Amykles

Amykles (Greek: Αμύκλες) is a village in Laconia, southern Greece. It lies in the plain by the Eurotas river, 6 km south of Sparta, east of the Taygetus mountains, along the Greek National Road 39 from Sparta to Gytheio. It was named after the ancient town Amyclae, the ruins of which are situated 2 km northeast of the village.

Population

Ancient Amyclae

According to some sources, the ancient town Amyclae (Ancient Greek: Ἀμύκλαι - Amyklai) was founded by Amyclas of Sparta, the son of Lacedaemon. In the second century AD, the traveller Pausanias was informed that the archaic site of Amyklai had its ancient origin as an Achaean stronghold that predated the "Dorian invasion", and modern archaeology has supported that view. The Bronze Age settlement lay on the slopes above the modern village of Amykles. It was conquered by the Spartans as the fifth of the surrounding settlements whose subjection initiated the history of Sparta, in the eighth century BC; the inhabitants of Amyklai took their places among the perioikoi, members of autonomous groups of free but non-citizen inhabitants of Sparta.

Diocese of Amyclae

The Diocese or Bishopric of Amyclae is a defunct Latin and Orthodox episcopal see and suppressed Latin Catholic titular bishopric in the Peloponnese, in pensinsular Greece.

History

The see of Amyclae dates to 1082, when the Bishopric of Lacedaemon was raised to the rank of a Metropolitan see, and authorized to form three suffragan sees at Amyclae, Pissa (probably encompassing Kynouria) and Ezeroi. Despite its name, the new bishopric was not located at ancient Amyclae, a town near Sparta, but rather on the site of ancient Tegea in Arcadia, which through some unclear process had received the name of Amyklion (later usually shortened to Amykli and Nikli) by the 10th century. The bishopric of Amyclae was thus regarded as the successor of the long-defunct see of Tegea, attested as late as the Fourth Ecumenical Council in 451, but later abandoned, like much of Arcadia, as a result of the Slavic incursions of the late 6th century. The only known bishop of the see's early period is Nicholas Mouzalon in the second half of the 12th century.