Troezen
Troezen (Greek: Τροιζήν), modern: Troizina, Troezena or Trizina is a city in the Peloponnese, on the NE part of Argolis located southwest of Athens and a few miles south of Methana. Despite its position, administratively it belongs to the prefecture of Attica.
According to Greek mythology, Aegeus, king of Athens visited Troezen on his way back from a visit to the Delphic oracle. Pittheus, king of Troezen made Aegeus drunk, and partnered him with his daughter Aethra. Legend has it that Aethra slept with Poseidon the same night, and she fell pregnant with the great Greek hero Theseus. Before returning to Athens, Aegeus left his sandals and sword under a large boulder, and requested that when the child was able to prove himself by moving the boulder he must return the items to his father in Athens.
When Theseus came of age his mother took him to a forest clearing outside the city walls and challenged him to lift the boulder. Beneath it he found his father's arms, and began his heroic adventures by taking the dangerous overland route to Athens.
Troezen is also the setting of the Euripides tragedy Hippolytus, which recounts the story of the eponymous son of Theseus who becomes the subject of the love of his stepmother, Phaedra. When Hippolytus discovers his stemother's feelings for him he is appalled. Phaedra subsequently kills herself in shame, but not before writing a suicide note accusing Hippolytus of raping her. When Theseus finds the note, he banishes Hippolytus, invoking a curse from Poseidon upon him. While fleeing the city, Hippolytus is killed when his chariot is attacked by a bull rising from the sea. Other plays on the same subject have been written by Seneca and Jean Racine.
A cult built up in in the ancient city around the legend of Hippolytus. Troezen girls traditionally dedicated a lock of their hair to him before marriage.
Before the Battle of Salamis, Athenian women and children were sent to Troezen for safety on the instructions of the Athenian statesman Themistocles. In 1959 a stele was found in a coffee house in Troezen, depicting the Decree of Themistocles, the order to evacuate Athens. The stele has since been dated to some 200 years after the Battle of Salamis, indicating that it is probably a commemorative copy of the original order.
The temple of Isis was built by the Halicarnassians in Troezen, because this was their mother-city, but the image of Isis was dedicated by the people of Troezen. The ancient city also possessed a spring, which formed at where the winged horse Pegasus once came to ground.
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