Justinian fortress

The Justinian Fortress is sited all around the modern cemetery, west of the church of Agios Ioannis, and is attached to the Hexamilion wall, by the side of the Saronic Gulf. The ancient Corinth-Isthmia road passed through the fortress.

One of the forts that reinforced the defensive strength along the Hexamilion Wall, it is that at the Kira Fountain. The Fort was the last shelter and point of defence for the Wall, offering accommodation for the garrison. Both the fort and the Hexamilion wall built in the early 5th century, immediately after the invasion of the Ostrogoths of Alaric into the Peloponnese, but was repaired and strengthened significantly in the mid-6th century by Justinian. In the general area of ​​the fortress, from the mid-6th and the 7th centuries traces of habitation are to be marked, while activity is observed again in the 11th to 12th centuries.

In the following centuries, the fortress and the wall were generally kept repaired and continued to play an important role in the defence of the Peloponnese against invaders and aspiring invaders, until the final conquest of the Peloponnese by the Ottomans in 1458.

Χρονολόγηση: Byzantine period (4th-7th centuries); Transitional (7th-9th centuries); Middle Byzantine (9th-early 13th centuries), Frankish/Late Byzantine periods (13th-15th centuries), Ottoman/Venetian Period (15th-19th centuries).

The fortress area is approximately 27,100 sq.m in size. Its walls are reinforced by towers, and had two gates, at the northeast and the south. The northeast one was the main gate of the fortress and the official entrance to the Peloponnese. The gate was of monumental character as it embodied an earlier Roman arch that marked the northern access to the Sanctuary of Poseidon from the second half of the 1st century AD. The gate was protected on either side by two large towers, semicircular and a quarter-circle in shape respectively. The south gate too was monumental in form, and equally protected by two towers of octagonal form.

The exterior wall-face was built from large stone slabs, as well as from an equal amount of ancient building materials. Its construction was of the opus emplectum sort, where transverse domes tied the face of the wall to its core, which consisted of rubble and mortar; this technique prevented cracks and collapses. The inner faces were made of poor-quality masonry, the coating of which was picked out by decorative trowelling.

The Hexamilion Wall and the Justinian fortress are protected by the following YA YA 70262/2890/02.09.1958, Official Gazette 255/B/18.9.1958, YA 15794/12.19.1961, Official Gazette 35/B/02.02.1962, YA 15904 /11.24.1962, Official Gazette 473/B/12.17.1962, YA 16523 p.e./23.01.1965 Official Gazette 134/B/20-2-1965, YA 11707/14.06.1966, Official Gazette 429/B/8.7.1966, YA 21011 p.e./01.13.1971, Official Gazette 58/B/25.1.1971. On a listed archaeological site, the Hexamilion Wall includes the church of Agios Ioannis and the Isthmia Cemetery.

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