Orchomenos
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an ancient city of Minyæ; situated at the N. W. corner of Lake Copias, where it is joined by the Cephissus, and extended from the marshy edges of the lake up the face of a steep known as orchil or archil, are prepared rock hill, on which stood the acropolis. It sent 30 ships to the Trojan war, and at a later date became a member of the ORCHESTRA, or ORCHESTER, in Bœotian confederacy. Its government Ewing Galloway AN OIL WELL SOUTH OF TAMPICO, MEXICO Enc. Vol. 7-p. 36 Photo, Ewing Gailoway E. M. Newman OLIVE TREES ON A SLOPE NEAR GRANADA, SPAIN دا Publishers' Photo Service A VIEW OF THE HARBOR OF OPORTO, PORTUGAL International Film Service RUINS OF OSTIA, THE ANCIENT PORT OF ROME. THE LOCATION WAS THEN AT THE MOUTH OF THE TIBER Underwood & Underwood A GRAVITY-TEST SORTING MACHINE FOR SORTING ORANGES BY WEIGHT. A MECHANICAL DEVICE CARRIES THEM OUT BY Keystone View Co. OSTRICH AND YOUNG ON AN OSTRICH FARM IN MARARIYEH, EGYPT Keystone View Company AN AVIATOR'S VIEW OF THE CITY AND UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, ENGLAND was thoroughly aristocratic, and after the Peloponnesian war the jealous democratic Thebans destroyed it by fire, and sold its inhabitants as slaves. It was rebuilt in the reign of Philip of Mace- 3 2 4 ORCHIDS 1. Calyso Borealis. 3. Ladies' Dresses. 4. Snake Mouth. 2. Moccasin Flower. don, but never recovered its position. It was famous for its musical festival in honor of the Graces, who were specially worshiped in the city.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's placed the city in 1921 "at the N. W. corner of Lake Copias" — but that lake no longer exists: the Copais basin was drained by engineering works begun in the 1880s and finished in the interwar period, and the Kopaida is now one of Greece's most productive farming plains. Excavation has also pushed the site's story far behind the Trojan War: Schliemann dug the great tholos "Treasury of Minyas" in the 1880s, and German work under Heinrich Bulle in 1903-05 exposed prehistoric levels whose grey pottery gave archaeology the term "Minyan ware," while later digging revealed a Mycenaean palace with painted plaster. Investigators have since traced the enormous Bronze Age dikes and channels that once controlled the lake, showing that its drainage had been attempted some three thousand years before the modern companies tried. The historical outline Collier's gives — 30 ships to Troy, an aristocratic government, destruction by the Thebans (in 364 B.C.) and refoundation in Philip of Macedon's reign — still stands; the modern town on the spot again bears the name Orchomenos.
Written for this edition, 2026.