A city on the Peloponnesian Peninsula.
Arene was founded by Aphareus, a son of Perseus, and named after his wife Arene, the daughter of Oebalus and Gorgophone. This would have been at least three generations before the Trojan War. As king of Messenia, Aphareus gave his cousin Neleus, a significant amount of land on the southeastern seaboard of the Peloponnesus, on which Neleus established his kingdom and the city of Pylos.
The sons of Aphareus, Lynkeus and Idas, were from Arene and served as Argonauts in the Quest for the Golden Fleece.
The Minyeios River emptied into the sea near Arene. As a young man, Nestor of Pylos used Arene as a staging area as his army awaited a confrontation with the invading Epeians.1
The precise location of ancient Arene has not been determined but the traveler-historian Pausanias and the geographer Strabo suggested the settlement of Samikon (modern Samiko) as the possible location.
1. The people of Elis were called Eleans and Epeians.
Samiko
Latitude North, Longitude East
37.5755, 21.5842
| References: Homer, Iliad book 2, line 591; book 11, line 723 Pausanias, Description of Greece Elis I 6.3 Homeric Hymn, Pythian Apollon line 422 Strabo, Geography book 8.3 Apollonios of Rhodes, Argonautika book 1, line 152 |