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Emperor Go-Kameyama

Emperor Go-Kameyama (後亀山天皇) (c. 1347 – May 10, 1424) was the 99th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. He ruled from 1383 to October 21, 1392, becoming the last Emperor of the Southern Court. His personal name was Hironari (熙成).

This 14th century sovereign was named after the 13th century Emperor Kameyama and go- (後), translates literally as "later"; and thus, he could be called the "Later Emperor Kameyama". The Japanese word "go" has also been translated to mean the "second one"; and in some older sources, this emperor may be identified as "Kameyama, the second" or as "Kameyama II".

Genealogy
He was the second son of Emperor Go-Murakami. His mother was Fujiwara Katsuko (藤原勝子), better known as Kaki Mon'in.

Little is known of his empress or other consorts. Imperial Prince Tsuneatsu (恒敦) is believed to be his son.
 * Empress: Minamoto (Kitabatake) Nobuko, Kitabatake Akinobu's daughter
 * Third Son: Imperial Prince Yoshiyasu (良泰親王; 1370–1443)
 * Imperial Prince Priest Gyōgo (行悟法親王; 1377–1406)
 * First Daughter: Imperial Princess Yasuko (泰子内親王) married Nijō Fuyuzane

 * Consort: Fujiwara (Nijo) Noriko, Nijo Norimoto's daughter
 * First Son: Imperial Prince Tokiyasu (世泰親王, 1360–1377)
 * Lady-in-waiting: Fujiwara (Hino) Kuniko, Hino Kunimitsu's daughter
 * Second Son: Imperial Prince Moroyasu (師泰親王; 1362–1423)
 * Shino (真阿, 1374–1440)

 * Mother unknown
 * Imperial Prince Tsuneatsu (恒敦, d.1422), First Head of Ogawa clan.
 * Sonkoku (琮頊, d.1448)

Life
Go-Kameyama acceded to the throne during the turbulent Nanboku-chō period during which rival claimants to the Chrysanthemum Throne gathered supporters around them in what were known as the Northern court and the Southern Court. Go-Kameyama became Emperor in what was called the Southern court when Emperor Chōkei abdicated in 1383. On October 15, 1392, at the insistence of the peace faction amongst his own courtiers, he applied to Ashikaga Yoshimitsu for peace; and he subsequently returned to the capital where he did hand over the Sacred Treasures to his Northern Court rival. In doing so, Go-Kameyama was understood to have abdicated.

By the conditions of the peace treaty, the Northern Court and the Southern Court were supposed to alternate control of the throne. However, this was thrown out in 1412 as Emperor Go-Komatsu reneged on the treaty by abdicating in favour of his own son. Henceforth, no Southern Court claimant ever sat on the Chrysthansemum Throne again. Still, since 1911, the Japanese government has declared the southern claimants were actually the rightful emperors despite the fact that all subsequent emperors including the then-Emperor Meiji were descended from the Northern Court, reasoning the Southern Court retained possession of the three sacred treasures, thus converting the emperors of the former Northern court into mere pretenders.

Following his abdication, he went into seclusion; but, in 1410, he returned to Yoshino.

The Imperial Household Agency recognizes Saga no ogura no misasagi (嵯峨小倉陵) in Ukyō-ku, Kyoto as his tomb.

Kugyō
Kugyō (公卿) is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. Even during those years in which the court's actual influence outside the palace walls was minimal, the hierarchic organization persisted.

In general, this elite group included only three to four men at a time. These were hereditary courtiers whose experience and background would have brought them to the pinnacle of a life's career. During Go-Kameyama's reign, this apex of the Daijō-kan included:
 * Sadaijin
 * Udaijin
 * Nadaijin
 * Dainagon

Eras of Go-Kameyama's reign
The years of Go-Kameyama's reign are more specifically identified by more than one era name or nengō.

 * Nanboku-chō southern court

 * Eras as reckoned by legitimate Court (as determined by Meiji rescript)
 * Kōwa           (1381–1384)
 * Genchū (1384–1393)

 * Nanboku-chō northern court

 * Eras as reckoned by pretender Court (as determined by Meiji rescript)
 * Eitoku         (1381–1384)
 * Shitoku        (1384–1387)
 * Kakei          (1387–1389)
 * Kōō            (1389–1390)
 * Meitoku        (1390–1393)‡

 * Post-Nanboku-chō reunified court

 * Eras merged as Meitoku 3 replaced Genchū 9 as Go-Kameyama abdicated.
 * Meitoku        (1393–1394)‡

title: Emperor Go-Kameyama


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Pylos

Pylos (, ; Πύλος), historically also known as Navarino, is a town and a former municipality in Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part of the municipality Pylos-Nestoras, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. It was the capital of the former Pylia Province. It is the main harbour on the Bay of Navarino. Nearby villages include Gialova, Pyla, Elaiofyto, Schinolakka, and Palaionero. The town of Pylos has 2,568 inhabitants, the municipal unit of Pylos 4,559 (2021). The municipal unit has an area of 143.911 km2.

Pylos has been inhabited since Neolithic times. It was a significant kingdom in Mycenaean Greece, with remains of the so-called "Palace of Nestor" excavated nearby, named after Nestor, the king of Pylos in Homer's Iliad. In Classical times, the site was uninhabited, but became the site of the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC, during the Peloponnesian War. After that, Pylos is scarcely mentioned until the 13th century, when it became part of the Frankish Principality of Achaea. Increasingly known by its French name of Port-de-Jonc or its Italian name Navarino, in the 1280s the Franks built the Old Navarino castle on the site. Pylos came under the control of the Republic of Venice from 1417 until 1500, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans used Pylos and its bay as a naval base, and built the New Navarino fortress there. The area remained under Ottoman control, with the exception of a brief period of renewed Venetian rule in 1685–1715 and a Russian occupation in 1770–71, until the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt recovered it for the Ottomans in 1825, but the defeat of the Turco-Egyptian fleet in the 1827 Battle of Navarino and the French military intervention of the 1828 Morea expedition forced Ibrahim to withdraw from the Peloponnese and confirmed Greek independence. The current city was built outside the fortress walls by the military engineers of the Morea expedition from 1829 and the name Pylos was revived by royal decree in 1833.

Name
Pylos retained its ancient name into Byzantine times, but after the Frankish conquest in the early 13th century, two new names appear:
 * a French one, Port-de-Jonc ("Rush Harbour") or Port-de-Junch, with some variants and derivatives: in Italian Porto-Junco, Zunchio or Zonchio, in medieval Catalan Port Jonc, in Latin Iuncum, Zonglon/Zonglos (Ζόγγλον/ς or Ζόγκλον/ς) in Greek, etc. It takes that name from the marshes surrounding the place.
 * a Greek one, Avarinos (Ἀβαρῖνος), later shortened to Varinos (Βαρῖνος) or lengthened to Anavarinos (Ἀναβαρῖνος) by epenthesis, which became Navarino in Italian (probably by rebracketing) and Navarin in French. Its etymology is not certain. A traditional etymology, proposed by the early 15th-century traveller Nompar de Caumont and repeated as late as the works of Karl Hopf in the 19th century, ascribed the name to the Navarrese Company, but that is clearly an error since the name was in use long before the Navarrese presence in Greece. In 1830, Fallmereyer proposed that it could originate from a body of Avars who settled there, a view adopted by a few later scholars like William Miller. Modern scholarship, on the other hand, considers it more likely that it originates from a Slavic name meaning "place of maples". The name of Avarinos/Navarino, although in use before the Frankish period, came into widespread use and eclipsed the French name of Port-de-Jonc and its derivations only in the 15th century, after the collapse of the Frankish Principality of Achaea.

In the late 14th or early 15th century, when it was held by the Navarrese Company, it was also known as Château Navarres, and called Spanochori (Σπανοχώρι, "village of the Spaniards") by the local Greeks.

