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Modern Description: At the pass on the road from Kechrinia to Lepenou, about 4 miles from the former, are remnants of fortifications and a substantial Hellenistic round cistern. A Mycenaean tomb was found nearby in 2006. Pras in Aitolia (there is another in Perraibia) is known only from a 3rd c. BC inscription at Thermon (IG IX,1(2) 1:3 records a permanent peace treaty between the Aitolians and Akarnanians. 'having as the limits of their territory the Achelous river down to the sea. Everything on the east side of the Achelous river is Aitolian, everything on the west Akarnanian except Pras and Demphis. These the Akarnanians do not claim. Regarding the borders of Pras, if the Stratians and Agraians agree to them, let this be valid. But if not, let the Akarnanians and Aitolians delimit the territory of Pras, each of them choosing ten (people) apart from Stratians and Agraians. As they draw the border, let it be final.'
Colonel Leake describes the site as follows:
As we advance, the hills on either side become higher, and the bushes below thicker, until at 5.45 we enter a wood of small oaks, mixed with ilex and prinus, ascending gently by a pleasant shady path, until having arrived at the summit of the pass we begin at 7 to descend, and at 7.15 arrive at the ruins of some Hellenic walls. One of them crosses the road; others are with difficulty traced among the trees. They are the outworks of a fortress which occupied a height to the left of the road, and was naturally strengthened on two sides by a deep ravine and torrent; thus placed, it commanded the access by this valley from Amphilochia to the great plain of the Achelous. Within the inclosure, a little to the left of the road, a circular excavation in the ground, thirty-four feet in diameter, is lined with regular masonry of nearly equal courses, one of the stones of which measures four feet six inches in length, and two feet eight inches in height· On one side of the circle there remain eight courses overgrown with trees and bushes, on the other the slope of the bank covers the masonry. Near the walls of the fortress, on the outside, there is an ordinary ancient sepulchre, which has never been opened. The ruins are called the Paleokastro of Kekhreniatza. The latter name is applied to the pass, and to a brook to which I descend in five minutes, after a halt of fifty minutes. The wall which crosses the road follows it afterwards for three minutes towards the brook. It has in some places six courses of masonry of the third kind, nearly approaching to the fourth, and very accurately joined, except where trees growing on the top have displaced the stones, with their roots. The brook of Kekhreniatza winds through a little uneven vale, ending in a small plain on the shore of the Ambracian Gulf, which is called Xerokambo, from its want of water; for the brook is lost before it arrives there. It produces, however, corn and Kalambokki, and belongs to the village of Kekhrenia, situated on the side of the steep rocky mountain which borders the ravine of Kekhreniatza to our left, and which separates it from the valley and lake of Valto or Amvrakia.

Info: ToposText editors

(JBK)

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