ORCHOMENUS

also spelled Orchomenos, or Erchomenos, ancient Boeotian town on a promontory on the north of the Copiac plain. The northernmost Mycenaean fortified town, it was a seat of the Minyae dynastic family and controlled a large part of Boeotia. In the Archaic period, Orchomenus was a member of the Calaurian League, but political supremacy in Boeotia passed to Thebes. Among the first Boeotian cities to coin money (c. 550 BC), it was famed in legend for its wealth. The worship of the Charites or Graces was an important cult. Orchomenus became the headquarters of the oligarchic exiles who freed Boeotia from Athenian control (447/446), and by the 4th century its policy was anti-Theban. After repeated sackings by the Thebans in the 4th century, Orchomenus was left to obscurity and the encroaching waters of Lake Copias. The excavations of H. Schliemann (late 19th century) and A. Furtwngler and H. Bulle (early 20th century) showed Orchomenus to have been an important Neolithic and Bronze Age site with a Late Bronze Age tholos, or beehive, temple and palace.