Under Ottoman rule (1498–1685, 1715–1821), the Turkish name was Anavarin[o] (آناوارين). After the construction of the new Ottoman fortress (Anavarin kalesi) in 1571/2, it became known as Neokastro (Νεόκαστρο or Νιόκαστρο, "new castle") among the local Greeks, while the old Frankish castle became known as Palaiokastro (Παλαιόκαστρο or Παλιόκαστρο, "old castle").

Neolithic Pylos
The region of Pylos has a long history, which goes hand in hand with that of Peloponnese. It starts in the depths of prehistory, as the region has been inhabited since the Neolithic, when populations from Anatolia began to spread in the Balkans and Greece around 6500 BC, bringing with them the practice of agriculture and farming. Excavations have demonstrated a continuous human presence from the Late Neolithic period (5300 BC) on several sites of Pylia, in particular in those of Voidokilia and of Nestor's cave, where numerous ostraca or fragments of painted, black and polished ceramics have been found, as well as later engraved and written pottery. The Neolithic period ended with the appearance of bronze metallurgy around 3000 BC.

Mycenaean Pylos
During the Bronze Age (3000–1000 BC), the Mycenaean civilization developed, particularly in Peloponnese. Pylos then became the capital of one of the most important human centers of this civilization and of a powerful kingdom, often referred to as Nestor's kingdom of "sandy Pylos" (ἠμαθόεις) and described later by Homer in both his Iliad and his Odyssey (Book 17) when Telemachus says:

"we went to Pylos and to Nestor, the shepherd of the people, and he received me in his lofty house and gave me kindly welcome, as a father might his own son who after a long time had newly come from afar: even so kindly he tended me with his glorious sons." The Mycenaean state of Pylos (1600–1200 BC) covered an area of 2000 km2 and had a minimum population of 50,000 according to the Linear B tablets discovered there, or even perhaps as large as 80,000–120,000. It should not however be confused with the current city of Pylos. The urban center of ancient Pylos indeed remains only partially identified to date. The various archaeological remains of palaces and administrative or residential infrastructures that have been found in the region so far suggest to modern scholars that the ancient city would have developed over a much larger area, that of the Pylia Province. The typical point of reference for the Mycenaean city remains the Palace of Nestor, but many other palaces (such as those of Nichoria and Iklaina ) or villages (such as Malthi ) of the Mycenaean era have been recently discovered, which were quickly subordinated to Pylos. Its port and its acropolis were probably established on the Koryphasion promontory (or Cape Coryphasium) commanding the northern entrance to the bay, 4 km north of the modern city and south of Nestor's palace, but no remains were found.The Pylos site is located on the hill of Ano Englianos, about 9 km northeast of the bay 37.028°N, 21.695°W, near the village of Chora and about 17 kilometres from the modern city of Pylos. It hosts one of the most important Mycenaean palaces in Greece, known as the great "Palace of Nestor" described in the Homeric poems. This palace remains today the best preserved palace in Greece and one of the most important of all Mycenaean civilization. It was discovered and first excavated in 1939 by American archaeologist Carl Blegen (1887–1971) of the University of Cincinnati and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and by Konstantinos Kourouniotis (1872–1945) of the Greek archaeological service. Their excavations were interrupted by the Second World War, and then resumed in 1952 under the direction of Blegen until 1966. He found many architectural elements such as the throne room with its foyer, an anteroom, rooms and passageways all covered with frescoes of Minoan inspiration, and also large warehouses, the external walls of the palace, unique baths, galleries, and 90 meters outside the palace, a beehive "tholos" tomb, perfectly restored in 1957 (Tholos tomb IV). In addition to the archaeological remains of the palace, Blegen also found there thousands of clay tablets with inscriptions written in Linear B, a syllabic script used between 1425 and 1200 BC for writing Mycenaean Greek. Pylos is the largest source in Greece of these tablets with 1,087 fragments found on the site of the Nestor's Palace. In 1952, when self-taught linguist Michael Ventris and John Chadwick deciphered the script, Mycenaean Greek turned out to be the earliest attested form of Greek, some elements of which have survived in the language of Homer thanks to a long oral tradition of epic poetry. Thus, these clay tablets, generally used for administrative purposes or for recording economic transactions, clearly demonstrate that the site itself was already called "Pylos" by its Mycenaean inhabitants (Pulos in Mycenaean Greek; attested in Linear B as pu-ro, 𐀢𐀫). In 2015, the team of American archaeologists Sharon Stocker and Jack L. Davis of the University of Cincinnati and under the aegis of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, discovered near the Tholos tomb IV, a shaft tomb (non-tholos) dated to the Late Helladic IIA (LHIIA, 1600–1470 BC), of an individual of 30–35 years old and 1.70 m tall, the "Griffin warrior", named for the mythological creature, part eagle, part lion, engraved on an ivory plaque in his tomb. The tomb also contained armor, weapons, mirror and many pearl and gold jewels, including several gold signet rings of exceptional craftsmanship and thoroughness. Researchers believe it could be the grave of a Wanax, a tribal king, lord or military leader during the Mycenaean era. It was also in this tomb that was found the Pylos Combat Agate, a seal made of agate dated from around 1450 BCE, which represents a warrior engaged in a hand-to-hand combat. In 2017, the same team discovered two other exceptional tholos tombs, Tholos tombs VI and VII. Although their domes had collapsed, they discovered that they were littered with flakes of gold leaf that once papered the walls and found a multitude of cultural artifacts and delicate jewelry, including a gold pendant representing the head of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, which showed for the first time that Pylos clearly had trade relations with Egypt and the Middle East around 1500 BCE.

Pylos was the only palace of that time to have no walls or fortifications. It was destroyed by fire around 1180 BC and many clay tablets in linear B clearly bear the stigmata of the fire. The Linear B archives found there, preserved by the heat of the fire that destroyed the palace, mention hasty defence preparations due to an imminent attack without giving any detail about the attacking force. The site of the Mycenaean Pylos then seems to have been abandoned during the Dark Ages (1100–800 BC). The region of Pylos, together with that of the ancient Messene, was later enslaved by Sparta.

The ruins of a crude stone fortress on nearby Sphacteria, apparently of Mycenaean origin, were used by the Spartans during the Peloponnesian War. (Thucydides iv. 31)

Classical Pylos
It was one of the last places which held out against the Spartans in the Second Messenian War, after which the inhabitants emigrated to Cyllene, and from there, with the other Messenians, to Sicily. Its name is mentioned again in the seventh year of the Peloponnesian War. According to the Greek historian Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, the area was "together with most of the country round, unpopulated". The ancient city was not located at the modern Pylos, but north of the isle of Sphacteria. In 425 BC the Athenian politician Cleon sent an expedition to Pylos where the Athenians fortified the rocky promontory now known as Koryphasion (Κορυφάσιον) or Old Pylos at the northern edge of the bay, near the Gialova Lagoon, and after a conflict with Spartan ships in the Battle of Pylos, seized and occupied the bay. Demosthenes, the Athenian commander, completed the fort in 424 BC.

The erection of this fort led to one of the most memorable events in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides has given a minute account of the topography of the district, which, though clear and consistent with itself, does not coincide, in all points, with the existing locality, Thucydides describes the harbour, of which the promontory Coryphasium (Koryphasion) formed the northern termination, as fronted and protected by the island Sphacteria, which stretched along the coast, leaving only two narrow entrances to the harbour,--the one at the northern end, opposite to Coryphasium, being only wide enough to admit two triremes abreast, and the other at the southern end wide enough for eight or nine triremes. The island was about 15 stadia in width, covered with wood, uninhabited and untrodden. Pausanias also says that the island Sphacteria lies before the harbour of Pylos like Rheneia before the anchorage of Delos. A little later the Athenians captured a number of Spartan troops besieged on the adjacent island of Sphacteria (see Battle of Sphacteria). Spartan anxiety over the return of the prisoners, who were taken to Athens as hostages, contributed to their acceptance of the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC.

