Triphylians ( or Τρίφυλοι) were an ancient

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

tribe. They were residents of the western

Peloponnese The Peloponnese ( ), Peloponnesus ( ; , ) or Morea (; ) is a peninsula and geographic region in Southern Greece, and the southernmost region of the Balkans. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridg ...

region, which in Homeric times was called Pylos and later

Triphylia Triphylia (, ''Trifylia'', "the country of the three tribes") was an area of the ancient Peloponnese. Strabo and Pausanias both describe Triphylia as part of Elis, and it fell at times under the domination of the city of Elis, but Pausanias ...

. The name Triphylia, literally emerged from the fact of the establishment of three different tribes in the area. The Homeric cities of

Pylos Pylos (, ; ), historically also known as Navarino, is a town and a former Communities and Municipalities of Greece, municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part of ...

, Kyparisieis and Dorion enjoyed great growth and prosperity. Triphylia and its residents had the benefit of independence and self-government until the

second Messenian war The Second Messenian War was a war which occurred ca. 660–650 BC between the Ancient Greek states of Messenia and Sparta, with localized resistance possibly lasting until the end of the century.L. G. Pechatnova, ''A History of Sparta (Archaic ...

, in 628 BC, when they fell into the authority of the

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

ns, who later handed Triphylia over to the Eleans. Triphylians remained enslaved under the sovereignty of Eleans throughout the

Peloponnesian war The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

, excluding a short period during which they managed to recover their autonomy. In 366 BC Triphylians fell again to the jurisdiction of Elis, until the establishment 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 ...

, when they gain their independence as part of the confederation’s members. In the years 220–217 BC, Trifylia was conquered by the king Philip V and came under the influence of Macedonia. In the early Roman times, a large part of Triphylia regained its autonomy.Lampsas Giannis, ''Dictionary of the Ancient World (Lexiko tou Archaiou Kosmou)'', Vol. IV, Athens, Domi Publications, 1984, p. 704.

References

{{reflist Triphylians