Qualla: Troezen

Troezen: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robin Iversen Rönnlund, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 480 BCE, with the Persian fleet bearing down on Greece, the Athenian statesman Themistocles made a decision that has echoed through history: he ordered the evacuation of Athens. The men would fight at sea; the women, children, and elderly would go to Troezen, across the Saronic Gulf on the Peloponnese coast. The decree was found in 1959 — carved on a stele, discovered in a Troezen coffee house, later dated to about 200 years after the battle, almost certainly a commemorative copy of the original order. Whether the copy is authentic in its text or a Hellenistic reconstruction hardly matters for what it represents: Troezen was the place Athens trusted with its most vulnerable citizens at the most dangerous moment in its history. That is a particular kind of honour.

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Image: Robin Iversen Rönnlund | CC BY-SA 3.0

Troezen: Where Heroes Are Born

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pitichinaccio, CC BY 3.0. Greek mythology assigned Troezen an unusual distinction: it was the birthplace of Theseus. The story requires some divine arithmetic. Aethra, daughter of the local king Pittheus, slept with both the Athenian king Aegeus and the god Poseidon on the same night. The resulting child,...

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Image: Pitichinaccio | CC BY 3.0

Troezen: The Cult of Hippolytus

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Costas78, CC BY-SA 3.0. The mythological resonance of Hippolytus was not merely literary — it was liturgical. A genuine religious cult formed in Troezen around the figure, and Troezen girls traditionally cut a lock of their hair and dedicated it to Hippolytus before their marriage. This pre-nuptial offe...

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Image: Costas78 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Troezen: Athens's Harbour of Last Resort

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Napoleon Vier at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The relationship between Athens and Troezen runs through Greek history like a recurring theme. Before the Persian Wars, the two cities were connected through the mythology of Theseus; during the war itself, Troezen sheltered the Athenian non-combatants. After the Greco-Persian Wa...

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Image: Napoleon Vier at Dutch Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Troezen: Medieval and Modern Layers

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Schuppi, CC BY-SA 4.0. Troezen accumulated names over the centuries, the way layered cities do. In antiquity it was also called Apollonia; in the Middle Ages it was Damala (Δαμαλᾶ), seat of a barony under the Principality of Achaea after the Fourth Crusade in the thirteenth century. The Franks called i...

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Image: Schuppi | CC BY-SA 4.0