Middle Ages

Little is known of Pylos under Byzantine rule, except for a mention of raids by Cretan Saracens in the area c. 872/3. In the 12th century, the Muslim geographer al-Idrisi mentioned it as the "commodious port" of Irūda in his Nuzhat al-Mushtaq.

In 1204, following the Fourth Crusade, the Peloponnese became the Principality of Achaea, a Crusader state. Pylos fell quickly to the Crusaders according to a brief reference in the Chronicle of the Morea, but it is not until the 1280s that it is mentioned again. According to the French and Greek versions of the Chronicle, Nicholas II of Saint Omer, the lord of Thebes, who in c. 1281 received extensive lands in Messenia in exchange for his wife's possessions of Kalamata and Chlemoutsi, erected a castle at Navarino. According to the Greek version, he intended this as a future fief for his nephew, Nicholas III, although the Aragonese version attributes the construction to Nicholas III himself, a few years later. According to A. Bon, a construction under Nicholas II in the 1280s is more likely, possibly in the period 1287–89 when he served as the viceroy (bailli) of Achaea. Despite Nicholas II's intentions, however, it is unclear whether his nephew did indeed inherit Navarino. If he did, it remained his until his death in 1317, when it and all the Messenian lands of the family reverted to the princely domain, as Nicholas III had no children.

The fortress remained relatively unimportant thereafter, except for the naval battle in 1354 between Venice and Genoa, and an episode in 1364, during the conflict between Mary of Bourbon and the Prince Philip of Taranto, due to Mary's attempt to claim the Principality following the death of her husband, Robert of Taranto. Mary had been given possession of Navarino (along with Kalamata and Mani) by Robert in 1358, and the local castellan, loyal to Mary, briefly imprisoned the new Prince's bailli, Simon del Poggio. Mary retained control of Navarino until her death in 1377. At about this time, Albanians settled in the area, while in 1381/2, Navarrese, Gascon and Italian mercenaries were active there. From the early years of the 15th century, Venice set its eyes on the fortress of Navarino, fearing lest its rivals the Genoese seize it and use it as a base for attacks against the Venetian outposts of Modon and Coron. In the event, the Venetians seized the fortress themselves in 1417 and, after prolonged diplomatic manoeuvring, succeeded in legitimizing their new possession in 1423.

First Venetian and first Ottoman periods
In 1423, Navarino, like the rest of the Peloponnese, suffered its first Ottoman raid, led by Turakhan Bey, which was repeated in 1452. It was also at Navarino that Emperor John VIII Palaiologos embarked in 1437, heading for the Council of Ferrara, and where the last Despot of the Morea, Thomas Palaiologos, embarked with his family in 1460, following the Ottoman conquest of the Despotate of the Morea. After 1460, the fortress, along with the other Venetian outposts and Monemvasia and the Mani Peninsula, were the only Christian-held areas in the peninsula. Venetian control over Navarino survived the First Ottoman–Venetian War (1463–79), but not the Second (1499–1503): following the Venetian defeat in the Battle of Modon in August 1500, the 3,000-strong garrison surrendered, although it was well provisioned for a siege. The Venetians recaptured it shortly after, on 3/4 December, but on 20 May 1501, a joint Ottoman land and sea attack under Kemal Reis and Hadım Ali Pasha retook it.

The Ottomans used Navarino (which they called Anavarin or Avarna) as a naval base, either for piratical raids or for major fleet operations in the Ionian and Adriatic seas. In 1572/3, the Ottoman chief admiral (Kapudan Pasha) Uluç Ali Reis built a new fortress at Navarino (Anavarin-i Cedid, "New Navarino", or Νεόκαστρο, Neokastro in Greek), to replace the outdated Frankish castle.

The Venetians briefly captured Navarino in the 1650s during the Cretan War.

In 1668, Evliya Çelebi described the city in his Seyahatname: Anavarin-i Atik is an unequalled castle... the harbor is a safe anchorage... in most streets of Anavarin-i Cedid there are many fountains of running water... The city is embellished with trees and vines so that the sun does not beat into the fine marketplace at all, and all the city notables sit here, playing backgammon, chess, various kinds of draughts, and other board games....

Second Venetian period and Ottoman reconquest
In 1685, during the early stages of the Morean War, the Venetians under Francesco Morosini and Otto Wilhelm Königsmarck invaded the Peloponnese and captured most of it, successfully storming the two fortresses of Navarino in the process. With the peninsula safely in Venetian hands, Navarino became an administrative centre in the new "Kingdom of the Morea", as the Venetian province was called, until 1715, when the Ottomans recovered the Peloponnese. The Venetian census of 1689 gave the population as 1,413, while twenty years later it had risen to 1,797 inhabitants.

After the Ottoman reconquest, Navarino became the centre of a kaza in the Sanjak of the Morea. On 10 April 1770, after a six-day siege, the fortress of New Navarino surrendered to the Russians during the Orlov Revolt. The Ottoman garrison was allowed to depart for Crete, while the Russians repaired the fortress to make it their base. On 1 June, however, the Russians left, and the Ottomans re-entered the fort and burned and partially demolished it. Meanwhile, the population gathered there had escaped to nearby Sphacteria, where Albanian mercenaries of the Ottomans slaughtered most of them.

The Greek War of Independence of 1821
After the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman occupation in mid-March 1821, the Greeks quickly won many victories and proclaimed their independence on 1 January 1822. Navarino was besieged by the local Greeks on 29 March. The garrison, augmented by the local Muslim population of Kyparissia, held out until the first week of August, when they were forced to capitulate. Despite their promise for safe conduct, the Greeks massacred them all.

The Greek victories was short lived. The Sultan called for aid from his Egyptian vassal Muhammad Ali, who dispatched his son Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt to Greece with a fleet and 8,000 men, and later added 25,000 troops. Ibrahim's intervention proved decisive: the region of Pylos fell on 18 May 1825 after the battles of Sphacteria (8 May) and Neokastro (11 May), much of the Peloponnese was reconquered in 1825; the gateway town of Messolonghi fell in 1826; and Athens was taken in 1827. The only territory still held by Greek nationalists was in Nafplion, Mani, Hydra, Spetses and Aegina.

The Naval Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827)
A strong current of philhellenism had developed in Western Europe, especially after the fall in 1826 of Missolonghi, where the poet Lord Byron had died in 1824. Many artists and intellectuals like Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, Alexander Pushkin, Gioachino Rossini, Hector Berlioz or Eugène Delacroix (in his paintings Scenes massacres of Scio in 1824, and Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi in 1826), amplified the current of sympathy for the Greek cause in the public opinion. By the Treaty of London of July 1827, France, Russia and the United Kingdom recognised the autonomy of Greece, which remained a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The three powers agreed to a limited intervention in order to convince the Porte to accept the terms of the convention. A plan to send a naval expedition as a demonstration of force was proposed and adopted; subsequently a fleet of 27 warships of the allied navies of United Kingdom, France and Russia was sent to exert diplomatic pressure against Constantinople. It included twelve British ships (for 456 guns), seven French ships (352 guns) and eight Russian ships (490 guns), for a total firepower of nearly 1,300 guns. The Battle of Navarino (20 October 1827) resulted in the total destruction of the combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleet (around 60 warships destroyed).

An obelisk-shaped memorial dedicated to the victory of the Allied fleets and their three admirals, the British Edward Codrington, the French Henri de Rigny and the Russian Lodewijk van Heiden was later erected on the central square of Pylos. The monument was the work of the sculptor Thomas Thomopoulos (1873–1937) and its unveiling took place in 1930, although it was completed in 1933.

