History of Patras

The city of Patras has an important history of four thousand years. Patras has been inhabited since the prehistoric age and constituted an important centre of the Mycenean era. In the antiquity it was a leading member of the Achaean League. Patras reached the peak of its power in the Roman era, when an imperial colony was founded there by Augustus. In the Byzantine period it remained a commercial city. The town experienced repeated conquests from Latins, Venice, Francs, Byzantines and Ottomans. Later on, it played a leading part in the Greek revolution of 1821, the first revolt of which in Greece, broke out in Patras. In 19th century Greece, it was the second city of the country, the indisputable centre of the Peloponnese, an important export harbour and a cradle of the emerging Greek middle class. In the 20th century the city developed as a commercial and industrial hub and in spite of its overshadowing by Athens, it is now the third city of Greece and the most significant economic pole of Peloponnese and West Greece.

The first traces of settlement in Patras date to the 3rd millennium BC, in modern Aroe. During the Middle Helladic period (the first half of the 2nd millennium BC) another settlement was founded in the region. Patras flourished for the first time during the Post-Helladic or Mycenean period (1580–1100 BC). Ancient Patras was formed by the unification of three Mycenaean villages located in modern Aroe, Antheia and Mesatis. The foundation of Patras goes back to prehistoric times, the legendary account being that Eumelus, having been taught by Triptolemus how to grow grain in the rich soil of the Glaucus valley, established three townships, Aroe (i.e. "ploughland"), Antheia ("the flowery"), and Mesatis ("the middle settlement") united by the common worship of Artemis Triclaria at her shrine on the river Meilichus.

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