Boura
Encyclopedia
Achaea
Achaea is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of West Greece. It is situated in the northwestern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. The capital is Patras. The population exceeds 300,000 since 2001.-Geography:...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, one of the 12 cities of the Achaean League
Achaean League
The Achaean League was a Hellenistic era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese, which existed between 280 BC and 146 BC...
.
It is said to have derived its name from a daughter
Bura (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Bura was a daughter of Ion, son of Xuthus, and Helice. She was the eponym of the city Boura in Achaea.She is possibly the same as Bura, mother of Atrax by Peneus....
of Ion
Ion (mythology)
According to Greek mythology, Ion was the illegitimate child of Creüsa, daughter of Erechtheus and wife of Xuthus. Creusa conceived Ion with Apollo then she abandoned the child. Apollo asked Hermes to take Ion from his cradle. Ion was saved by a priestess of the Delphic Oracle...
and Helice
Helike (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Helike was one of the nymphs who nurtured Zeus in his infancy on Crete . Her name suggests that she was a "willow-nymph", just as there were oak-tree nymphs and ash-nymphs ....
.
The city was situated on a height 40 stadia from the sea, and southeast of Helike. Its name occurs in a line of Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
, preserved by Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
. It was swallowed up by the earthquake which destroyed Helike
Helike
Helike was an ancient Greek city that sank at night in the winter of 373 BC. The city was located in Achaea, Northern Peloponnesos, two kilometres from the Corinthian Gulf...
in 373 BCE, and all its inhabitants perished except those who were absent at the time. On their return they rebuilt the city, which was visited by Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
, who mentions its temples dedicated to Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
, Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
, Eileithyia and Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
. Strabo relates that there was a fountain at Boura called "Sybaris", from which the river and celebrated city
Sybaris
Sybaris was an ancient city in Magna Graecia on the western shore of the Gulf of Taranto. The wealth of the city during the 6th century BC was so great that the Sybarites became synonymous with pleasure and luxury...
in Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
derived its name. On the revival of the Achaean League in 280 BCE, Boura was governed by a tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
, whom the inhabitants slew in 275 BCE, and then joined the confederacy. A little to the east of Boura was the river Buraïcus; and on the banks of this river, between Boura and the sea, was an oracular cavern of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
surnamed Buraicus. (Herod.
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
i. 145; Pol.
Polybius
Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...
ii. 41; Strab. pp. 386, 387, and 59; Diod. xv. 48; Paus. vii. 25. § 8, seq.)
The ruins of Boura have been discovered nearly midway between the rivers of Bokhusia (Cerynites), and of Kalavryta
Kalavryta
Kalavryta is a town and a municipality in the eastcentral part of the peripheral unit of Achaea, Greece. It is the southern terminus of the Kalavryta - Diakopto Road and the eastern terminus of the Patras - Kalavryta Road. It is located approx...
(Buraicus) near Trupia. (Leake, Morea, vol. iii. p. 399, Peloponnesiaca, p. 387.) Ovid says that the ruins of Boura (which he calls Bira), like those of Helike, were still to be seen at the bottom of the sea; and Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
makes the same assertion. (Ov. Met. xv. 293; Plin. ii. 94.) Hence it has been supposed that the ancient Boura 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.