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TANAGRA

 

Tanagra sometimes written Tanagraea, was a town of ancient Boeotia, situated upon the left bank of the Asopus, in a fertile plain, at the distance of 130 stadia from Oropus and 200 from Plataeae. Several ancient writers identified Tanagra with the Homeric Graea; but others supposed them to be distinct places, and Aristotle regarded Oropus as the ancient Graea. Pausanias mentions in Tanagra's location the ancient city of Graea, eponymous of the Graikoi, a Boeotian tribe whose name gave rise to the Latin Graecus "Greek". Homer, while reciting the Boeotian forces in the Iliad 's Catalogue of Ships, provides the first known reference to the Boeotian city of Graea. Tanagra was also called Poemandria or Poimandria, and its territory Poemandris, from the fertile meadows which surrounded the city, or after its founder Poimandros, who took part in the Trojan campaign. The most ancient inhabitants of Tanagra are said to have been the Gephyraei, who came from Phoenicia with Cadmus, and from thence emigrated to Athens.
From its vicinity to Attica the territory of Tanagra was the scene of more than one battle. In 457 the Lacedaemonians on their return from an expedition to Doris, took up a position at Tanagra, near the borders of Attica, with the view of assisting the oligarchical party at Athens to overthrow the democracy. The Athenians, with a thousand Argeians and some Thessalian horse, crossed Mount Parnes and advanced, against the Lacedaemonians. In the First Battle of Tanagra, both sides fought with great bravery; but the Lacedaemonians gained the victory, chiefly through the treacherous desertion of the Thessalians in the very heat of the engagement. At the beginning of the following year(456 BC), and only sixty-two days after their defeat at Tanagra, the Athenians under Myronides again invaded Boeotia, and gained at Oenophyta, in the territory of Tanagra, a brilliant and decisive victory over the Boeotian League, which made them masters of the whole country. The walls of Tanagra were then razed to the ground. The Second Battle of Tanagra was fought in 426. The Athenians made an incursion into the territory of Tanagra, and on their return defeated the Tanagraeans and Boeotians.

 
   
     

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