Livadeia

Livadeia or Levadia (formerly) is a city in Central Greece and the capital of the Prefecture of Viotia. Administratively, according to the Kallikratis Program, it belongs to the Region of Central Greece, in particular to the Regional Unit of Viotia and is the seat of the Municipality of Levadea. It is also the seat of the Holy Metropolis of Thebes and Levadia.

 

Sights

The site of Krya with trees and water, which is crossed by the river Erkyna. Krya is full of numerous small waterfalls, dense vegetation, stone bridges and generally wonderful natural beauty.
The stone theater of Krya.
the ancient springs of Lithe and Memory, in the river Erkyna, from which the city is still watered today.
The ruins of the oracle of Trophonio.
The Byzantine castle, which was extended by the Franks and the Catalans.
The small church of Prophet Elias, which is built near the ruins of the temple of Dios Vasileos.
The chapel of Agia Jerusalem in the cave of Zoodochos Pigi, next to the chapel of Ai-Mina.
The Lykouresi monastery, whose roof (made of lead) was used during the Turkish occupation for the manufacture of cartridges.
The Clock Tower, which was built during the Frankish period and served as a torch. There is a historically incorrect legend that says that in 1803, Lord Elgin gifted the town with a clock, so that the local hoarders and agades would not prevent him from excavating the Trophonian Oracle. The clock was placed on the Tower due to its prominent position and is one of the characteristic points in Livadia.

 

The myth of Hercyna

According to the legend, Hercyna was a nymph, daughter of Trophonius. One day she was playing with her best friend Persephone, daughter of the goddess Demeter, and she was holding a goose that her father had given her. The two friends started walking through the beautiful grove where the area of Krya and the river are today. Persephone suggested that they play hide and seek near a cave at the edge of a huge rock. As they approached the cave the goose began to get nervous and tried to escape from Hercyna's arms. The goose flew away and disappeared into the cave, and Hercyna ran after it to find it. He found her hiding behind a large stone. A bright flash was coming from a spot and when the stone was moved, a loud rumbling was heard from the depths of the earth and water started gushing out from everywhere. To Persephone's surprise, she saw Hercyna and the goose become a rushing river that immediately began to pour into the beautiful grove. In honor of the beautiful daughter, the river was named Hercyna, since she discovered it.

 

Geography

The city is located at an altitude of 160 meters, in the northwestern part of the prefecture, 130 kilometers northwest of Athens and approximately 30 kilometers from the nearest coast of the prefecture (Distomou Beach, where the settlement of Aspra Spitia (Distomou Beach) is located, which forms its port).

In terms of the natural landscape, the location of the city is at the western end of the Kopaida plain, despite the dried-up lake of the same name, and at the foot of Mount Helicona, which rises to the south of the city, while Parnassos is formed much further northwest. Extremely important in the creation and development of the city is the small river of Erkyna, which runs through the city in a south-to-north axis, to join the Makrissos river and later with the Boeotian Kifissos.

The four main squares of the city of Livadeia are the following: Lamprou Katsoni (or Zappeio), Ethnikis Antistaseos (the Central Square), Tabakhnas Square, Agios Meletios Square in the refugee settlement as well as Odysseas Androutsou Square.

Among the main buildings of the city are the Aniaton Asylum, the building of the National Bank of Greece and the four main churches: the Virgin Mary, Agios Nikolaos, Agios Georgios and Evangelistria.

The population of Livadia is 21,379 according to the 2011 census.

 

History

Homer does not mention it with its current name, but many historians, including Pausanias, believe that it existed during Homer's time, where they identify it with Midea, which was most likely its Homeric name. With this name it is mentioned by Homer among the Boeotian cities that participated in the Trojan War under them: Peneleon, Leiton, Arkesilaon, Prothoenora and Klonion. Later it is said to have been renamed Levadeia by Athenaeus Levados, who resettled the inhabitants to the foothills of an adjacent hill.

During historical times, Livadia was famous for the ancient Oracle of Trophonius, which had been visited and consulted by Croesus, Mardonius, Aemilius Pavlos and others. It took part in the community of the Boeotians, having a common currency and followed the fate of the other Boeotian cities. In 395 BC it was plundered by Lysander, shortly before the Battle of Aliartos and in 86 BC. where the capture and looting of the temple of Trophonio by Archelaus, general of Mithridates, took place before the Battle of Chaeronea between him and the Romans under Sulla. Despite this, it experienced a special boom during the 2nd AD. century because of its many sanctuaries and temples.

The ancient city was built on the right bank of the Ercyna, and its ruins came to light after excavations. Most of the buildings (bath, market, road, register) as well as a large number of inscriptions date from the 4th BC. until the 3rd AD century.

