Phlius
Phlius was the principal city of Phliasia, located in the Peloponnese region of southern Greece, near the confluence of several territories including Argolid and Achaea. Historically significant, Phlius played a role in key events of the Persian Wars, contributing troops to battles such as Thermopylae and Plataea. The city was known for its Pythagorean school and provided the backdrop for Plato's dialogue, "Phaedo." Initially allied with the Spartans to counter Argos, Phlius faced turmoil when political exiles influenced its leadership, leading to a siege by Agesilaus II in 379 BC. Despite challenges, including territorial losses to Argos and its temporary rule by tyrants, Phlius joined the Achaean Confederacy in 278 BC. By the Roman era, it was described as a thriving town with notable structures, including remnants of its acropolis and a theater. Culturally, Phlius claimed to be the center of the Peloponnese and revered Hebe as its principal deity, with a temple dedicated to Asclepius.
Phlius
Phleious
The principal city of Phliasia in the Peloponnese (southern Greece), situated beside the upper waters of the river Asopus, near the point where the lands of the Argolid, Achaea, Arcadia and Corinthia meet; its fortified acropolis (Trikaranon) commanded one of the subsidiary roads that led to Corinth.
In the Persian Wars Phlius contributed two hundred men to the battle of Thermopylae (480) and a thousand to Plataea (479). The town, which possessed its own Pythagorean school and provided the setting for Plato's Phaedo, was an ally of its fellow Dorians the Spartans, whom it served as a counter weight against Argos. In 383, however, it incurred their displeasure—fomented by returned political exiles who had gained their ear—and succumbed to Agesilaus II (379) after a twenty-month siege; whereupon he appointed a committee `to determine who should live and who should die’. In 366/65 the new régime at Phlius loyally supported Sparta in spite of incessant attacks from Argos, Sicyon and Arcadia, to which it lost part of its territory; but after Spartan supremacy had been destroyed the Phliasians took an active part in the general treaty that followed (362/61). In the later third century they passed for a time under the rule of autocrats (`tyrants’), after whose abdication Phlius became a member of the Achaean Confederacy (278); though it was temporarily detached by Cleomenes III of Sparta in 225. In the Roman age Pausanias described Phlius as a large and flourishing town, although its coinage (which mostly dates from much earlier times) was only resumed briefly under Septimius Severus (AD 193–211).
The place contained a sacred stone, the omphalos (navel), since its inhabitants, disregarding geographical facts, declared it the center of the Peloponnese. Its principal deity was Hebe, and a temple of Asclepius is mentioned; it has been identified, although controversially, with a building occupying a terrace upon the slopes of the acropolis. Traces of the acropolis walls have been found, as well as those of the city below, where a rectangular structure with an interior colonnade of the fifth century BC (known as the Palati) and a theater (Roman in its present form) are to be seen.