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25-609: First settled in the Prehistoric period at the site now known as Magoula Balomenou (Μαγούλα Μπαλωμένου), its older name was Arne, and it was originally on the shore of Lake Copais (later drained). Chaeronea was subject to Orchomenus which was, beginning in 600 BC, a member of the Boeotian League . In the late 5th century BC, Chaironeia belonged to one of the 11 Boeotian districts along with Acraephnium and Copia . Chaeronea's importance lay in its strategic position near

50-429: A name first attested in 1381 and used until early modern times. The town came under Ottoman rule probably in 1460. The settlement is served by Chaeronea railway station , with local stopping services to Athens and Leianokladi . Lake Copais Lake Copais , also spelled Kopais or Kopaida ( Ancient Greek : Κωπαΐς ; Greek : Κωπαΐδα ), was a lake in the centre of Boeotia , Greece , west of Thebes . It

75-729: A three-aisled early Christian basilica, dedicated to Saint Paraskevi , survive. After the Fourth Crusade and the foundation of the Crusader Duchy of Athens , a castle was built in the town, on the site of the ancient acropolis. This was part of an extensive defensive network along the Cephissus valley built by the Frankish Crusaders, and residence of its lord. In Frankish times, the town became known as Kapraina ( Greek : Κάπραινα , Spanish : la Cabrena ),

100-651: A three-lake system in the lowlands of Boeotia. First it entered Lake Copais , which was never more than a wetland a few feet deep. Today it has been totally drained for agriculture, revealing katabothra, or caves in the karst topography leading down to Lake Yliki as well as Bronze-Age works to stem the flow. There was never enough cross-section to totally drain the marsh, and no surface channels between lakes. The underground paths to Lake Yliki are now open, causing its level to rise sufficiently to drown all traces of Bronze-age settlement in its valley. Lake Yliki connects by undergound channels to Lake Paralimni , which hangs over

125-594: Is of strategic importance, connecting northern Greece via the passes of Mount Oeta and Mount Kallidromo (including Thermopylae ) to southern Greece and the Gulf of Corinth . As a result, in the Frankish period a chain of forts and watchtowers was established along its course by the rulers of the Duchy of Athens . [REDACTED] Media related to Cephissus (Boeotia) at Wikimedia Commons This article related to

150-628: The Boeotian Cephissus to distinguish it from other rivers of the same name, or Kifisos ( Greek : Βοιωτικός Κηφισός ) is a river in central Greece . Its drainage basin is 1,958 km (756 sq mi). The river rises at Lilaia in Phocis , on the northwestern slope of Mount Parnassus . It flows east through the Boeotian plain, passing the towns Amfikleia , Kato Tithorea and Orchomenos . It drained into Lake Copais , which

175-643: The Sacred Band of Thebes was wiped out completely. In 1818, the so-called Lion of Chaeronea, a nearly 6 m (20 ft) tall funerary monument erected in honor of the Sacred Band, was rediscovered by English travellers. The fragmentary monument was reassembled and installed in 1902 by an organisation called the Order of Chaeronea atop a pedestal at the site of its discovery. The site of the Theban mass grave

200-631: The Amazon journey back home after the conclusion of the Attic War . In his Parallel Lives , he mentions the Greek prophet Peripoltas . Chaeronea remained inhabited throughout Antiquity, and despite being devastated during the 551 Malian Gulf earthquake , probably remained in existence during the following centuries as well, as it is consistently attested among the cities of the Theme of Hellas . Remains of

225-530: The Gulf of Euboea. It was never connected to the Gulf by surface channel, but some water is believed to have escaped via the katabothra . The artificial adjustment of the lake waters was an engineering problem of some magnitude in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the later 20th century the waters of the two remaining lakes were preempted by the Athens aqueduct. The city of Athens had grown to include one-third of

250-655: The Roman Times, two drainage attempts are documented. The first attempt is attributed to a local Epameinondas Epameinondou, and the second to the Emperor Hadrian . There was a legend that the lake came into being when the hero Heracles flooded the area by digging out a river, the Cephissus, which poured into the basin. Polyaenus explains that he did this because he was fighting the Minyans of Orchomenus: they were dangerous horseback fighters, and Heracles dug

275-506: The agency with full-time staff of 30 (including a driver for the president of the agency) still existed until 2010. Before this the lake drained into the sea by numerous subterranean channels. Some of these channels were artificial, as the 1st century geographer Strabo recorded. Modern excavation has found enormous channels dug in the 14th century BC which drained water into the sea to the northeast; Strabo mentions work being done on these channels by an engineer named Crates of Chalcis in

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300-405: The head of the defile which presents the last serious obstacle to an invader in central Greece, and it was the site of several historical battles . The best known is that of 338 BC , between Philip II of Macedon and a coalition of various Greek states, mainly Thebes and Athens. According to Plutarch (but disputed by modern historians), during the battle the elite unit of Theban soldiers known as

