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Hyampolis

city in ancient Phocis, Greece

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ1534902 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hyampolis (Ὑάμπολις Iabolis) was a city in ancient Phocis, Greece. A native of this city was called a Hyampolites. Some ancient authors record that the city was also called simply Hya.

Mythology and situation

In the ancient tradition, the city was said to have been founded by the Hyantes after their expulsion from Boeotia by the Cadmeians. Yet a scholiast on Euripides mentions Hyamus, son of Lycorus, as the eponymous founder of Hyampolis. The city is mentioned in Homer's Iliad (Catalogue of Ships).

Hyampolis lay in a valley in east Phocis, about eight kilometers from Abae, north-northwest of Orchomenus, situated on the road leading from Orchomenus to Opus, As it stood at the entrance of a valley which formed a convenient passage from Locris into Phocis and Boeotia, the city was of strategic importance and is often mentioned in works on ancient history.

History

During the Greco-Persian Wars, it was at the entrance of this pass that the Phocians gained a victory over the Thessalians. Later in the same wars, in 480 BCE the city was destroyed, along with the other Phocian towns, by the army of Xerxes. In 395 BCE, the Boeotians besieged the city, but failed to sack it.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hyampolis” is city in ancient Phocis, Greece. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hyampolis, city and ancient, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current 201-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Hyampolis, city and ancient is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “city in ancient Phocis, Greece” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1534902. Authority coordinates are 38.580, 22.916. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hyampolis”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hyampolis primary sources, Hyampolis archive and Hyampolis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hyampolis”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hyampolis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.