KALAURIA
(Poros)
Island in the Saronic
Gulf to the NE of Troizen. It was known as
Καλαυρία
(
Strab. 8.6.14) and
Καλαύρεια (Apoll. Rhod. III 1243) in
antiquity. Chanddler (
Voy. As. Mm. Grèce I 228) identified Poros as Kalauria. The ancient city was located at
the highest part of Poros. At first it was independent,
with a high magistrate called
ταμίας but later came
under the dominion of Troizen. The area was inhabited
from the Early Helladic period. The city preserves
sections of the Hellenistic walls, a contemporary
stoa and an unidentified heröon that lie at the agora.
The harbor of the city was named Pogon. A street
led from it to the Temple of Poseidon through a
propylon. The cult on the area dates to the beginning of
the 8th c. B.C. The temple, enclosed in a peribolos, is a
Doric peripteros (6 x 12 columns) and dates to ca. 520
B.C. Between the temple and the propylon there were
three stoas dating in the 4th c. B.C. and a fourth dating
ca. 420 B.C. Another long stoa and a rectangular building
lie SW of the hieron. The latter has been associated with
the convention of the maritime amphictyony of Kalauria
(
Strab. 8.6.14). The tomb of Demosthenes, who poisoned
himself at the sanctuary in 332 B.C., was still preserved
in the time of Pausanias (
2.33.3).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
S. Wide & L. Kielberg,
AM 20 (1895)
267-326; G. Welter,
Troizen and Kalaureia (1941)
MP;
Ch. Callmer,
Opus. Athen. I (1953) 208-23; B. Stucchi,
EAA IV (1961) 295-96, s.v. Kalauria; E. Kirsten & W.
Kraiker,
Griechenlandkunde (1967) I 307-8; II 879 (bibliography).
D. SCHILARDI