The liberation of Pylos (6 October 1828) and the construction of the modern city
On 6 October 1828, Pylos was definitively liberated from the Ottoman–Egyptian troops of Ibrahim Pasha by the French troops of the Morea expedition commanded by Marshal Nicolas-Joseph Maison. The mission of this expeditionary corps of 15,000 men, sent by king Charles X of France to the Peloponnese between 1828 and 1833, was to implement the Treaty London of 1827, an agreement under which the Greeks would have the right to an independent state. The French troops liberated the cities of Navarino (Pylos), Modon (Methoni), Coron (Koroni) and Patras in October 1828.

The current city of Pylos was built starting in the spring of 1829, outside the walls of Neokastro, on the model of the bastides of Southwest France and the cities of the Ionian Islands (which share common features, such as a central geometrical square bordered by covered galleries built with a succession of contiguous arches, each supported by a colonnade, as the arcades of Pylos or Corfu). Pylos's urban framework was designed by Joseph-Victor Audoy, lieutenant-colonel of the military engineering of the Morea expedition, who originated from Tarn, a department of Southwest France. This plan was approved by the governor of independent Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias on 15 January 1831, making it the second urban plan (after that of Methoni) in the history of the modern Greek state. The fortifications of Neokastro were raised, a barracks was built (the "Maison's building" which houses nowadays the Archaeological Museum of Pylos), many improvements were made to the city (installation of school, hospital, church, postal service, shops, bridges, squares, fountains, gardens, etc.), the old Ottoman aqueduct, which had fallen into ruins until 1828, was restored (it then served until 1907), and the road between Navarin and Modon, the first road of independent Greece (which is still used today), was also built by the French engineers.

Part of the Morea expedition were also 19 scientists from the "Morea Scientific Mission", whose work proved essential to the ongoing development of the new Greek State and, more broadly, marked a major milestone in the modern history of archaeology, cartography and natural sciences, as well as in the study of Greece. According to one of their population censuses in the province of Navarino in 1829, it had a total of 1,596 inhabitants. Some French merchants and officers of the Morea expedition, who remained in the city with their families after the troops returned to France in 1833, settled in a district located in the north of the city, near a Catholic church that has since been demolished. This district is still called today "Francomahalas" (in Greek: Φραγκομαχαλάς, from Arabic: محلة (mahallah), district) or "Francoklisa" (in Greek: Φραγκοκλησά, church of the French). The French always had a particular interest in the city, and at that time, the greatest French writers wrote texts specifically dedicated to Pylos, such as François-René de Chateaubriand in 1806, Eugène Sue and Victor Hugo in 1827, Edgar Quinet in 1830 and Alphonse de Lamartine in 1832.

In 1833, after the departure of the French, the name "Pylos" (in reference to the ancient city of King Nestor) was given to the new city of Navarino by royal decree of the newly installed king Otto I of Greece.

20th century
The fortress of Pylos was transformed into a place of deportation of political opponents during the totalitarian regime of Metaxas between 1936 and 1941. Administratively, Pylos was the seat of the Municipality of Pylos between 1912 and 1946, then became the seat of the Deme of Pylos between 1946 and 2010. Since the 2011 reform, Pylos has been the seat of the new Municipality of Pylos-Nestor.

Site
The city of Pylos is located at the foot of a promontory which extends Mount Aghios Nikolaos (482 m) and carries the fortress. It is located at the south-western end of Peloponnese, on the Ionian coast. It is an important shipping center and, in recent years, it has experienced significant tourist development, exploiting its magnificent coastline. The narrow island of Sphacteria serves as a natural breakwater for Navarino Bay, making the port of Pylos one of the safest anchors of the Ionian coast.

Communication
Pylos has excellent roads and all the communication amenities of a modern city. Greek National Road 82 departs from the center of Pylos and connects directly to Kalamata in less than an hour, and from there to Athens in two hours. Kalamata International Airport (KLX, Captain Vassilis C. Constantakopoulos Airport), which is expanding rapidly, offers many scheduled flights to the major cities of Greece, and many charter flights during the touristic season from many international destinations.

Population
According to the census of 2021, the municipality (deme) of Pylos-Nestor has 17,194 inhabitants. The municipal unit of Pylos has 4,559 inhabitants, while the community of Pylos has 2,568 inhabitants, making it the seventh most populous city in Messenia, after the capital Kalamata (58,816), Messini (5,958), Kyparissia (5,763), Filiatra (4,729), Gargalianoi (4,724) and Chora (2,609).

Navarino castles
The city of Pylos has two castles (Kastra): the Frankish Paleokastro (old castle) and the Ottoman Neokastro (new castle). The first is located northwest of Navarino Bay and north of the island of Sphacteria, while the second is southwest of the bay, on the heights of the city of Pylos. The Paleokastro, located on the top of the promontory of Coryphasium (Koryphasion) (which is in geological continuity with the island of Sphacteria from which it is only separated by the narrow pass of Sykia), is built on the site of the ancient acropolis of Pylos. It offers a panoramic view, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Plain of Pylia. Below is Nestor's cave, where, according to mythology, the king of Pylos raised his oxen, and the bay of Voidokilia, whose beach is regularly ranked among the most beautiful in the world. It borders the Gialova lagoon (Osman-aga lake), located to the east and Navarino bay to the south. However, access to the Paleokastro may present some risks for the safety of visitors, due to its great deterioration. On the other side of the Navarino bay, the Neokastro, which is in a better state of conservation, looks out onto the island of Sphacteria, the bay of Navarino, and the city. It is one of the best preserved castles in Greece. It contains within its walls the well-preserved Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior, built by the Franks, later transformed into a mosque, then again into a Christian church. In the pine forest of the Neokastro is also the old barracks built by the French troops of the Morea expedition, which now houses the new archaeological museum of Pylos.

Navarino aqueduct
South of the city of Pylos, on the road to Methoni, is the old Navarino aqueduct, built in the 16th century by the Ottomans to meet the water supply needs of the Neokastro. Composed by two hydraulic systems, it led the waters from the water intakes of the plateau of Koumbeh (located near the town of Chandrinou about 15 kilometers northeast of Pylos on the road to Kalamata) and Paleo Nero (located near the village of Palaionero). The two systems combined into a single system that can still be seen today around Pylos in the district of Kamares. Then, thanks to an underground conduit of the aqueduct, the water penetrated inside the fortress to feed there the fountains of the Neokastro.  Fallen into ruins until 1828, it was restored in 1832 by the French engineers of the Morea expedition, and was used to supply Pylos with water until 1907.

Pylos city center
Leaning against two hills, one of which is overlooked by the fortress of the Neokastro, the town of Pylos faces the bay of Navarino. Pylos preserves many houses from the 19th century. These are built of stone, with typical Messenian architecture and surrounded by spacious courtyards and gardens. They are built mainly between narrow streets, generally symmetrical, and according to the original urban plan established by French military engineers of the Morea expedition at the beginning of the 19th century. Many of the streets have retained their original stone paving, and several of those which climb the hills, are pedestrianized and have steps.

Near the seafront is the central city square, the Square of the Three Admirals, surrounded by buildings whose ground floor houses, most often under arcade galleries, markets, bakeries, shops and traditional cafes. The seaside, to the north-west of the city, follows a recently pedestrianized street which leads from the central square to the modern port, passing through the Francomahalas district. In this street, aligned along the old port, are several traditional fish taverns. The port is dominated by the City Hall of Pylos. Next to it is recently renovated two-story house of the Olympic champion Kostis Tsiklitiras, in which a museum has been installed, which exposes a collection of paintings, engravings and ancient documents collected by the French philhellene, historian and writer René Puaux (1878–1936). A little further, still following the seaside, is the historic building of the College of Pylos which was founded in September 1921 by royal decree and built in 1924. After the cessation of its activities in 1987, the building housed until very recently the Institute of Physical Astrophysics "Nestor" of the National Observatory of Greece. The institute is in charge of the international research project NESTOR and its underwater neutrino detector, which is installed more than 4,000 meters deep, in the deepest marine trench of the Mediterranean Sea, 31 km off Pylos. In September 1992, the historic building of the College of Pylos was classified by the Ministry of Culture as a Preserved Historic Monument  and will house soon in the near future the public library and gallery of the municipality of Pylos.

