Pleuron, Aetolia

Pleuron (Greek Πλευρών ) was an ancient Greek city.

The known remains of the ancient Pleuron can be found in the southwest of the Aetolian Aeolis. Residents were loud Strabo as Pleuronios ( Πλευρώνιος ) and Pleuroneus called ( Πλευρωνεύς ), the landscape in which the city stood, as Pleuronia ( Πλευρωνία ). The city is already in mythological times of importance. As a city founder and eponymous hero applies Pleuron, son of Aetolus and brother of Calydon, which applies to the city of Calydon as eponymous hero. Oineus should have prevailed at the time of the Calydonian boar hunt as a double king over both cities. From Pleuron to Meleager come, as the Curetes. In the Homeric catalog of ships in the Iliad Pleuron is listed as Aetolian city.

In historical time, had Pleuron for information in Thucydides in 6 / 5 Century BC released from the Aitoliern. Towards the end of the 5th century BC, the city was part of the Achaean Koinon ( Achaiischer Confederation). In the 4th century BC was Pleuron together with other neighboring countries member of the Aetolian federal government. Evidence for this can be found only in the 3rd century BC, could occupy as Pleuron multiple official positions of the Federal Government. After the city had been destroyed BC by Demetrius II of Macedon 234, residents founded the city as a new Pleuron new to safer, higher authority. In the 2nd century BC, the city was temporarily returned to the Achaean Confederation. Get today are city walls dating from around 230 BC with seven gates and 31 towers, the theater was built about the same time, the agora, cisterns and building foundations of the Hellenistic period ( Kastro Irini ). The port Pleurons also had an attachment which bound him to the city. In Pleuron there was a cult of Athena at the Acropolis, later built over a Byzantine chapel. The poet Alexandros Aetolus was the son of the city.

The localization of the older settlement Pleuron is not certain, it is believed the city on the coastal plain between the rivers Achelous and Evenus, near Calydon. New Pleuron can be found on the southern slope of the Arakynthosgebirges at today Kato Retsina. The foundation is probably near the old city.