Hysiae

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography

HY´SIAE(Ὑσιαί, Ὑσία, Steph. B. s. v.).

1. ( (Eth. Ὑσιεύς), a town of Boeotia, in the Parasopia, at the northern foot of Mt. Cithaeron, and on the high road from Thebes to Athens. It was said to have been a colony from Hyria, and to have been founded by Nyeteus, father of Antiope. (Strab. 9. p. 404.) Herodotus says that both Hysiae and Oenoé were Attic demi when they were taken by the Boeotians in B.C. 507. (Hdt. 5.74.) It probably, however, belonged to Plataea. (Comp. Hdt. 6.108.) Oenoë was recovered by the Athenians; but, as Mt. Cithaeron was the natural boundary between Attica and Boeotia, Hysiae continued to be a Boeotian town. Hysiae is mentioned in the operations which preceded the battle of Plataea. (Hdt. 9.15, 25.) [PLATAEA] Hysiae was in ruins in the time of Pausanias, who noticed there an unfinished temple of Apollo and a sacred well. (Paus. 9.2.1.) Leake observed a little beyond the great road at the foot of the mountain, a great quantity of loose stones in the fields, together with some traces of ancient walls, and the mouth of a well or cistern, of Hellenic construction, now filled up.This we may conclude to be the site of Hysiae. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 2. p. 327.) Hysiae is mentioned also in the following passages: Eurip. Bacch. 751; Thuc. 3.24, 5.83. 2. ( Eth. Ὑσιάτης), a town in the Argeia, on the road from Argos to Tegea, and at the foot of Mt. Parthenium. (Paus. 2.24.7, 8.6.4, 54.7; Strab. 8. p. 376.) It appears to have been destroyed by the Argives, along with Tiryns, Mycenae, and the other towns in the Argeia, after the Persian wars (Paus. 8.27.1); but it was afterwards restored, and was occupied by the Argives in the Peloponnesian War as a frontier-fortress, till it was taken and destroyed a second time by the Lacedaemonians in B.C. 417. (Thuc. 5.83; Diod. 12.81.) The defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Argives, near Hysiae, of which Pausanias (Paus. 2.24.7) speaks, is placed in B.C. 669.
The ruins of Hysiae stand on an isolated hill above the plain of Achladókampos(Ἀχλαδόκαμπος, from ἀχράς, ἀχλάς, a wild pear-tree,and κάμπος, a plain). They consist of the remains of the acropolis, which escaped the notice of Leake. (Leake, Morea, vol. 2. p. 334; Boblaye, Recherches, &c. p. 48;. Ross, Reisen im Peloponnes, p. 147.)