Helike

Helike (/ˈhɛlɪkiː/; Greek: Ἑλίκη, pronounced [heˈlikɛː], modern Greek pronunciation: [eˈlici]) was an ancient Greek polis or city-state that was submerged by a tsunami in the winter of 373 BC.

It was located in the regional unit of Achaea, northern Peloponnesos, two kilometres (12 stadia) from the Corinthian Gulf and near the city of Boura, which, like Helike, was a member of the Achaean League. Modern research attributes the catastrophe to an earthquake and accompanying tsunami which destroyed and submerged the city.

The remains of Helike were rediscovered in 2001 buried in an ancient lagoon near the village of Rizomylos. In an effort to protect the site from destruction, the World Monuments Fund included Helike in its 2004 and 2006 List of 100 Most Endangered Sites.

Helike was founded in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000–2200 BC) as a proto-urban town with large rectilinear buildings and cobbled streets; walls and occupation layers rich in pottery of the Mycenaean period (c. 1750–1050 BC) were also found, becoming the principal city of Achaea. In the Iliad, the poet Homer states that the city of Helike participated in the Trojan War as a part of Agamemnon's forces. In the space of a possible little Poseidon temple, beginning around 850 BC, religious artifacts like bronze and clay items such as figurines, clay chariot wheels, iron weapons, and pottery dating to the Archaic period, a bronze snake head and rare golden necklace were found.

Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Helike led the Achaean League, an association that joined twelve neighboring cities in an area including today's town of Aigio. Helike, also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words dodeka meaning 'twelve' and polis meaning 'city'), became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage. Finds from ancient Helike are limited to two 5th-century copper coins, now housed in Bode Museum, Berlin. The obverse shows the head of Poseidon, the city's patron, and the reverse his trident. There was a temple dedicated to the Helikonian Poseidon. Ancient Greeks would travel to Helike to be blessed by Poseidon and to trade.

Helike founded colonies including Priene in Asia Minor and Sybaris in Southern Italy. Its panhellenic temple and sanctuary of Helikonian Poseidon were known throughout the classical world, and second only in religious importance to Delphi.

The ancient account puts Helike's destruction in 373 BC, two years before the Battle of Leuctra, during a winter night. Several events were construed in retrospect as having warned of the disaster: some "immense columns of flame" appeared, and five days previously, all animals and vermin fled the city, going toward Keryneia. The city and a space of 12 stadia below it sank into the earth and were covered over by the sea. All the inhabitants perished without a trace, and the city was obscured from view except for a few building fragments projecting from the sea. Ten Spartan ships anchored in the harbour were dragged down with it. An attempt involving 2,000 men to recover bodies was unsuccessful. Aigion took possession of its territory.

Strabo recounts how the city was submerged by a tsunami triggered by an earthquake, and argued that this was caused by "the anger of Poseidon", because the inhabitants of Helike had refused to give their statue of Poseidon to the Ionian colonists in Asia, or even to supply them with a model. According to some authorities, the inhabitants of Helike and Bura had even murdered the Ionian deputies. An account by Seneca claims the sea destroyed the city after an appearance of a comet.