But the most important archaeological site is the divinatory sanctuary of Trophonio, which was located and excavated on the left bank of the Erkyna, on Mount Ai Lia. In this sacred grove, which is described in more detail by Pausanias, it probably functioned until the time of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I. Inside the grove, apart from the sanctuary of Trophonius, there were spaces or buildings dedicated to the worship of Agathi Tyche, Agathos Daemonos, Artemis, Hermes, Dionysus and childbirth deities. There were also the tomb of Arkesilaos, sanctuaries of Apollo and Demeter, as well as a half-built temple of Zeus Vasileos, in whose honor the Vasileia were celebrated during the month of Panama, a festival with races and processions of jugs that may have been established in 371 BC. in memory of the victory of the Thebans and other Boeotians at Lefktra.

 

Byzantine period

During the first centuries of the Byzantine period, the city of Livadeia did not show much development, after the disasters it had suffered. He followed the fortunes of Eastern Illyria, between East and West, both in political and ecclesiastical changes, until the final ecclesiastical submission to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

The agricultural economy of the city was seriously affected by the barbarian raids of the 4th and early 5th centuries, especially under Alaric, and during the transitional period of the 7th century due to earthquakes where it was eventually deserted.

During the administrative reform with the introduction of the institution of subjects, it was, as was natural, included in the subject of Greece and from the 9th century it experienced remarkable economic growth within the framework of the general economic progress of the subject of the Greek area.

The economic prosperity of the city of Thebes favored the prosperity of Livadia until the middle of the 12th century, but the marauding raids of the Normans weakened cultivation and the silk industry in the wider area and limited commercial traffic.

 

Francs rule

After the conquest of southern Greece by the Franks of the Fourth Crusade (1204), Livadia was granted to the "lord of Athens" Otto de La Roche and, a century later, after the defeat of the Franks by the Catalans in the Battle of Almyros (1311 ), the inhabitants surrendered the city's castle to the victors in exchange for the granting of privileges. During this period, Livadia experienced great commercial prosperity.

Catalan rule continued under the suzerainty of the Sicilian king Frederick until May 1388, when the territory of the Duchy of Athens passed to Nerios I Atzaioli, a member of a Florentine banking house.

 

Ottoman period

Two years after the handover of Athens to Mohammed II the Conqueror (1458), Livadia came under the Ottoman Empire and became a kaza, an administrative sub-district, which belonged until 1470 to the Sandzaki of Trikala and later to the Sandzaki of Evripou.

In the 16th century Livadeia was a hasi (= place of pilgrimage) of Ottoman officials and from the 3rd or 4th decade of the 17th century it was a waqf of Mecca or, according to others, of Medina. In the 18th century, the annuity of the kaza of Livadia was dedicated to the Jeni-Mosque of Scutari, which had been founded by the wife of Sultan Mohammed IV, the later Valide Sultana (= Vasilomitor).

Despite the devastation that Livadia had suffered from the war conflicts in Boeotia during the Turkish-Venetian war of 1684-1699 and specifically in 1694 and 1695, from the beginning of the 18th century the conditions that had formed helped the development of the economic of activity: after the dedication of the revenues to the Jeni-Mosque, where it had been placed under the auspices of Valide Sultana, the residents were granted special privileges of self-government, with the consequence of strengthening the community institution and the creation of a class of lords.

The voivode, for example, could not make any decision without the consent of the city prefects. About ten families made up the aristocracy of the land and the city, whose solidarity even Ali Pasha could not break, despite the pressure he exerted on the Kaza of Livadeia, when he had fallen to his Pasaliki. Thus the city, which at the end of the 18th century was characterized as "the largest of Boeotia", as it was located on the trade route (eastern passage) of Peloponnese-Macedonia, had "a valuable treatise in hair, wheat, rice, which it granted to other places of Greece and abroad.

Despite the fact that the flow of immigration was limited, men from Livadia came who distinguished themselves in the Greek communities of Russia and central Europe. Apart from Lambros Katsonis, clerics, scholars and merchants of the diaspora came from Livadeia and its region ("Land of Livadeia").

 

Revolution of 1821

On the eve of the Revolution of 1821, "Giaur Livadia", as the Turks called it for its numerous Greek population, had 10,000 Greek inhabitants, engaged in agriculture, trade and handicrafts. In 1820, the city was the center of the activities of the Friendly Society in eastern Central Greece, where its prerogatives Nikolaos Nakos, Ioannis Logothetis and Ioannis Filon had been initiated. At that time the voivode of Livadia was Kara Ismail Agas. When the latter received news that some movement was being prepared by the Christian residents, he suspected that it was Ali Pasha's action as a distraction against which the Sultan's troops were moving.

For this reason, he asked the hierarchical superior of the Pasha of Chalkida to kill all the elites of the area, or at least to arrest them, as the kaimakami of Tripolitsa had also acted.

Then the above three candidates not only succeeded with various actions and bribes to be declared innocent but also by taking advantage of the high protection of the city to achieve the replacement of the voivode by Hasan Aga.

