Description of the attraction
To the north-east of the administrative center of Boeotia, the city of Livadia, on the slopes of the mountains surrounding the Kopaid valley, lie the ruins of one of the most ancient and powerful cities of Boeotia - Orchomenos or Orchomenos of Minia. The name "Minyan", entrenched in the city because of the Minians inhabiting the region in the "pre-Greek" period, allows not to confuse the Boeotian Orchomenes with the city of Orchomenes in Arcadia.
It is believed that for a very long time the ancient Orchomenes was located in the Kopaid Valley on the shore of the lake of the same name (in the place where the Kefiss River flowed into the lake), but because of the swamps formed here, it was gradually transferred to the slopes of Mount Acontia. The lake was completely drained in the 20th century, although very successful attempts were made by the inhabitants of Orchomen in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, as evidenced by a system of underground tunnels discovered during excavations.
In the 14-13th centuries BC. Orchomenes was one of the most important centers of Mycenaean Greece and controlled much of western Boeotia, vying with Thebes for dominance in the region. Orhomen also took part in the legendary Trojan War.
Around 600 BC. Orchomenes joined the Boeotian Alliance, which was led by Thebes, and around 550 BC. Orchomenes was one of the first cities in Boeotia to mint its own coins. In the classical period, the cult of the harit flourished in Orchomenes.
In the 4th century BC. Orchomenos became an ally of Sparta against Thebes. After the defeat of the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra, the Thebans took revenge and destroyed the city. In 355 BC. Orchomenes was restored by the Phocians, but already in 349 BC. destroyed again by the Thebans. In 335 BC. the restoration of the city was taken up by the Macedonians, who by this time had gained control over Boeotia. In the 1st century BC, after the decisive battle of the First Mithridates War, which went down in history as the "Battle of Orchomenos", the once large prosperous city turned into a small settlement, and then was completely abandoned.
The ruins of ancient Orchomenos are rightfully considered one of the most important and most interesting archaeological sites in Greece. Even today you can see here the tomb of Miny, excavated at the end of the 19th century by the famous self-taught archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, the remains of a Neolithic settlement and a palace of the Mycenaean period, the ruins of ancient sanctuaries, an ancient theater that has been well preserved to this day, fragments of the fortress walls of the times of Alexander the Great and much more.