The city also has bank branches, a post office, various clinics, a health center, a fire station, a sailing school, nurseries, primary schools, a college, a high school and a music conservatory recognized by the State. The city is also home to several cultural and development associations.

The central square of the Three Admirals
Also built by French troops of the Morea expedition in 1829, the central square of Pylos is characterized by its triangular geometric pattern, one of the sides of which opens onto the sea and the port of Pylos, and whose two other sides are bordered by covered galleries with arcades, built with a succession of contiguous arches, each supported by a colonnade, recalling the architecture of the central squares of the bastides of Southwest France and those of the cities of the Ionian Islands (such as Corfu). These galleries are home to many small markets and businesses, as well as traditional and more modern cafes and restaurants. Most of their terraces extend over the square itself, which is shaded by several hundred-year-old plane trees. In the center, surrounded by two majestic phoenix, is a monument commemorating the battle of Navarino, an obelisk dedicated to the victory of the Allied fleets and their three admirals, the British Edward Codrington, the French Henri de Rigny and the Russian Lodewijk van Heiden.

Churches
On the eastern slope of Pylos hill is the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (Ieros Naos tis Kimiseos tis Theotokou), while to the west, inside the Neokastro, is the former Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior (Ieros Naos tis Metamorphosis tou Sotiros), both of which belong to the Metropolis of Messenia. The Church of the Transfiguration occasionally organizes religious activities (it has been converted into a museum and exhibition center), while that of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary still gathers many faithful during its regular services, and particularly during the celebration of Easter and the Myrtidiotissa Virgin (the Virgin with myrtles, to whom the church is dedicated) which attract many pilgrims from Athens and abroad who come to take part in processions that take place in the center of the city.

The port and the marina
The port of Pylos is one of the safest boarding destinations for ships traveling in the Mediterranean Sea. Navarino Bay continues to regularly serve as a shelter for ships during storms in the Mediterranean Sea. In addition, its strategic location between the Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea makes it an ideal destination for an intermediate station on the route to the Cyclades, the Dodecanese Islands or to Crete. With its modern pier, it frequently welcomes many cruise ships during the summer season. To the east of the port, there is also the marina of Pylos, for which a project of modernization is currently running to meet the requirements for the rapid tourism development of the region.

The Palace of Nestor
North of Pylos (17 km) and south of the town of Chora (4 kilometres), is the hill of Ano Englianos which houses the Mycenaean Bronze Age palace known as the "Palace of Nestor" (1600–1200 BC). This palace remains today in Greece the best preserved palace and one of the most important of all Mycenaean civilization. The remains of the palace consist of the throne room with its foyer, an anteroom, passageways, large warehouses, the external walls of the palace, unique baths, galleries, and 90 meters away from the palace, a beehive tholos tomb (funerary chamber with dome) perfectly restored in 1957 (Tholos tomb IV). Very recently, in 2015, the team of American archaeologists Sharon Stocker and Jack L. Davis of the University of Cincinnati discovered and excavated, near the palace, the tomb of the "Griffin Warrior", and even more recently in 2017, two other tholos tombs (Tholos tombs VI and VII), all three containing a multitude of cultural artifacts and jewels of exceptional delicacy (such as the Pylos Combat Agate or a golden pendant depicting the head of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, which show that Pylos had trading connections, previously unknown, with Egypt and the Near East around 1500 B.C.E). In June 2016, the site reopened to the public after 3 years of work to replace the old roof of the 1960s with a modern structure with elevated walkways for visitors. The archaeological site of the Palace of Nestor can be visited every day, except on holidays and on Tuesdays.

The Archaeological Museum of Chora
The archaeological museum is located in the center of the village of Chora, located 4 kilometres north of the Palace of Nestor. The museum was built in 1969 to house the artifacts discovered in Nestor's Palace and in the rest of the region. However, some of them are currently exposed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, in the first room devoted to Mycenaean civilization. The Museum of Chora has three rooms. The first room contains finds almost exclusively from the tombs of the region: pots, weapons and jewelry. The second room contains finds from the region of Englianos and from the Palace of Nestor. In addition to the large storage jars and other ceramics from the palace warehouses, there are some wall frescoes, such as that depicting a lyre player with a bird, as well as war and hunting scenes. In the last room are exposed other finds from the hill of Englianos and the Palace of Nestor and in particular part of the contents of the tombs of this region, such as giant vases, cups and jewelry. The Archaeological Museum of Chora can be visited every day, except on public holidays and on Tuesdays.

The lagoon of Gialova and the beaches of Voïdokilia and Divari
North of Navarino Bay, near the village of Gialova, the Gialova wetland (Osman-aga lake) is one of 10 major lagoons in Greece. Part of the Natura 2000 network, it is considered a place of remarkable natural beauty and as one of the important bird areas in Europe. It has also been listed as a 1500-acre archaeological site, lying between Gialova and the bay of Voidokilia. Its alternative name of Vivari is Latin, meaning 'fishponds'. With a depth, at its deepest point, of no more than four meters, its pond constitutes an ornithological reserve of exceptional importance in Europe, as it is the southernmost stopover of birds migrating between the Balkans and Africa. It gives shelter to no fewer than 270 bird species, among them greater flamingos, glossy ibis, grey herons, great egrets, little egrets, Eurasian curlews, golden plovers, black-winged stilts, great cormorants, common kingfishers, ruffs, garganeys, but also Audouin's gulls and birds of prey (lesser kestrels, ospreys, peregrine falcons and imperial eagles). It is Gialova, too, which plays host to a very rare species, nearing extinction throughout Europe, the African chameleon. The observation post of the Greek Ornithological Society allows visitors to find out more and to watch the shallow brackish waters of the lake; they can walk the paths that circumscribe Gialova's different ecosystems. At the western end of the lagoon is the small bay of Voidokilia, whose cove-shaped beach is regularly ranked among the most beautiful in the world. It is bordered on one side (to the east) by the Divari lagoon from which it is separated by a dune bank, on the other side (to the west) by the Ionian Sea onto which it opens, and finally on a third side (to the south) by the Navarino bay. The beach is also part of the Natura 2000 network. It is free to access and can be reached by two routes: either by a road from the village of Gialova which crosses the Divari lagoon, or by a path which crosses the village of Petrochori. On the northern promontory at the entrance to the Voidokilia lagoon is a Mycenaean beehive tholos tomb known as "Thrasymedes ', the son of king Nestor. On the heights of the beach, going up towards the Paleokastro, is the cave known as "Cave of Nestor", in which, according to mythology, the king of Pylos was raising his oxen.

On the way from Voïdokilia to the village of Gialova to the east, an asphalt road follows the narrow strip of land passing between the Divari lagoon and Navarino bay. Along this road is a long white sandy beach which runs along the bay of Navarino: the Beach of the Golden Coast (Paralia tis Chrysis Aktis) or Divari beach. It joins to the east another beach, within the village of Gialova, the beach of Gialova.

Events
Since 2017, every year around October 20, the "Navarinia" are organized in memory of the battle of Navarino (20 October 1827) by the municipality of Pylos-Nestor and the volunteers of the local association who is in charge to organize the event. Spread over a period of several days, the celebrations culminate on the anniversary of the battle in the port of Pylos, with the participation of the Hellenic Navy and diplomatic and military representatives of the three Allied countries. Frigates of the Hellenic, British, French and Russian navies, as well as many old sailing ships take part in the reenactment of the famous battle organized with an impressive sound and light show. The evening most often ends with the firing of a reconstructed ship that supposedly took part in the battle and with an impressive fireworks display fired from the port.

