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Orchomenos (Greek: Ορχομενός), the setting for many early Greek Myths, is a rich archaeological site in Boeotia, (modern Viotia, Greece) that was inhabited from the Neolithic through the Hellenistic periods. Population 10,732 (2001). In the Neolithic period the houses were circular huts 2 to 6 meters in diameter, while in the Early Bronze Age, (2800-1900 B.C.) they were apsidal. In the Bronze Age Orchomenos became in the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries a rich and important centre of civilisation in Mycenaean Greece, the rival to Thebes, which claimed Heracles for its champion. According to its founding myth, its royal dynasty had been established by Minyas, whose followers, the Minyans had come from coastal Thessaly to settle the site. The palace, which had frescoed walls, and the great tholos tombs show the power of Orchomenos in Mycenaean times. A massive hydraulic undertaking drained the marshes of Lake Kopaïs. Like many sites around the Aegean, Orchomenos was burned and its palace destroyed, ca 1200 BCE. Orchomenos is mentioned among the Achaean cities sending ships to engage in the Trojan War in Homer's "Catalogue of Ships" in The Iliad: together with Aspledon they contributed thirty ships and their complement of men. Orchomenos seems to have been one of the city-states that joined the maritime Amphictyony in the seventhth century. "At the same time took place the numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia, particularly at Orchomenus in the last-named country" Thucydides , History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 3 87,4). In historical times, Orchomenos joined the Boeotian League (600 BC). Orchomenos struck its coinage from the mid-sixth century. The broad plain between Orchomenos and the acropolis of Chaeronea witnessed two battles of major importance in Classical antiquity,; eventually Orchomenos was destroyed in 349 BC. Classical Orchomenos was known for its temple of the Charites, which probably underlies the church of Panaghia Skripou. Here the Charites had their earliest veneration, in legend instituted by Eteocles; musical and poetical agonistic games, the Charitesia, were held in their honour. The Agrionia, a festival of Dionysus, involved the ritual pursuit of women by a man representing the God. Though in 480-479 BC, the Orchomenians, joined their neighboring rivals the Thebans, to turn back the invading forces of Xerxes in the Greco-Persian Wars. In mid-century, Orchomenos sheltered the oligarchic exiles who freed Boeotia from Athenian control. In the fourth century the traditional rivalry with Thebes made Orchomenos an ally of Agesilaus II and Sparta against Thebes, in 395 and again in 394 BC. The Theban revenge after their defeat of Sparta in the battle of Leuctra(371) was delayed by the tolerant policies of Epaminondas: the Thebans' Boeotian Confederacy sacked Orchomenos in 364. Although the Phocians rebuilt the city in 355, the Thebans destroyed it again in 349. In 338 BC, after a whirlwind march south into central Greece, Philip II of Macedon defeated Thebes and Athens on the plain of Chaironeia, establishing Macedonian supremacy over the city-states, and demonstrated the young Alexander's prowess. During Alexander the Great's campaign against Thebes (335), Orchomenos took the side of the Macedonian. In recompense, Philip and Alexander rebuilt Orchomenos, when the theatre and the fortification walls, visible today, were constructed. The Battle of Orchomenus was fought in 85 BC between Rome and the forces of Mithridates VI of Pontus. Subsequently Orchomenos has remained little more than a village. Orchomenus is in Greek Mythology the place where the infant Dionysus find protection (wearing women clothes) from Hera raised by Ino and the King of Orchomenus Athamas. It was also close to the place where Actaeon was killed by Artemis Archaeology In 1880-1886 Heinrich Schliemann's excavations (H. Schliemann, Orchomenos, Leipzig 1881) revealed the tholos tomb he called the "Tomb of Minyas", a Mycenaean monument that equalled the "Tomb of Atreus" at Mycenae itself. In 1893 A. de Ridder excavated the temple of Asklepios and some burials in the Roman necropolis. In 1903-1905 a Bavarian archaeological mission under H. Bulle and Adolf Furtwaengler conducted excavations with important results for the history of the site. Research continued in 1970-1973 by the Archaeological Service, under the Ephor Th. Spyropoulos, and brought to light among others the Mycenaean palace, a prehistoric cemetery and the ancient Orchomenos (Treasury of Minyas) Quick Time Virtual Reality Municipality of Orchomenos, population 10732 in 2001
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