Qualla: Pellene https://qualla.com/pellene en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:40:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Pellene https://qualla.com/pellene Pellene: Introduction https://qualla.com/pellene/ The Homeric Catalogue of Ships lists it. Thucydides mentions its colonists. Pausanias walks through its temples. For a city whose ruins lie southwest of the modern town of Xylokastro on the northern Peloponnese coast — largely unexcavated, more field than monument — Pellene has a remarkable paper trail through classical antiquity. It was the easternmost of the twelve Achaean cities, its territory pressing against Sicyon to the east, Aegeira to the west, and the sea some 60 stadia to the north. It sat on a strongly fortified hill whose summit rose into an inaccessible peak, splitting the city into two distinct halves. Its port was at Aristonautae. For roughly a thousand years, from the Mycenaean age through the Roman conquest, this hilltop commanded the eastern approaches to Achaea.

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/0/pellene-wp/swb0-pellene-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pellene: A City Old Enough for Homer https://qualla.com/pellene/ Pellene's ancient names tell its own creation story twice over: its inhabitants traced the name to the giant Pallas, while the Argives attributed it to Pellen, son of Phorbas of Argos. Neither tradition can be verified, but both place the city's origins in a mythological register...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/0/pellene-wp/swb0-pellene-a-city-old-enough-for-homer.mp3 0:06 2 full Pellene: The Lone Ally of Sparta https://qualla.com/pellene/ When the Peloponnesian War began in 431 BCE, Pellene stood alone among the Achaean cities in siding with Sparta. The other Achaean towns initially maintained neutrality; Pellene committed. Why Pellene chose differently from its neighbors is not explained in the sources — perhaps ...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/0/pellene-wp/swb0-pellene-the-lone-ally-of-sparta.mp3 0:06 3 full Pellene: The Athlete Who Became a Tyrant https://qualla.com/pellene/ In the time of Alexander the Great, Pellene fell under the control of one of its own citizens: a man named Chaeron, described in the sources as a distinguished athlete who had won at the Olympic Games — specifically as a wrestler, victorious sometime between 356 and 344 BCE. With...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/0/pellene-wp/swb0-pellene-the-athlete-who-became-a-tyrant.mp3 0:06 4 full Pellene: Temples, Festivals, and Famous Cloaks https://qualla.com/pellene/ Pausanias, traveling through the northern Peloponnese in the 2nd century CE, recorded what he found at Pellene: a temple of Athena with a statue attributed to Pheidias (one of the earlier works of that master sculptor, according to local tradition); a temple of Dionysus Lampter, ...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/0/pellene-wp/swb0-pellene-temples-festivals-and-famous-cloaks.mp3 0:06 5 full Pellene: What the Ruins Hold https://qualla.com/pellene/ The ruins of ancient Pellene lie southwest of modern Xylokastro, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, not far inland from the Gulf of Corinth. The site has not been extensively excavated; what remains visible is largely the elevated terrain of the ancient hilltop citadel, th...

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]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/b/0/pellene-wp/swb0-pellene-what-the-ruins-hold.mp3 0:06 6 full