The celebrations are also accompanied on previous days by various cultural events that take place in parallel in other parts of the city (ceremonies and tributes to the dead on the various memorials of Pylos and of the region, national and international conferences, parades in the streets of Pylos, traditional musical and dance performances, etc.). Although organized at the end of the touristic season, these celebrations generally attract a large crowd of spectators. In 2019, the demonstrations, which took place in the presence of the President of the Hellenic Republic, gathered more than 10,000 visitors. In 2020, the Navarinia have been awarded the Gold Tourism Award 2020 in the category Cultural Tourism.

Notable people

 * Nestor : hero of Greek mythology, son of Neleus and Chloris and legendary king of Pylos. According to Homer, he is the oldest and wisest of the heroes of the Trojan War.
 * Periclymenus: hero of Greek mythology, son of Neleus and Chloris and an Argonaut.
 * Edward Codrington (1770–1851) : British admiral, commander of the British fleet during the Battle of Navarino.
 * Lodewijk van Heiden (1773–1850) : Russian admiral, commander of the Russian fleet during the Battle of Navarino.
 * Henri de Rigny (1782–1835) : French admiral, commander of the French fleet during the Battle of Navarino and Minister of Marine (1831), and then of Foreign Affairs (between 1834 and 1835).
 * Nicolas-Joseph Maison (1770–1851) : Chief commander of the Morea expedition (between 1828 and 1829), Marshal of France (1829), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1830), and then of Minister of War (between 1835 and 1836).
 * Joseph-Victor Audoy (1782–1871) : Lieutenant-colonel and commander of the military engineering of the Morea expedition, he was commissioned by the governor of Greece Ioannis Kapodistrias to draw up the first urban plan for Pylos and then to build the current city from 1829.
 * Carl Blegen (1887–1971) : American archaeologist, he directed the first archaeological excavations of the Palace of Nestor between 1939 and 1952.
 * Konstantinos Tsiklitiras (1888–1913) : Athlete and Olympic champion, who won medals at the 1908 London Summer Olympics ( Silver medal in Standing long jump, Silver medal in Standing high jump) and at the 1912 Stockholm Summer Olympics ( Gold medal in Standing long jump,  Bronze medal in Standing high jump).
 * Antonis Samaras (1951–) : former Prime Minister of Greece between 2012 and 2015, several times Minister and MP for the region of Pylos since 1977.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pylos


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Rocky

Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the first installment in the Rocky franchise and also stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, and Burgess Meredith. In the film, Rocky Balboa (Stallone), a poor small-time club fighter and loanshark debt collector from Philadelphia, gets an unlikely shot at the world heavyweight championship held by Apollo Creed (Weathers).

Rocky entered development in March 1975, after Stallone wrote the screenplay in three days. It entered a complicated production process after Stallone refused to allow the film to be made without him in the lead role; United Artists eventually agreed to cast Stallone after he rejected a six figure deal for the film rights. Principal photography began in January 1976, with filming primarily held in Philadelphia; several locations featured in the film, such as the Rocky Steps, are now considered cultural landmarks. With an estimated production budget of under $1 million, Rocky popularized the rags to riches and American Dream themes of sports dramas which preceded the film.

Rocky had its premiere in New York City on November 20, 1976, and was released in the United States on December 3, 1976. Rocky became the highest-grossing film of 1976, earning approximately $225 million worldwide. The film received critical acclaim for Stallone's writing, as well as the film's performances, direction, musical score, cinematography and editing; among other accolades, it received ten Academy Award nominations and won three, including Best Picture. It has been ranked by numerous publications as one of the greatest films of all time, as well as one of the most iconic sports films ever.

Rocky and its theme song have become a pop-cultural phenomenon and an important part of 1970s American popular culture. In 2006, the Library of Congress selected Rocky for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The first sequel in the series, Rocky II, was released in 1979.

Plot
In 1975, heavyweight boxing world champion Apollo Creed plans to hold a title bout in Philadelphia during the upcoming United States Bicentennial. However, he is informed five weeks from the fight date that his scheduled opponent is unable to compete due to an injured hand, and that all other potential replacements are either booked up or unable to get into shape in time. Having already invested heavily into the fight, Creed decides to give a local contender a chance to challenge him.

Creed selects Rocky Balboa, an Italian-American journeyman southpaw boxer who fights primarily in small gyms and works as a collector for a Mafia loan shark, on the basis of his nickname, "The Italian Stallion". Rocky fights in a local Philadelphia fight club, and he won his last fight with Spider Rico. He meets with promoter George Jergens, who tells him Creed has selected Rocky to fight him for the World Heavyweight Championship. Reluctant at first, Rocky eventually agrees to the fight, which will pay him $150,000. Rocky undergoes several weeks of unorthodox training, such as using sides of beef as punching bags.

Rocky is later approached by Mickey Goldmill, a former bantamweight fighter-turned-trainer whose gym Rocky frequents, about further training. Rocky is not willing initially, as Mickey has not shown much interest in helping him before and saw him as a wasted talent, but eventually Rocky accepts the offer.

Rocky begins to build a romantic relationship with Adrian Pennino, a shy woman who is working part-time at the J&M Tropical Fish pet store. Adrian's brother and Rocky's best friend, Paulie, helps Rocky get a date with his sister and offers to work as a cornerman with him for the fight, an offer Rocky turns down. Paulie becomes jealous of Rocky's success, but Rocky placates him by agreeing to advertise the meat packing business where Paulie works for sponsorship as part of the upcoming fight, and both of them reconcile. Rocky trains extensively for the championship fight, while Apollo is unconcerned about the match and puts more effort into promotion than training. The night before the match, Rocky visits the Spectrum and begins to lose confidence. He confesses to Adrian that he does not believe he can win, but strives to go the distance against Creed, which no other fighter has done, to prove himself to everyone.

On New Year's Day, the fight is held with Creed making a dramatic entrance dressed as George Washington and then Uncle Sam. Taking advantage of his overconfidence, Rocky knocks him down in the first round—the first time that Creed has ever been knocked down. Humbled and worried, Creed takes Rocky more seriously for the rest of the fight, though his ego never fully fades. The fight goes on for the full fifteen rounds, with both combatants sustaining various injuries: Rocky, with hits to the head and swollen eyes, requires his right eyelid to be cut to restore his vision, while Apollo, with internal bleeding and a broken rib, struggles to breathe. As the fight concludes, Creed's superior skill is countered by Rocky's apparently unlimited ability to absorb punches and his dogged refusal to go down. As the final bell sounds, with both fighters embracing each other, they promise each other there will be no rematch.

The fight is extremely well received by the sportscasters and the audience. Rocky calls out repeatedly for Adrian, who runs down as Paulie distracts security to help her get into the ring. As Jergens declares Creed the winner by virtue of a split decision, Rocky and Adrian embrace and profess their love for each other, not caring about the outcome of the fight.

Cast

 * Sylvester Stallone as Robert "Rocky" Balboa
 * Talia Shire as Adriana "Adrian" Pennino
 * Burt Young as Paulie Pennino
 * Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed
 * Burgess Meredith as Michael "Mickey" Goldmill
 * Thayer David as George "Miles" Jergens
 * Joe Spinell as Tony Gazzo
 * Tony Burton as Tony "Duke" Evers
 * Pedro Lovell as Spider Rico
 * Stan Shaw as "Big Dipper" Brown
 * Jodi Letizia as Marie
 * Frank Stallone as Streetcorner Singer
 * Joe Frazier as Himself

Development and writing
Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky in three and a half days, shortly after watching the championship match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner that took place at Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, on March 24, 1975. Wepner was TKO'd in the 15th round of the match by Ali, with few expecting him to last as long as he did. Despite the match motivating Stallone to begin work on Rocky, he has denied Wepner provided any inspiration for the script. Other inspiration for the film may have included characteristics of real-life boxers Rocky Marciano and Joe Frazier, as well as Rocky Graziano's autobiography Somebody Up There Likes Me and the movie of the same name. Wepner sued Stallone, and eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.

