Erineos () is a former

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Achaea Achaea () or Achaia (), sometimes transliterated from Greek language, Greek as Akhaia (, ''Akhaḯa'', ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Western Greece and is situated in the northwest ...

West Greece Western Greece Region (, ) is one of the thirteen Modern regions of Greece, administrative regions of Greece. It comprises the western part of Central Greece (geographic region), continental Greece and the northwestern part of the Peloponnese pen ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality

Aigialeia Aigialeia (, ) is a municipality and a former Provinces of Greece, province (επαρχία) in the eastern part of the Achaea regional unit, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Aigio. The municipality has an area of 723.063 km2. ...

, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 98.710 km². Its seat of administration was in the village of Lampiri. Erineos stretches between the northeastern slopes of the

Panachaiko The Panachaiko (, "Panachaean"), also known as Vodias (Βοδιάς) mainly at the Middle Ages, is a mountain range in Achaea, Peloponnese, Greece. It spans about 20 km in length from north to south, and 15–20 km from east to west. I ...

mountain and the

Gulf of Corinth The Gulf of Corinth or the Corinthian Gulf (, ) is a deep inlet of the Ionian Sea, separating the Peloponnese from western mainland Greece. It is bounded in the east by the Isthmus of Corinth which includes the shipping-designed Corinth Canal and ...

. The river Foinikas (Phoenix) (or Salmenikos) flows through the municipality. The Greek National Road 8A (

Patras Patras (; ; Katharevousa and ; ) is Greece's List of cities in Greece, third-largest city and the regional capital and largest city of Western Greece, in the northern Peloponnese, west of Athens. The city is built at the foot of Mount Panachaiko ...

Aigio Aigio, also written as ''Aeghion, Aegion, Aegio, Egio'' (, ; ), is a town and a former Communities and Municipalities of Greece, municipality in Achaea, West Greece, on the Peloponnese. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the mun ...

Corinth Corinth ( ; , ) is a municipality in Corinthia in Greece. The successor to the ancient Corinth, ancient city of Corinth, it is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Sin ...

) and the railway from Patras to Corinth run through the municipal unit. It is located about 10 km west of Aigio.

Subdivisions

The municipal unit Erineos is subdivided into the following communities (constituent villages in brackets): * Arravonitsa (Arravonitsa, Synania) * Damakini (Damakini, Vounopyrgos) * Kamares (Kamares, Bouka, Pefka) * Neos Erineos * Salmeniko (Ano Salmeniko, Kato Salmeniko, Voteni, Neo Salmeniko) * Ziria (Ziria, Ano Ziria, Kyani Akti, Lampiri, Rodini, Sarkounas)

Historical population

History

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

, the area around Ziria was part of the

Achaean League The Achaean League () was a Hellenistic period, Hellenistic-era confederation of polis, Greek city-states on the northern and central Peloponnese. The league was named after the region of Achaea (ancient region), Achaea in the northwestern Pelopon ...

. Today's Lampiri was the port of the ancient town of Erineus, which was destroyed in 412 BC by Athenian and Corinthian generals. The English antiquarian and topographer

William Martin Leake William Martin Leake FRS (14 January 17776 January 1860) was an English soldier, spy, topographer, diplomat, antiquarian, writer, and Fellow of the Royal Society. He served in the British Army, spending much of his career in the Mediterrane ...

travelled in the area in the first half of the 19th century. In his book "Peloponnesiaca: A Supplement to Travels in the Moréa" he mentions the village as the "vineyards of Lambíri" and the bay of Lambiri as "the only semblance of a harbor between

and Psathopyrgos." The famous French historian, explorer, and diplomat

François Pouqueville François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (; 4 November 1770 – 20 December 1838) was a French diplomat, writer, explorer, physician and historian, and member of the Institut de France. He traveled extensively throughout Ottoman-occupied G ...

, who travelled through the area in 1816, mentions the "Port Erineus or "Lambir ta Ambélia" (ampelia means vineyards in Greek), and he also mentions the existence of a khan for travellers there. The ancient city of Rhypes was one of the cities of the

. It was razed by Emperor

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

. Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'', 7. 6. 1 and 7. 18. 7. In Kamares artefacts dating back to the

Roman times In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingd ...

have been found. The Salmeniko Castle was an important stronghold of the Byzantines against the Ottomans. The municipality Erineos was founded in 1994 and included the former communes of Kamares, Neos Erineos and Ziria. In 1998 under the Capodistrian Constitution Arravonitsa, Damakini and Salmeniko were added.

References

External links

Official website
{{Erineos Populated places in Achaea Aigialeia