Tegea Τεγέα |
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The temple of Athena Alea at Tegea
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Coordinates: 37°27.32′N 22°25.23′E / 37.45533°N 22.42050°ECoordinates: 37°27.32′N 22°25.23′E / 37.45533°N 22.42050°E | |
Country | Greece |
Administrative region | Peloponnese |
Regional unit | Arcadia |
Municipality | Tripoli |
• Municipal unit | 118.35 km2 (45.70 sq mi) |
Elevation | 650 m (2,130 ft) |
Population (2011) | |
• Municipal unit | 3,544 |
• Municipal unit density | 30/km2 (78/sq mi) |
Time zone | EET (UTC+2) |
• Summer (DST) | EEST (UTC+3) |
Postal code | 220 12 |
Area code(s) | 2710 |
Vehicle registration | TP |
Tegea (/ˈtiːdʒiə/; Greek: Τεγέα) was a settlement in ancient Arcadia, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Tripoli, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 118.350 km2. Its seat was the village Stadio.
The reputed prehistoric founder of Tegea was Tegeates, a son of Lycaon.
Ancient Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece, containing the Temple of Athena Alea. The temenos was founded by Aleus, Pausanias was informed. Votive bronzes at the site from the Geometric and Archaic periods take the forms of horses and deer; there are sealstones and fibulae. In the Archaic period the nine villages that underlie Tegea banded together in a synoecism to form one city. Tegea was listed in Homer's Catalogue of Ships as one of the cities that contributed ships and men for the Achaean assault on Troy.
Tegea struggled against Spartan hegemony in Arcadia and was forced into some form of collaboration by 530 BCE, during king Anaxandridas II’s reign, maybe as one of the earliest members of what would become the Sparta-centered Peloponnesian League. In the 4th century Tegea joined the Arcadian League and struggled to free itself from Sparta. The Temple of Athena Alea burned in 394 BC and was magnificently rebuilt, to designs by Scopas of Paros, with reliefs of the Calydonian boar hunt in the main pediment.