Information AboutSikyon |
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Sicyon was built on a low triangular Plateau about two miles from the Corinthian Gulf . Between the city and its port lay a fertile plain with Olive groves and orchards. After the Dorian Invasion the community was divided into the ordinary three Dorian tribes and an equally privileged tribe of Ionians, besides which a class of Serf s lived on and worked the land. For some centuries, Sicyon remained subject to Argos , where its Dorian conquerors had come from; as late as 500 BC it acknowledged a certain suzerainty. However, its virtual independence was established in the 7th Century BC , when a line of tyrants arose and initiated an anti-Dorian policy. Chief of these rulers was the founder's grandson Cleisthenes , the uncle of the Athenian legislator Cleisthenes . Besides reforming the city's constitution to the advantage of the Ionians and replacing Dorian cults with the worship of Dionysus , Cleisthenes gained renown as the chief instigator and general of the First Sacred War ( 590 BC ) in the interests of the Delphians. About this time, Sicyon developed the various industries for which it was noted in antiquity. As the abode of the sculptors Dipoenus and Scyllis it gained pre-eminence in woodcarving and bronze work such as is still to be seen in the archaic metal facings found at Olympia . Its pottery, which resembled Corinthian ware, was exported with the latter as far as Etruria . In Sicyon also the art of painting was supposed to have been invented. After the fall of the tyrants their institutions survived till the end of the 6th century BC, when Dorian supremacy was re-established, perhaps by the agency of Sparta , and the city was enrolled in the Peloponnesian League. Henceforth, its policy was usually determined either by Sparta or Corinth. In the and attracted the great masters Pamphilus and Apelles as students; its sculpture was raised to a level hardly surpassed in Greece by Lysippus and his pupils. The destruction of Corinth ( 146 ) brought Sicyon an acquisition of territory and the presidency over the Isthmian Games ; yet in Cicero 's time it had fallen deep into debt. Under the empire it was quite obscured by the restored cities of Corinth and Patrae ; in Pausanias ' age (A.D. 150) it was almost desolate. In Byzantine times it became a bishop's seat, and to judge by its later name Hellas it served as a refuge for the Greeks from the Slavonic immigrants of the 8th century. The village of Vasiliko which now occupies the site is quite insignificant. REFERENCE REFERENCES |
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