The Panhellenion ( el, Πανελλήνιον) or Panhellenium was a league of Greek city-states established in the year 131–132 AD by the
Roman Emperor Hadrian
Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania ...
while he was touring the
Roman provinces of Greece.
Hadrian was
philhellene and idealized the
Classical past of Greece. The Panhellenion was part of this philhellenism, and was set up, with
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
at the centre, to try to recreate the apparent "unified Greece" of the 5th century BC, when the Greeks
took on the Persian enemy.
The Panhellenion was primarily a religious organization, and most of the deeds of the institution which we have relate to its own self-governing. Admission to the Panhellenion was subject to scrutiny of a city's Hellenic descent.
Fighting between the delegates, however, turned the Panhellenion into an institution like the
Delian League
The Delian League, founded in 478 BC, was an association of Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Pla ...
of the 5th century BC (which to some extent it was emulating) and the Panhellenion did not survive in any real sense after Hadrian's death.
In 137 AD, the
Panhellenic Games
Panhellenic Games is the collective term for four separate sports festivals held in ancient Greece. The four Games were:
Description
The Olympiad was one of the ways the Greeks measured time. The Olympic Games were used as a starting point, year ...
were held at Athens as part of the ideal of Panhellenism and harking back to the
Panathenaic Festival of the fifth century.
From inscriptions found, member cities included Athens,
Megara
Megara (; el, Μέγαρα, ) is a historic town and a municipality in West Attica, Greece. It lies in the northern section of the Isthmus of Corinth opposite the island of Salamis, which belonged to Megara in archaic times, before being taken ...
,
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta refer ...
,
Chalcis
Chalcis ( ; Ancient Greek & Katharevousa: , ) or Chalkida, also spelled Halkida ( Modern Greek: , ), is the chief town of the island of Euboea or Evia in Greece, situated on the Euripus Strait at its narrowest point. The name is preserved fr ...
,
Argos
Argos most often refers to:
* Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece
** Ancient Argos, the ancient city
* Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Argos or ARGOS may also refer to:
Businesses
* ...
,
Acraephiae,
Epidaurus
Epidaurus ( gr, Ἐπίδαυρος) was a small city (''polis'') in ancient Greece, on the Argolid Peninsula at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros: '' Palaia Epidavros'' and '' Nea Epidavros''. Since 2010 they belong to ...
,
Amphicleia,
Methana
Methana ( el, Μέθανα) is a town and a former municipality on the Peloponnese peninsula, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Troizinia-Methana, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit ha ...
,
Corinth
Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part ...
,
Hypata,
Demetrias
Demetrias ( grc, Δημητριάς) was a Greek city in Magnesia in ancient Thessaly (east central Greece), situated at the head of the Pagasaean Gulf, near the modern city of Volos.
History
It was founded in 294 BCE by Demetrius Poli ...
,
Thessalonica
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
,
Magnesia on the Maeander
Magnesia or Magnesia on the Maeander ( grc, Μαγνησία ἡ πρὸς Μαιάνδρῳ or ; la, Magnesia ad Maeandrum) was an ancient Greek city in Ionia, considerable in size, at an important location commercially and strategically in th ...
,
Eumeneia, as well the cities of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cypru ...
.
[Oliver, James Henry. ''Marcus Aurelius: Aspects of Civic and Cultural Policy in the East''. ASCSA, 1970, p. 130.]
The name was revived by the first governor of
modern Greece,
Ioannis Kapodistrias
Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias (10 or 11 February 1776 – 9 October 1831), sometimes anglicized as John Capodistrias ( el, Κόμης Ιωάννης Αντώνιος Καποδίστριας, Komis Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias; russian: � ...
, for a
short-lived advisory body in 1828.
References
Other sources
*
I. Romeo, “The Panhellenion and Ethnic Identity in Hadrianic Greece” ClPhil, vol. 97, 2002
*{{cite book, last=Boardman, first =John , author2=N.G.L. Hammond , author3=D.M. Lewis , author4=F. W. Walbank , author4-link=F. W. Walbank , author5=A.E. Astin , author6=J.A. Crook , author7=Andrew Lintott , author7-link=Andrew Lintott , author8=Elizabeth Rawson , author8-link=Elizabeth Rawson , author9=Alan K. Bowman , author10=Edward Champlin , author11=Averil Cameron , author12=Peter Garnsey , title = The Cambridge Ancient History, url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeancient05camb, url-access=registration, publisher= Cambridge University Press, year= 2005, isbn= 0-521-26335-2
Historical legislatures
Society of ancient Greece
131 establishments
130s establishments in the Roman Empire
Greece in the Roman era
Leagues in Greek Antiquity
Greco-Roman relations in classical antiquity
2nd century in Greece
Hadrian