Questions, Book 7, (5.4)}}</ref>

About 150 years after the disaster, the philosopher [[Eratosthenes]] visited the site and reported that a standing bronze statue of Poseidon was submerged in a "poros", "holding in one hand a [[hippocamp]]", where it posed a hazard to those who fished with nets.<ref>Strabo, ''Geography'', 8.7.2</ref> The meaning of ''poros'' in ancient Greek is not fully clear, but could refer to an inland lagoon, lake, or narrow strait. Most archaeologists thought it referred to the [[Gulf of Corinth]], but there was disagreement from Professor Dora Katsonopoulou:

{{Blockquote|text=For the sea was raised by an earthquake and it submerged Helice, and also the temple of the Heliconian Poseidon, whom the Ionians worship even to this day, offering there the [[Panionium|Pan-Ionian]] sacrifices. And, as some suppose, Homer recalls this sacrifice when he says: "but he breathed out his spirit and bellowed, as when a dragged bull bellows round the altar of the Heliconian lord."

...

Helice was submerged by the sea two years before the battle at Leuctra. And Eratosthenes says that he himself saw the place, and that the ferrymen say that there was a bronze Poseidon in the strait, standing erect, holding a hippo-campus in his hand, which was perilous for those who fished with nets. And [[Heraclides Ponticus|Heracleides]] says that the submersion took place by night in his time, and, although the city was twelve stadia distant from the sea, this whole district together with the city was hidden from sight; and two thousand men who had been sent by the Achaeans were unable to recover the dead bodies; and they divided the territory of Helice among the neighbors; and the submersion was the result of the anger of Poseidon, for the lonians who had been driven out of Helice sent men to ask the inhabitants of Helice particularly for the statue of Poseidon, or, if not that, for the model of the temple; and when the inhabitants refused to give either, the Ionians sent word to the general council of the Achaeans; but although the assembly voted favorably, yet even so the inhabitants of Helice refused to obey; and the submersion resulted the following winter; but the Achaeans later gave the model of the temple to the lonians.|author=[[Strabo]]|title=[[Geographica]]|source=8.7.2}}Around 174 AD, the traveler [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] visited a coastal site still called Helike, located seven kilometres southeast of [[Aigio]], and reported that the walls of the ancient city were still visible underwater, "but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water".<ref>Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+7.24.13&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 7.24.13]</ref>

For centuries after, its submerged ruins could still be seen. Roman tourists frequently sailed over the site, admiring the city's statuary. Later the site silted over and the location was lost to memory.

{{Interlanguage link|Adalberto Giovannini|de|vertical-align=sup}} argued that the submergence of Helike might have inspired [[Plato]] to end his story about [[Atlantis]] with its submersion.<ref name="Giovannini1985">{{cite journal | last = Giovannini | first = A. | year = 1985 | title = Peut-on démythifier l'Atlantide? | journal = Museum Helveticum | volume = 42 | pages = 151–156 | issn = 0027-4054 | language = fr }}</ref> Ancient scholars and writers who visited the ruins include the Greeks [[Strabo]],<ref name="Strabo">{{cite book |last=Strabo |author-link=Strabo |editor1-last=H.L. Jones |title=The Geography of Strabo |url= https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D7%3Asection%3D2 |volume=IV, Books 8-9 |publisher=Loeb Classical Library |isbn=0674992164}}</ref> [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] and [[Diodorus Siculus|Diodoros of Sicily]],<ref>Diodorus Siculus; Booth, G., trans. (1814)  [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxg92h&view=1up&seq=43 ''The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian''.]  vol. 2, London, England:  J. Davis.  Book 15, Chapter 5, pp. 36–38.</ref> and the Romans [[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]]<ref name = Aelian/> and [[Ovid]].<ref>Publius Ovidius Naso; Orger, Thomas, trans. (1814) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064183161&view=1up&seq=623 ''Ovid's Metamorphoses.''] London, England:  (Self-published)  Book 15, lines 293–295, p. 315.  From p. 315: "For Helicé or Buris should you seek, Achaïan towns, / o'erwhelmed beneath the waves / You'll find them:  boatmen oft are wont to shew / The tottering cities, and their walls immers'd." (Latin:  ''"Si quæras Helicen et Burin Achaïdas urbes, / Invenies sub aquis: et adhuc ostendere nautæ / Inclinata solent cum mœnibus oppida mersis.")''</ref>

===Subsequent events===
On 23 August 1817, a similar disaster, an earthquake followed by a [[tsunami]], occurred at the same spot. The earthquake was preceded by a sudden explosion, like that produced by a battery of cannon. The aftershock was said to have lasted a minute and a half, during which the sea rose at the mouth of the [[Selinountas (river)|Selinous]] River and extended to cover all the ground immediately below [[Aigio]] (the ancient Αἴγιον). After its retreat, not a trace was left of some [[Magazine (artillery)|artillery depots]] which had stood on the shore, and the beach was carried away completely. In Aigio, 65 people died and two-thirds of its buildings were entirely ruined, as were five villages in the plain.<ref>The 1817 earthquake at Aigio (then called Vostitza) and its effects are recounted in:
*  {{cite book |last1=Leake |first1=William Martin |title=Travels in the Morea |date=1830 |publisher=John Murray |location=London, England |volume=3 |page=402n |url=https://archive.org/details/moreatravels03leak/page/402}}
*  Reprinted in:  {{cite book |editor1-last=Smith |editor1-first=William |title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography |date=1854 |publisher=Little, Brown & Co. |location=Boston, Massachusetts, USA |volume=1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dictionarygreek01smitgoog/page/n1051 1034]–1035 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionarygreek01smitgoog}}</ref>