Henry Winkler, Stallone's co-star in The Lords of Flatbush who then broke out as Arthur Fonzarelli on ABC's Happy Days, said he had taken the script to executives at the network. They expressed interest in turning it into a made-for-television movie and actually bought the script but insisted that someone else re-write it. Upon hearing the news, Stallone begged Winkler not to let ABC change writers, so Winkler went back to the executives and offered to return the money in exchange for the rights. While ABC refused at first, Winkler said he was able to use his status as one of its biggest stars at the time to convince them to sell the rights back.

At the time, Film Artists Management Enterprises (FAME), a joint venture between Hollywood talent agents Craig T. Rumar and Larry Kubik, represented Stallone. He submitted his script to Rumar and Kubik, who immediately saw the potential for it to be made into a motion picture. They shopped the script to various producers and studios in Hollywood but were repeatedly rejected because Stallone insisted that he be cast in the lead role. Eventually, they secured a meeting with Winkler-Chartoff productions (no relation to Henry Winkler). After repeated negotiations with Rumar and Kubik, Winkler-Chartoff agreed to a contract for Stallone to be the writer and also star in the lead role for Rocky.

United Artists liked Stallone's script and viewed it as a vehicle for a well-established star like Robert Redford, Ryan O'Neal, Burt Reynolds, or James Caan. Stallone's agents insisted that Stallone portray the title character, to the point of issuing an ultimatum. Stallone later said that he would never have forgiven himself had the film become a success with somebody else in the lead. He also knew that producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff's contract with the studio enabled them to "greenlight" a project if the budget was kept low enough. The producers also collateralized any possible losses with their big-budget entry, New York, New York (whose eventual losses were covered by Rocky success). The film's production budget ended up being $1,075,000, with a further $100,000 spent on producers' fees and $4.2 million on advertising costs.

Pre-production
Although Chartoff and Irwin Winkler were enthusiastic about the script and the idea of Stallone playing the lead character, they were hesitant about having an unknown headline the film. The producers also had trouble casting other major characters in the story, with Apollo Creed and Adrian cast unusually late by the production standards. Real-life boxer Ken Norton was initially sought for the role of Apollo Creed, but he pulled out and the role was ultimately given to Carl Weathers. Norton, upon whom Creed was loosely based, fought Muhammad Ali three times. According to The Rocky Scrapbook, Carrie Snodgress was originally chosen to play Adrian, but a money dispute forced the producers to look elsewhere. Susan Sarandon and Cher auditioned for the role but Sarandon was deemed too pretty for the character and Cher too expensive. After Talia Shire's ensuing audition, Chartoff and Winkler, and director John Avildsen, insisted that she play the part.

Philadelphia based boxer Joe Frazier has a cameo appearance in the film. Outspoken boxer Muhammad Ali, who fought Frazier three times, influenced the character of Apollo Creed. During the 49th Academy Awards ceremony in 1977, Ali and Stallone staged a brief comic confrontation to show the film did not offend Ali. Frazier has claimed that some of the plot's most memorable moments—Rocky's carcass-punching scenes and Rocky running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of his training regimen—are taken without credit from his own real-life exploits.

Because of the film's comparatively low budget, members of Stallone's family played minor roles. His father rings the bell to signal the start and end of a round; his brother Frank plays a street corner singer, and his first wife, Sasha, was stills photographer. Other cameos include former Philadelphia and then Los Angeles television sportscaster Stu Nahan playing himself, alongside radio and TV broadcaster Bill Baldwin; and Lloyd Kaufman, founder of the independent film company Troma, appearing as a drunk. Diana Lewis, then a news anchor in Los Angeles and later in Detroit, has a minor scene as a TV news reporter. Tony Burton appears as Apollo Creed's trainer, Tony "Duke" Evers, a role he would reprise throughout the entire Rocky series, though the character is not named until Rocky II. Michael Dorn, who would later gain fame as the Klingon Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, made his acting debut, albeit uncredited, as Creed's bodyguard.

Filming
Principal photography for Rocky began on January 9, 1976. Filming took place primarily throughout Philadelphia, with a few scenes being shot in Los Angeles. Rocky's house was in E Tusculum St 1818 in Philadelphia. Inventor Garrett Brown's new Steadicam was used to accomplish smooth photography while running alongside Rocky during the film's Philadelphia street training sequences and the run up the Art Museum's flight of stairs, now colloquially known as the Rocky Steps. It was also used for some shots in the fight scenes and can be seen at the ringside during some wide shots of the final fight. Rocky is often erroneously cited as the first film to use the Steadicam, although it was actually the third, after Bound for Glory and Marathon Man.

Certain elements of the story were altered during filming. The original script had a darker tone: Mickey was portrayed as racist, and the script ended with Rocky throwing the fight after realizing he did not want to be part of the professional boxing world after all.

Both Stallone and Weathers suffered injuries during the shooting of the final fight; Stallone suffered bruised ribs and Weathers suffered a damaged nose, the opposite injuries of what their characters had.

The first date between Rocky and Adrian, in which Rocky bribes a janitor to allow them to skate after closing hours on a deserted ice skating rink, was shot that way due to budgetary concerns—the scene was originally scheduled to be shot in a public skating rink during regular business hours, but the producers decided they could not afford the hundreds of extras that would have been required.

The poster seen above the ring before Rocky fights Apollo Creed shows Rocky wearing red shorts with a white stripe when he actually wears white shorts with a red stripe. When Rocky points this out, he is told that "it doesn't really matter, does it?" According to director Avildsen's DVD commentary, this was an actual mistake made by the props department that they could not afford to rectify, so Stallone wrote the brief scene to ensure the audience did not see it as a goof. Conversely, Stallone has said he was indeed supposed to wear red shorts with a white stripe as Rocky, but changed to the opposite colors "at the last moment". Similarly, when Rocky's robe arrived far too baggy on the day it was needed for filming, Stallone wrote in dialogue where Rocky points this out.

Soundtrack
Bill Conti composed the musical score for Rocky. He had composed a score for director John G. Avildsen's W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) that the studio ultimately rejected. David Shire (then-husband of Talia Shire) was the first to be offered the chance to compose the music for Rocky but had to turn it down because of prior commitments. Avildsen reached out to Conti without any studio help because of the film's relatively low budget. Avildsen said, "The budget for the music was 25 grand. And that was for everything: The composer's fee, that was to pay the musicians, that was to rent the studio, that was to buy the tape that it was going to be recorded on."

The main theme song, "Gonna Fly Now", made it to number one on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 list for one week (from July 2 to July 8, 1977) and the American Film Institute placed it 58th on its AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs. United Artists Records released the soundtrack album on November 12, 1976. EMI re-released the album on CD and cassette.

Frank Stallone's song "Take You Back" is also on the soundtrack, and he also sings the song in the movie with other friends around a trash can fire.

Theatrical
The movie began with two premieres in New York, starting with the world premiere for Rocky, which would take place at Paramount Theatre in New York City on Saturday, November 20, 1976, by United Artists and the other on the day after Sunday, November 21, 1976, by United Artists at Cinema II in New York City. The Los Angeles premiere took place at the Plaza in Westwood Village on December 1, 1976. This was then followed by a full official release on December 3, 1976, all throughout North America in the United States and Canada.

