Ocalea (town)
Encyclopedia
Ocalea was a town in antiquity in Boeotia
Boeotia
Boeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, on the south shore of Lake Copais
Lake Copais
Lake Copais, Kopais, or Kopaida used to be in the centre of Boeotia, Greece, west of Thebes until the late 19th century. The area where it was located, though now a plain, is still known as Kopaida.- Drainage :...

.

Ocalea lay roughly halfway between Alalcomenae
Alalcomenae
- Alalcomenae, Boeotia :Now called Alalkomenes or Alalkomeni, Alalcomenae in Boeotia was on the south-west bank of Lake Copais, west of Haliartus , before the lake was drained. Stephanus of Byzantium refers to the town by the name Alalkomenion....

 and Aliartos
Aliartos
Aliartos is a municipality in the Boeotia regional unit, Greece, at 109 kilometres from Athens. Population 6,351 . It is the center of the Kopais valley...

 (ancient Haliartus), about 30 stadia (5.5 km) from each. Ancient sources often mention it alongside Mantinea and Medeon, which suggests that they were close by. The short distance between Mantinea and Ocalea seems to be the reason why the mythical figure Aglaïa, daughter of Mantineus, was sometimes also known as Ocalea
Ocalea
Ocalea may refer to:*Ocalea *Ocalea , a genus of insect of the order Coleoptera.*Ocalea...

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Origins

Most sources that discuss the origin of the town's name explain it as coming from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 adjective , "quick". The early "D" scholia on the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

explain this as a reference to an unnamed river flowing past it; the geographical writer Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...

 explains it as a reference to the brief journey from the nearby town Thespies
Thespies
Thespies is a village and a former municipality in Boeotia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Aliartos, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 5,949 .Thespies is named after the ancient city of Thespiae....

 to Thebes
Thebes, Greece
Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...

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Mythology

The Hymn to Apollo
Homeric Hymns
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three anonymous Ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...

narrates how the god Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

, in his search for a place to establish his oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....

, passes by Ocalea and Haliartus after crossing the river Cephissus
Cephissus (Boeotia)
The northern Cephissus river or Cephisus rises at Lilaea in Phocis and flows by Delphi through Boeotia and eventually issues into Lake Copais which is therefore also called the Cephisian Lake...

 on his way to Telphousa. Ocalea and Haliartus are named in the wrong order, since Apollo is supposed to be travelling westwards. The poem describes Ocalea as , "many-towered"; but the epithet is so common as to be almost meaningless.

The Library falsely attributed to Apollodorus
Apollodorus (disambiguation)
Apollodorus was a popular name in ancient Greece. It may refer to:*Apollodorus of Athens , historian and mythographer*The Pseudo-Apollodorus, author of the Bibliotheca...

 tells the story of how when Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

 fought the Minyans
Minyans
According to Greek mythology and legendary prehistory of the Aegean region, the Minyans were an autochthonous group inhabiting the Aegean region...

 of Orchomenus, his foster-father Amphitryon
Amphitryon
Amphitryon , in Greek mythology, was a son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis.Amphitryon was a Theban general, who was originally from Tiryns in the eastern part of the Peloponnese. He was friends with Panopeus....

 was killed. After this Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

' son Rhadamanthys, who had been exiled from Crete, married Amphitryon's widow, Alcmene
Alcmene
In Greek mythology, Alcmene or Alcmena was the mother of Heracles.-Background:Alcmene was born to Electryon, the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. Her mother was Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus and Astydamia, daughter of Pelops and Hippodameia...

, and they settled in Ocalea. Tzetzes
John Tzetzes
John Tzetzes was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century.Tzetzes was Georgian on his mother's side...

 adds that in Ocalea Rhadamanthys taught the young Heracles to shoot a bow.

The Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

ic Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

mentions Ocalea in the Catalogue of Ships
Catalogue of Ships
The Catalogue of Ships is a passage in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad , which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy...

 as one of the towns that contributed to the Boeotian contingent of the Greek army in the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

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