Thus, now unsupervised, the prefects of Livadeia continued the preparation of the rebellion by appointing the resident of Livadeia, Athanasios Diakos, (who had in the meantime defected from the Court of Ali Pasha and had assumed the position of deputy leader of the charioteer Odysseus Androutsou, and in particular the guarding of it from Davelia to Arachova and Amfissa (Salona) road crossing), taking over the command of the weapons in the area in collaboration with his comrade from Arachova Vassilis Bousgos.

The explosion of the Revolution in the area of Livadeia took place on the night of March 25 to 26, 1821, when the "first volley" was fired by Vassilis Busgos and his armed men, (who had been placed at his disposal by the notables of Arachova), in the position "strait of Zemenos" killing some Turks. This involvement, which was allegedly done at the suggestion of Athanasios Diakos due to the prolonged inconsistency and procrastination of the pre-priors of Livadeia, as it also happened in Kalavryta, was then hastened to brilliantly present it to Hassan Aga of Livadeia by A. Diakos himself as alleged attack by the vanguard of O. Androutsos approaching with 10,000 Greek revolutionaries. Following this, on the same day (March 26), A. Diakos received the permission to freely recruit armed men.

Although in a new attempt, A. Diakos did not achieve the sympathy of the qualified, he proceeded to military actions ignoring them. Thus, on the night of the 28th to the 29th of March, the abbot of the rebels recruited by him occupied the hill of Prophet Ilias opposite the castle of Livadeia in which, as well as in the Tower of Hora, in the middle of the city, the Turks had taken refuge having the provosts N. Nakos and Logothetis as hostages as soon as they learned of the Amfissa uprising. From there, after Hassan Agha's refusal to surrender the city, A. Diakos began the attack. On March 31, the city was captured while the Turks, who had closed in the Hora tower, surrendered and on April 1 (April 13 AD) the castle was surrendered. In a solemn eulogy that reportedly followed in the church of Agia Paraskevi, the bishops of Salona, Talanti (Atalanti) and Athens blessed the revolutionary flag of Diakos.

About two months later, on June 26, passing through the area, Omer Vryonis, occupying the city, set fire to a large part of it, except for the castle. Generally during the Revolution the city was repeatedly tested by the Turkish armies heading for the Peloponnese, and the last battles of the Struggle were fought in the area. During the operations of 1828 in Eastern Sterea, led by Dimitrios Ypsilantis, the Turks who were in Livadia were besieged by the corps of Vasos Mavrovouniotis and disorderly cavalry, and on November 5, 1828, they surrendered the city. However, a new Turkish force under Mahmut Pasha once again occupied Livadia, but was forced to abandon it on February 8, 1829, to avoid encirclement with the plan implemented by George Karaiskakis. After the battle of Petra, all the Turks disappeared from Boeotia.

 

Newer period

With the formation of the rudimentary Greek "mandate state", under Ioannis Kapodistrias, Livadia began to regroup. The inhabitants who had taken refuge in other areas returned and in 1841 the city was now one of the strong economic centers of the newly formed Hellenic Kingdom.

Livadia was the administrative center of the region. It is the seat of the prefecture of Viotia and the Municipality of Levadea, while it was the seat of the Province of Levadea. Its population shows continuous growth with the exception of the 1930s and 1940s when it showed a slight decrease.

 

Economy

It is an old agricultural center of a fertile region, producing cotton, tobacco, grain, livestock, etc. products. Today it has a notable industry of metal structures, building materials, livestock, as well as cotton gins, spinning mills, spinning mills, textile mills, seed mills, etc. The craft of weaving and folk art also shows significant growth. Livadeia is a road hub, especially for transport to the mountainous Parnassida (Delphi, Osio Louka, Distomo, Desfina), with considerable excursion and tourist traffic.

In the area of Kopaida Castle there is the Kopaida airfield, which is a magnet for aerobatic athletes from all over Attica. It has been operating since 1988 under the direction of G. Papadopoulos. Since 2007, a training school for ultralight aircraft pilots has been operating in the field, taught by I. Kargadouris.

 

Transportation

Road transport
National Highway 3 passes near the city connecting it to Thebes, Lamia and other cities of mainland Greece.

Also, National Road 48 starts from Livadia, which connects it with Amfissa via Arachova and Delphi and ends in Antirrio.

Railway transport
In Livadia there is a railway station on the Athens - Thessaloniki line, which also serves the surrounding area.

 

Events

Every September, the Municipality of Levadeia organizes the "Trofonia", cultural events with theatrical and dance performances, concerts, exhibitions, happenings, etc. As part of the events of the celebration of the typical Roumeliotian Easter, the city is festively decorated.

Lambs, roosters and splenanders are roasted, formerly in the central square and the streets, while today in the area of Krya, where locals and visitors are treated to food and wine. The feast ends with folk music and dances.

 

Cultural-Folkographic

Since 2003, the Department of Regional Economic Development has operated in the city.

The Livadites are known in Boeotia as "chicken thieves", due to the fact that - in the past at least - they engaged in widespread theft of poultry from neighbors and farms.