Home media

 * 1980 UK video release by Intervision Betamax, VHS (Rental Only)
 * 1982 – CED Videodisc, Betamax and VHS; VHS release is rental only; 20th Century Fox Video release, Warner Home Video has rest of the World rights
 * October 27, 1990 (VHS and LaserDisc)
 * April 16, 1996 (VHS and LaserDisc)
 * March 24, 1997 (DVD)
 * April 24, 2001 (DVD, also packed with the Five-Disc Boxed Set)
 * 2001 (VHS, 25th anniversary edition)
 * December 14, 2004 (DVD, also packed with the Rocky Anthology box set)
 * February 8, 2005 (DVD, also packed with the Rocky Anthology box set)
 * December 5, 2006 (DVD and Blu-ray Disc – 2-Disc Collector's Edition, the DVD was the first version released by Fox and was also packed with the Rocky Anthology box set and the Blu-ray was the first version released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment)
 * December 4, 2007 (DVD box set – Rocky The Complete Saga. This new set contains the new Rocky Balboa, but does not include the recent 2 disc Rocky. There are still no special features for Rocky II through Rocky V, although Rocky Balboa's DVD special features are all intact.)
 * November 3, 2009 (Blu-ray box set – Rocky The Undisputed Collection. This release included six films in a box set. Previously, only the first film and Rocky Balboa were available on the format. Those two discs are identical to their individual releases, and the set also contains a disc of bonus material, new and old alike. )
 * May 6, 2014 - Blu-ray re-release with an all new 4K remaster and the previous special features of the old release.
 * October 13, 2015 – Blu-ray box set, Rocky Heavyweight Collection 40th Anniversary Edition. All six films plus over three hours of bonus material, including the 4K remaster of the first film.

Box office
Rocky grossed $5,488 on its opening day at Cinema II, a house record. When it was released nationally, it grossed $5 million during its first wide weekend and consistently performed well for eight months and eventually reached $117 million at the North American box office. Adjusted for inflation in 2018, the film earned over $500 million in North America alone. Overseas, Rocky grossed $107 million, for a worldwide box office total of $225 million. With its production budget of just under $1 million, Rocky is notable for its worldwide percentage return of over 11,000 percent. It was the highest-grossing film released in 1976 in the United States and Canada and the second highest-grossing film of 1977, behind Star Wars.

Critical response
Rocky received positive reviews at the time of its release. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 4 out of 4 stars and said that Stallone reminded him of "the young Marlon Brando." Box Office Magazine claimed audiences would be "touting Sylvester 'Sly' Stallone as a new star". Frank Rich liked the film, calling it "almost 100 per cent schmaltz", but favoring it over the cynicism that was prevalent in movies at that time, although he referred to the plot as "gimmicky" and the script "heavy-handed". Several reviews, including Richard Eder's (as well as Canby's negative review), compared the work to that of Frank Capra.

The film, however, did not escape criticism. Vincent Canby, of The New York Times, called it "pure '30s make believe" and dismissed both Stallone's acting and Avildsen's directing, calling the latter "none too decisive". Andrew Sarris found the Capra comparisons disingenuous: "Capra's movies projected more despair deep down than a movie like Rocky could envisage, and most previous ring movies have been much more cynical about the fight scene"; commenting on Rocky's work for a loan shark, Sarris says the film "teeters on the edge of sentimentalizing gangsters". He found Meredith "oddly cast in the kind of part the late James Gleason used to pick his teeth".

In modern times, the film enjoys a reputation as a classic and still receives nearly universal praise. On the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 92% approval rating based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critics consensus states: "This story of a down-on-his-luck boxer is thoroughly predictable, but Sylvester Stallone's script and stunning performance in the title role brush aside complaints."

One of the positive online reviews came from the BBC Films website, with both reviewer Almar Haflidason and BBC online users giving it 5/5 stars. In Steven J. Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, Schneider says the film is "often overlooked as schmaltz".

In 2006, the Library of Congress selected Rocky for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Accolades
The Directors Guild of America awarded Rocky its annual award for best film of the year in 1976, and in 2006, Sylvester Stallone's original screenplay for Rocky was selected by the Writers Guild of America as the 78th best screenplay of all time.

Rocky is also ranked as the 65th best-directed film of all time by the Directors Guild of America and as one of the 75 best-edited films in all of cinema in a 2012 survey of members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. FilmSite.org, a subsidiary of American Movie Classics, included the film on their list of the 300 greatest films of all time. Additionally, Films101.com ranked Rocky as the 228th best of all time.

In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 Top 10—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Rocky was acknowledged as the second-best film in the sports genre, after Raging Bull.

In 2014, Rocky was ranked #95 by British film magazine Empire on their list of The 301 Greatest Movies of All Time, It was ranked #370 on their previous list of the 500 greatest films in 2008. Conversely, in a 2005 poll by Empire, Rocky was No. 9 on their list of "The Top 10 Worst Pictures to Win Best Picture Oscar".

In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter polled hundreds of Academy members, asking them to re-vote on past controversial decisions. Academy members indicated that, given a second chance, they would award the 1977 Oscar for Best Picture to All the President's Men instead.

Year-end lists
Rocky has also appeared on several of the American Film Institute's 100 Years lists.
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998) – #78
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001) – #52
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions (2002) – Nominated
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains (2003)
 * Rocky Balboa – #7 Hero
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs (2004)
 * "Gonna Fly Now" – #58
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes (2005)
 * "Yo, Adrian!" – #80
 * AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores (2005) – Nominated
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers (2006) – #4
 * AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (2007) – #57
 * AFI's 10 Top 10 (2008) – #2 Sports Film

Sequels
The film's success led to eight sequels, beginning with Rocky II in 1979. Followed by Rocky III in 1982, Rocky IV in 1985, Rocky V in 1990, Rocky Balboa in 2006, Creed in 2015 and Creed II in 2018. Another sequel, titled Creed III, was released in 2023; however, Stallone did not appear in the film.

Possible prequel
In July 2019, Stallone said in an interview that there have been ongoing discussions about a prequel to the original film based on the life of a young Rocky Balboa.

Rocky Steps
The famous scene of Rocky running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art has become a cultural icon, with the steps acquiring the vernacular title of "Rocky Steps". In 1982, a statue of Rocky, commissioned by Stallone for Rocky III, was placed at the top of the Rocky Steps. City Commerce Director Dick Doran claimed that Stallone and Rocky had done more for the city's image than "anyone since Ben Franklin".

Differing opinions of the statue and its placement led to a relocation to the sidewalk outside the Spectrum Arena, although the statue was temporarily returned to the top of the steps in 1990 for Rocky V, and again in 2006 for the 30th anniversary of the original Rocky (although this time it was placed at the bottom of the steps). Later that year, it was moved permanently to a spot next to the steps.

The scene is frequently parodied in other media. In the 2008 movie You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Zohan's nemesis, Phantom, goes through a parody training sequence finishing with him running up a desert dune and raising his hands in victory. In the fourth-season finale of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, as the credits roll at the end of the episode, Will is seen running up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; however, as he celebrates after finishing his climb, he passes out in exhaustion, and while he lies unconscious on the ground, a pickpocket steals his wallet and his wool hat. In The Nutty Professor, there is a scene where Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy) struggles to, and eventually succeeds at, running up a lengthy flight of steps on his college campus, victoriously throwing punches at the top.

In 2006, E! named the "Rocky Steps" scene number 13 on its 101 Most Awesome Moments in Entertainment list.

During the 1996 Summer Olympics torch relay, Philadelphia native Dawn Staley was chosen to run up the museum steps. In 2004, presidential candidate John Kerry ended his pre-convention campaign at the foot of the steps before going to Boston to accept his party's nomination for president.

Novelization
Upon the film's release, a paperback novelization of the screenplay written by Rosalyn Drexler under the pseudonym Julia Sorel and published by Ballantine Books was released.

Video games
Several video games have been produced based on the film. Rocky was released in 1987 for the Master System. