Aulis

About

Aulis (Ancient Greek: Αὐλίς) was a Greek port town, located in ancient Boeotia in central Greece, at the Euripus Strait, opposite of the island of Euboea, at modern Mikro Vathy/Ag. Nikolaos. Livy states that Aulis was 3 miles (4.8 km) from Chalcis.

Aulis never developed into a fully independent polis, but belonged to ancient Thebes (378 BC) and Tanagra respectively. According to Homer's epic The Iliad, the Greek fleet gathered in Aulis to set off for Troy. However, the departure for the Trojan War was prevented by Artemis, who stopped the wind to punish Agamemnon, who had killed a deer in a sacred grove and boasted he was the better hunter than she.

The fleet was only able to sail off after Agamemnon had sacrificed his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Strabo says that the harbour of Aulis could only hold fifty ships, and that therefore the Greek fleet must have assembled in the large port in the neighbourhood (Ancient Greek: Βαθὺς λιμὴν, romanized: Bathỳs limḗn, lit. 'deep sea').

Aulis appears to have stood upon a rocky height, since it is called by Homer "rocky Aulis" (Ancient Greek: Αὐλὶς πετρήεσσα, romanized: Aulìs petrḗessa), and by Strabo a "stone village" (Ancient Greek: πετρῶδες...