Көне Сикион қаласы және тарихы

Ancient Greek city
the modern municipality
greek myth eponymous figure

Sicyon ('/s//ɪ//ʃ//i/,/ɒ//n//, /'/s//ɪ//s// /; Σικυών; gen.: Σικυῶνος) or Sikyōn was an ancient Greek city state situated in the northern Peloponnesus between Corinth and Achaea on the territory of the present day regional unit of Corinthia. The ruins lie just west of the modern village of Sikyona (previously Vasiliko). An ancient monarchy at the times of the Trojan War, the city was ruled by a number of tyrants during the Archaic and Classical period and became a democracy in the 3rd century BC. Sicyon was celebrated for its contributions to ancient Greek art, producing many famous painters and sculptors. In Hellenistic times it was also the home of Aratus of Sicyon, the leader of the Achaean League.

Sicyon was built on a low triangular plateau about 3 kilometres (two miles) from the Corinthian Gulf. Between the city and its port lay a fertile plain with olive groves and orchards. In Mycenean times, according to Eusebius, Sicyon had been ruled by a line of twenty six mythical kings and then seven priests of Apollo. The king list given by Pausanias comprises twenty four kings, beginning with the autochthonous Aegialeus. The penultimate king of the list, Agamemnon, compels the submission of Sicyon to Mycenae; after him comes the Dorian usurper Phalces. Pausanias shares his source with Castor of Rhodes, who used the king list in compiling tables of history; the common source was convincingly identified by Felix Jacoby as a lost Sicyonica by the late 4th century poet Menaechmus of Sicyon. After the Dorian invasion the city remained subject to Argos, whence its Dorian conquerors had come. The community was now divided into the ordinary three Dorian tribes and an equally privileged tribe of Ionians, besides which a class of serfs (κορυνηφόροι, or κατωνακοφόροι, ) lived on and worked the land. Besides reforming the city's constitution to the advantage of the Ionians and replacing Dorian cults with the worship of Dionysus, Cleisthenes gained a reputation as the chief instigator and general of the First Sacred War (590 BC) in the interests of the Delphians. By 1369, many villages in the vicinity of Vasilika were abandoned due to the raids of Turkish pirates. Together with Corinth, Vasilika was acquired by the Florentine in Angevin service Niccolò Acciaioli, from whom it passed to Donato Acciaioli in 1362. Donato's son Angelo Acciaioli mortgaged Corinth and Vasilika to his cousin Nerio I Acciaioli, the future duke of Athens, by 1372. When Nerio died in 1394, Corinth and Vasilika were inherited by his daughter, Francesca Acciaioli, who had recently married Carlo I Tocco, the count palatine of Cephalonia and Zante. These provisions were contested by Nerio's other daughter, Bartolomea Acciaioli, and her husband, Despot Theodore I Palaiologos of the Morea. Following the ensuing conflict, Francesca and Carlo were only able to retain Vasilika and Megara, while Corinth passed to the Despot Theodore. Finally, Despot Theodore II Palaiologos of the Morea seized Vasilika in 1427, alongside other gains from the Principality of Achaia. The Ottoman Turks invaded and subjugated Corinth and Vasilika, alongside other northern Moreot towns and fortresses, in 1458, two years before completing the conquest of the Morea in 1460–1461. A village named until 1920 Vasiliko (described by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as "insignificant") lies next to the site of ancient and medieval Sikyon. It is now named Sikyona, reflecting the name of the ancient city.

Sicyon has been traditionally identified with the mythical Mecone or Mekone, site of the trick at Mecone carried out by Prometheus. Mecone is also described by Callimachus as "the seat of the gods", and as the place where the brother deities Zeus, Poseidon and Hades cast lots for what part of the world each would rule.