Colonus

37.99561923.715303Koordinaten: 37 ° 59 ' 44.2 "N, 23 ° 42' 55.1 " E

The hill Colonus was a demos in ancient Greece and is now a suburb of Athens.

Originally the place was called Hippeios Colonus ( Ίππειος Κολωνός, "Horse Hill" ), and in ancient times was a demo about three kilometers north of Athens, near the Academy of Plato ( 700 meters ). The town has a well-known grove of the Erinyes and the temple of Poseidon Hippeios, god of the sea and protector god of horses were. The temple, which gave the place its name, was destroyed BC 265 in Chremonidean war at the siege of Athens by King Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedon.

The most famous son of the demos here was the 497/496 BC -born poet Sophocles. In his major drama Oedipus at Colonus, he lets the mythical king of Thebes in exile to die and be buried in Colonus.

In his "Travels in Greece " (1776 ) Richard Chandler describes his way to the Academy of Plato at Colonus:

Today, the modern Colonus is a densely populated working-class neighborhood of Athens. On the hill of Colonus are grave stelae of the 19th century, died in Athens and buried on the Colonus archaeologist Karl Otfried Müller and Charles Lenormant.