Sicyon
Sicyon was an
ancient Greek city situated in the northern
Peloponnesus between
Corinth and
Achaea. Alexanor, a son of
Machaon, and grandson of
Aesculapius, who built to his sire a temple at Titane in the territory of Sicyon. He himself too was worshipped there, and sacrifices were offered to him after sunset only. (Paus. ii. 23.4, 11.6, &c.).
Sicyon was built on a low triangular
plateau about two miles from the
Corinthian Gulf. Between the city and its port lay a fertile plain with
olive groves and orchards. After the
Dorian invasion the community was divided into the ordinary three Dorian tribes and an equally privileged tribe of Ionians, besides which a class of
serfs lived on and worked the land.
For some centuries, Sicyon remained subject to
Argos, where its Dorian conquerors had come from; as late as
500 BC it acknowledged a certain suzerainty. However, its virtual independence was established in the
7th century BC, when a line of tyrants arose and initiated an anti-Dorian policy. Chief of these rulers was the founder's grandson
Cleisthenes, the uncle of the Athenian legislator
Cleisthenes. Besides reforming the city's constitution to the advantage of the Ionians and replacing Dorian cults with the worship of
Dionysus, Cleisthenes gained renown as the chief instigator and general of the
First Sacred War (
590 BC) in the interests of the Delphians.
About this time, Sicyon developed the various industries for which it was noted in antiquity. As the abode of the sculptors
Dipoenus and
Scyllis it gained pre-eminence in woodcarving and bronze work such as is still to be seen in the archaic metal facings found at
Olympia. Its pottery, which resembled Corinthian ware, was exported with the latter as far as
Etruria. In Sicyon also the art of painting was supposed to have been invented. After the fall of the tyrants their institutions survived till the end of the 6th century BC, when Dorian supremacy was re-established, perhaps by the agency of
Sparta, and the city was enrolled in the Peloponnesian League. Henceforth, its policy was usually determined either by Sparta or Corinth.
In the
5th century BC Sicyon, like Corinth, suffered from the commercial rivalry of
Athens in the western seas, and was repeatedly harassed by squadrons of Athenian ships. In the
Peloponnesian War Sicyon followed the lead of Sparta and Corinth. When these two powers quarrelled after the
peace of Nicias it remained loyal to the Spartans. Again in the Corinthian war Sicyon sided with Sparta and became its base of operations against the allied troops round Corinth. In
369 it was captured and garrisoned by the
Thebans in their successful attack on the Peloponnesian League. During this period Sicyon reached its zenith as a centre of art: its school of painting gained fame under
Eupompus and attracted the great masters
Pamphilus and
Apelles as students; its sculpture was raised to a level hardly surpassed in Greece by
Lysippus and his pupils.
The destruction of Corinth (
146) brought Sicyon an acquisition of territory and the presidency over the
Isthmian games; yet in
Cicero's time it had fallen deep into debt. Under the empire it was quite obscured by the restored cities of Corinth and
Patrae; in
Pausanias' age (A.D. 150) it was almost desolate. In
Byzantine times it became a bishop's seat, and to judge by its later name Hellas it served as a refuge for the Greeks from the
Slavonic immigrants of the 8th century.
The village of
Vasiliko which now occupies the site is quite insignificant.
