The Fortress at Eleutherai - an unexpected find

On Monday the 22nd we needed to transition from Chalkida in East-Central Greece to Napflio on the Peloponnesus. This gave us a number of options for what to see as presented by our trusty "Mythological Atlas of Greece." No matter what, we'd be passing through what was in ancient times Boeotia, aka 'Central Greece, north of Athens.'  Thebes (more correctly, Θήβα,  or in Roman characters 'Thiva') is in this region; once again, we skipped it. The relevance of this, however, is that back in the day (aka, the late 5th and 4th centuries BC) this area was a hotbed of military activity because the main road between Athens and Thebes runs right through the area we'd be crossing.  Unsurprisingly, the atlas noted there were a number of 'fortresses' in the area - if you've got warring cities, you're going to get fortresses.

So, we decided to hit two of them.  One (Aigosthena) had opening hours (8:30-3:30) and Google maps showed there was a lot of stuff going on nearby, including a nice road up to the site.  The other was the fortress at Eleutherai.  It was clearly huge, albeit only partially surviving, and the official Greek Culture site noted it was 'always accessible to the public' and there was 'no entrance fee'.  Translation: "It's a bunch of rocks in an open field.  Good luck!"  

Still, it looked interesting, so we decided to give it a try.  Here's the Google Map of the site:

Note that Google marks a 'road' going from where we parked the car to where the main entrance to the fortress is marked. Here's what the starting point for our walk looked like.

Note in particular the many, many electrical transmission lines running overhead. Not sure why, but this seems to be a major highway for electricity, so much so that Lauren could hear them humming.  I was oblivious, however.

I have no idea what the minimum standards are for 'road' in Greece, but they don't include the ability to take vehicular traffic.  This next picture, for example, was taken about 100m further up the 'road' which was now about 5ft wide, covered with small stones, and with a 10 degree slope leading directly into a 100m gorge.  

Not a road.

Lauren will post about some of the animals we saw on the way, but I'll note that at no point in the journey could a car of any type survived.  The road also goes up about 75m over about 750m.  Indeed, when coming down I lost my footing at least once, and Lauren never would've made it except for the crucial assistance of 'stick', forever memorialized here:

Nonetheless, we made it up to the fortress to find that, indeed, it's in fantastic shape.  

Our first real view of the fortress.

This is original stonework from about 400 BC.

Some more photos to show how well this site is preserved, and how impressive it must have been when first built:

Lauren, planning a counter-attack

There's even a plaque!

What really made the site interesting was the post-visit analysis.  I was curious as to why someone would build a fortress here, and who built it. The on-site plaque noted that it was built in 370-360BC and was part of the Athenian defense system built at the time. The official Greek culture site gives a few more details:

The archaeological site of Eleutherai, on the old Athens-Thebes National Road, north of the Villia junction, encompasses part of the lowland and rocky hill, where the ancient fortress, known as Gyftokastro, stands. Eleutherai was allegedly the birthplace of Dionysus, who founded the homonymous city and was thus called Dionysus Eleuthereus. Originally a Boeotian city, Eleutherai went over to Athens in the sixth century BC. The cult statue of Dionysus Eleuthereus was reportedly moved from Eleutherai to Athens on Peisistratus' orders, leading to the establishment of the homonymous sanctuary on the south slope of the Acropolis. Strategically located on the borderline of the Athenian territory, with control over the narrow passage between Athens and Thebes and overlooking the plain of Oinoe, Eleutherai was part of the Athenian defence network in the fourth century BC. The archaeological site has been cleared of undergrowth.

Now, the idea that the Eleutherians gave up Thebes in favor of Athens seems to be on-spec.  However, recent research suggested that the fortress was actually built by the Thebans (or Boeotians more generally), again in the early parts of the 4th century BC.  Following this up, there was a huge amount of work done on this fortress published by Fachard et al (2020) that makes for fascinating reasoning.  They did a detailed search of the entire fortress area (a person every 10m!) and found, amongst other things, a Boeotian seal that would've been used by a civil servant to mark weights & measures back in the 4th century BC and argue that this strongly suggests the place was built by them, and not by the Athenians. They also point out some fascinating bits of information about how the masonry was done, and even note that the fortress was used by Greek guerrilla fighters during WWII.  All-in-all, a fascinating place.  But not the easiest to get to...