HERACLEIA (Gr.`HparcXeLa) or, in the Latin form, HER ACLEA, the name of a large number of ancient cities founded by the Greeks.
an ancient city of Lucania, near the modern Policoro, 3 m. from the coast of the gulf of Tarentum, between the rivers Aciris (Agri) and Siris (Sinni) about 13 m. S.S.W. of Metapontum. It was a Greek colony founded by the Tarentines who had been defeated by the Thurians in 433 B.C. Here Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, defeated the consul Laevinus in 28o B.C., after he had crossed the river Siris. In 278 B.C., probably in order to detach it from Tarentum, the Romans made a special treaty with Hera clea, on such favourable terms that in 89 B.C. the Roman citizen ship given to the inhabitants by the Lex Plautia Papiria was only accepted after considerable hesitation. Having accepted Roman citizenship, it became a municipium; part of a copy on bronze of the Lex Iulia Municipalis of 46 B.C. found between Heraclea and Metapontum, is of the highest importance for our knowledge of that law. It was still of importance under the empire ; a branch road from Venusia joined the coast road here : but the site is now marked by a few heaps of ruins. Its mediaeval representative was Anglona, once a bishopric, but now itself a heap of ruins.
There was another Heraclea to which Herodotus (v. 46) refers, near Mount Eryx, founded by Dorieus not long after 500 B.C. and soon destroyed by the Carthaginians and Egesteans.
HERACLEA MINOA, an ancient town on the south coast of Sicily, at the mouth of the river Halycus (modern Platani) some 20 m. W.N.W. of Girgenti. It was founded by Selinus and was always a border town between Carthaginian and Greek territory. It was taken by the Lacedaemonian colonists under Euryleon shortly before 50o but must have fallen into Carthaginian hands before Acragas (406). They lost it temporarily to Agathocles and Pyrrhus, but used it as a base in the first Punic war.
(mod. Bender Eregli), an ancient city on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor, at the mouth of the Kilijsu. It was founded by a Megarian colony, which soon subjugated the native Mariandynians and extended its power over a considerable territory. The prosperity of the city was utterly destroyed in the Mithridatic war. It was the birthplace of Heracleides Ponticus. The modern town is best known for its lignite coal-mines, from which Constantinople receives a good part of its supply.
a town in Thracian Macedonia, to the south of the Strymon, the site of which was sought by Leake at the village of Zervokhori, and identified by the discovery of local coins, while other authorities place it further north, to the west of Demir Hissar.
a town on the borders of Caria and Ionia, near the foot of Mount Latmus. A temple and a rock cut theatre were visible a century ago. In its neighbourhood was the burial cave of Endymion.
(mod. Eregli in the vilayet of Konia), under the name Cybistra, had some importance in Hellenistic times owing to its position near the point where the road to the Cilician Gates enters the hills. It lay in the way of armies and was more than once sacked by the Arab invaders of Asia Minor (A.D. 805 and 832). It became Turkish (Seljuk) in the nth cen tury. Modern Eregli had grown from a large village to a town since the railway reached it from Konia and Karaman in
and it has now an hotel and good shops. Three hours' ride S. is the famous "Hittite" rock-relief of Ivriz, representing a king (probably of neighbouring Tyana) adoring a god (see HITTITES). This was the first "Hittite" monument discovered in modern times (early i8th century, by the Swede Otter, an emissary of Louis XIV.).
(mod. Monastir) was a town in Mace donia, on the Via Egnatia.
see TRACHIS, and for Heraclea Perinthus see PERINTHUS.
