ORCHOMENOS (Kalpali) Arkadia, Greece.
The site is located N of Mantinea on an acropolis dominating the plains of Levidi and Candyla from an elevation of 936 m. The name Orchomenos appears in the Catalogue of Ships (Iliad) and in the Odyssey. At the time of Pausanias the higher part of the city had already been abandoned (Paus. 8.13.2), a fact confirmed also by the lack of Roman remains in that zone. A wall in polygonal masonry with a perimeter of ca. 2300 m enclosed the upper part of the acropolis. It appears to have undergone repeated renovation. The earliest wall must have been erected at the end of the 5th c. B.C. (Thuc. 5.61), though those parts actually visible are from the 4th and 3d c. and appear to be interrupted every 30 or 50 m by square towers. There were two gates, one opening to the W and the other to the SE toward the Charadra, the principal fountain of the city. Inside the walled area a quadrangular agora has been found, flanked on the N by a portico and on the E by a bouleuterion. S of the agora is the Temple of Artemis Mesopolitis, the major sanctuary of the city, datable to the second half of the 6th c. B.C. In Ionic style, with foundation and socle in limestone, the upper section was probably of brick. To the NE of the agora was the theater, of which there remains part of the skene and proskenion, as well as a marble seat from the proedria with an inscription from the 4th-3d c. The lower city, seat of the modern village, was inhabited from the Geometric age until Roman times. There are recognizable remains of a peripteral temple from the end of the 6th c. B.C., which may be identified as one of the two temples mentioned by Pausanias and dedicated respectively to Poseidon and Aphrodite. Also found are cisterns, fountains, and private houses from both Greek and Roman epochs, one of which is served by thermal springs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Lattermann, “Arkadische Forschungen,” in Abh. Berl. Akad. Phil-Hist. Kl. (1911) 18-26, 44, plates I, II, VI, VII, VIII; G. Blum & A. Plassart in BCH 38 (1914) 71-88; D. Fimmen, Die kret. Myk. Kultur (1924) 10, 77; C. Weickert, Typen der arch. Architektur in Griech. u. Kleinasien (1929) 150-51, 166-67; E. Meyer in RE 18 (1939) 887-905; ibid., suppl. 9 (1962) 465; R. Martin in RA 21 (1944) 107-14; U. Kahrstedt, Das wirtschaftl. Gesicht Griechenlands in der Kaiserzeit (1954) 148-49.L. VLAD BORRELLI