Phare

About

Phare (Ancient Greek: Φάρη) or Pharis (Φᾶρις), afterwards called Pharae (Φαραί), was a town of Laconia in the Spartan plain, situated upon the road from Amyclae to the sea. It was mentioned in the Catalog of ships in the Iliad, and was one of the ancient Achaean towns. It maintained its independence till the reign of Teleclus, king of Sparta; and, after its conquest, continued to be a Lacedaemonian town under the name of Pharae.

It was said to have been plundered by Aristomenes in the Second Messenian War. It is also mentioned in a corrupt passage of Strabo, and by other ancient writers. Pharis has been rightly placed at the deserted village of Vaphio, which lies south of the site of Amyclae, and contains an ancient "Treasury," like those of Mycenae and Orchomenus, which is in accordance with Pharis having been one of the old Achaean cities before the Dorian conquest.

Its site was described by William Mure: "it is, like that of Mycenae, a tumulus, with an interior vault, entered by a door on one side, the access to which was pierced horizontally through the slope of the hill. Its situation, on the summit of a knoll, itself of rather conical form, while it increases the apparent size...