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Tanagra sometimes written
Tanagraea, was a town of ancient Boeotia, situated upon the left bank of the
Asopus, in a fertile plain, at the distance of 130 stadia from Oropus and 200
from Plataeae. Several ancient writers identified Tanagra with the Homeric
Graea; but others supposed them to be distinct places, and Aristotle regarded
Oropus as the ancient Graea. Pausanias mentions in Tanagra's location the
ancient city of Graea, eponymous of the Graikoi, a Boeotian tribe whose name
gave rise to the Latin Graecus "Greek". Homer, while reciting the
Boeotian forces in the Iliad 's Catalogue of Ships, provides the first known
reference to the Boeotian city of Graea. Tanagra was also called Poemandria or
Poimandria, and its territory Poemandris, from the fertile meadows which
surrounded the city, or after its founder Poimandros, who took part in the
Trojan campaign. The most ancient inhabitants of Tanagra are said to have been
the Gephyraei, who came from Phoenicia with Cadmus, and from thence emigrated
to Athens.
From its vicinity to Attica the territory of Tanagra was the scene of more than
one battle. In 457 the Lacedaemonians on their return from an expedition to
Doris, took up a position at Tanagra, near the borders of Attica, with the view
of assisting the oligarchical party at Athens to overthrow the democracy. The
Athenians, with a thousand Argeians and some Thessalian horse, crossed Mount
Parnes and advanced, against the Lacedaemonians. In the First Battle of
Tanagra,
both sides fought with great bravery; but the Lacedaemonians gained the
victory, chiefly through the treacherous desertion of the Thessalians in the
very heat of the engagement. At the beginning of the following year(456 BC),
and only sixty-two days after their defeat at Tanagra, the Athenians under
Myronides again invaded
Boeotia, and gained at
Oenophyta, in
the territory of Tanagra, a brilliant and decisive victory over the Boeotian
League, which made them masters of the whole country. The walls of Tanagra were
then razed to the ground. The Second Battle of
Tanagra
was fought in 426. The Athenians made an incursion into the territory of
Tanagra, and on their return defeated the Tanagraeans and Boeotians.
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