325-548: The lake in order to unhorse them. Another story has the lake overflow in the mythical time of Ogyges , resulting in the Ogygian deluge . The travel writer Pausanias and the 5th century BC comic playwright Aristophanes record that in antiquity Lake Copais was known for its fish, especially the eels. 38°27′N 23°03′E  /  38.45°N 23.05°E  / 38.45; 23.05 Cephissus (Boeotia) The Cephissus ( Ancient Greek : Κήφισσος ), called

350-436: The lake was halted until 1880, when a new contract was signed with another French company. Though massive drainage works took place between 1882 and 1886, the attempt was unsuccessful: The organic material accumulated on the lake bottom was set ablaze, which caused the lake bed recede by ca. 4 m (13 ft) lower than the drainage canal and by 1887 the lake was filled again. This time a British company, Lake Copais Co Ltd.,

375-510: The population of Greece. Waters were being tapped from rivers as far away as western Greece through deep tunnels, which take advantage of the difference in altitude. The mountains are primarily of limestone, which is soft enough to present easy tunneling, whether under the Pindus mountains, beneath the passes of the Alps , or through the ridges of Italy . In Greek mythology, the river god Cephissus

400-417: The sea. The Bronze Age draining attempts happened at least in two phases. First attempt was made by building low earth dams totalling in length to ca. 22 km (14 mi) to gain land from the lake. Excavated remains indicate that up to 400,000,000 m of stone and roughly 200,000,000 m of earth were moved to build the dams. However, after the dams failed another, apparently more successful, attempt

425-590: The sinkholes, leading water rivers Cephissus and Melas to a small torrent leading eventually to the Euboean Gulf may also be a Bronze Age work; however, currently there is no consensus about the matter and some researchers date the tunnel much later, perhaps during the Hellenistic period . The drainage system collapsed during the Late Helladic IIIB or Late Helladic IIIC at the latest. In

450-704: The time of Alexander the Great . Several attempts at partial or complete drainage of lake Copais were made in antiquity. First during the Bronze Age , and later during the Roman Times . During the Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans drained the late partially by diverting a portion of water volume feeding the late towards natural sinkholes situated near the eastern end of the lake and through them eventually to

475-418: Was (and is) surrounded by fertile land, but the lake increasingly encroached on the surrounding land because of inadequate drainage. First, though abotive, plans to drain the lake were made in 1834-1838. In 1865 a French company, Montferrier and Bonnair, signed a contract with the Greek government to drain the lake. But in 1873 after having drained the lake partially, the company went bankrupt and drainage of

500-627: Was associated with this river. Pausanias records a Theban tradition that the river Cephissus formerly flowed under a mountain and entered the sea until Heracles blocked the passage and diverted the water into the Orchomenian plain. Pausanias also says that the Lilaeans on certain days threw cakes and other customary items into the spring of the Cephissus and that they would reappear in the Castalian Spring . The Cephissus valley

525-430: Was contracted to continue the project, and the company successfully finished draining the lake by 1931 and recovering 241,000 km (93,000 sq mi) of land. The Greek government expropriated the recovered area in 1953, and redistributed it to landless farmers. The Kopais Lake Agency was created in 1957 to supervise the draining of the lake and building of a new road. The task was completed that same year, but

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550-496: Was excavated in 1879–80 by Panagiotis Stamatakis , and the prehistoric site of Magoula Balamenou 23 years later by the archaeologist George Soteriadis. The ancient biographer and essayist Plutarch was born in Chaeronea, and several times refers to these and other facts about his native place in his writings. Plutarch refers to many graves of Amazons near the by the stream of Haemon, and assumes that these were casualties during

575-485: Was first drained in the Bronze Age, and drained again in the late 19th century. It is now flat dry land and is still known as Kopaida. A one-time island in the lake was modified in ancient times into a megalithic citadel, now called Gla . When the lake existed, the towns of Haliartus , Orchomenus , and Chaeronea were on its shores. Rivers feeding the lake included the Cephissus , Termessus and Triton . The lake

600-405: Was made by constructing a ca. 25 km (16 mi) long canal conveying water from the lake basin towards natural sinkholes northeast of the lake. At this point the lake basin was divided into two, one north and another south of the levee, leading to partial reclamation of the southern part of the basin. An incomplete tunnel with planned length of 2.2 km (1.4 mi) at Kephalari, close to

625-469: Was therefore also called the Cephisian Lake, until 1887, when the lake was eliminated in favor of agricultural land. An artificial outflow has been created to Lake Yliki (ancient Hylice), further east. The Cephisus, a post-glacial river, never had sufficient flow deriving from drainage to establish a clear channel to the Gulf of Euboea . Its main flow was seasonal melt water, which collected in

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