The Temple of Demeter Amphictyonis was an extra-urban sanctuary in ancient
Anthele
Anthela or Anthele ( grc, Ἀνθήλη) was a town and polis (city-state) of Malis in Ancient Thessaly. Herodotus places the town between the small river Phoenix and Thermopylae which was a celebrated pass between Thessaly and Phocis. He also me ...
in
Thermopylae
Thermopylae (; Ancient Greek and Katharevousa: (''Thermopylai'') , Demotic Greek (Greek): , (''Thermopyles'') ; "hot gates") is a place in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from its hot sulphur ...
, dedicated to
Demeter. It was an important
Panhellenic shrine of Demeter and one of her main cult centers in Greece. It was also known as a center of the
Amphictyonic League
In Archaic Greece, an amphictyony ( grc-gre, ἀμφικτυονία, a "league of neighbors"), or amphictyonic league, was an ancient religious association of tribes formed before the rise of the Greek '' poleis''.
The six Dorian cities of coast ...
.
The sanctuary is mentioned by
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
in the 5th century BC:
:Between the river
Asopos_River.html" ;"title="Asopos_(Thessaly).html" ;"title="hoinix, a tributary of the Asopos (Thessaly)">Asopos River">Asopos_(Thessaly).html" ;"title="hoinix, a tributary of the Asopos (Thessaly)">Asopos Riverand Thermopylai there is a village named Anthele, past which the Asopos flows out into the sea, and there is a wide space around it in which stand a temple of Demeter Amphiktyonis, seats for the Amphiktyones, and a temple of Amphiktyon himself.
Excavations has dated the structures to the 5th-century BC. The archeological remains include a trapezoidal ''peribolos'', identified as a large stoa and stadium, which measures north side 66.30m, south side 65.30m, east side 6.20m, west side 7.65m. The Sanctuary of Demeter Amphyctionis was known in antiquity as the place where the Pylaian or Delphic Amphictyonic council met each autumn.
Demeter Amphictyonis is depicted on a coin minted by
Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon ( grc-gre, Φίλιππος ; 382 – 21 October 336 BC) was the king ('' basileus'') of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty, founders of the ...
, who
took over control of the Amphictyonic League in 339 BC. The coin from 335 BC portrayed the profile of Demeter wearing a veil and a wreath of grain on the obverse, and seated Apollo on the reverse, inscribed not by the Delphian name but with 'AMΦΙΚΤΥΩΝΩΝ' ("Of the Amphictyons").
The sanctuary still existed in the age of
Strabo, who described it:
:There is also a large harbor here
t Thermopylai and a temple of Demeter, in which at the time of every Pylaian assembly the Amphiktyons performed sacrificial rites.
..The first cities which came together
o form the Amphictyonic League to care for the shared shrines of Ancient Greeceare said to have been twelve, and each sent a Pylagoras, the assembly convening twice a year, in spring and in late autumn; but later still more cities were added. They called the assembly Pylaia, both that of spring and that of late autumn, since they convened at Pylai, which is also called Thermopylai; and the Pylagorai sacrificed to Demeter.
[Strabo, Geography 9. 3. 7]
If still in use by the 4th century AD, the temple would have been closed during the
persecution of pagans under the Christian Emperors, when edicts where issued prohibiting all non-Christian worship. Excavations has been made of the archeological remains.
See also
*
List of Ancient Greek temples
This list of ancient Greek temples covers temples built by the Hellenic people from the 6th century BC until the 2nd century AD on mainland Greece and in Hellenic towns in the Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy ("Magna Graecia"), wher ...
*
Architecture of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek architecture came from the Greek-speaking people (''Hellenic'' people) whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Anatolia and Italy for a period from about 900 BC unti ...
References
Sources
* Leekley, D. and N. Efstratiou, 1980. Archaeolog: ical Excavatigns in Central And Northern Greece 127. Park Ridge (New Jersey): Noyes Press.
* Susan-Marie Cronkite,
The Sanctuary of Demeter at Mytilene: A Diachronic and Contextual Study. Volume Two Catalogue', 1997, Institute of Archaeology, University College London
{{coord missing, Greece
Temples of Demeter
5th-century BC religious buildings and structures
History of Phthiotis
Destroyed temples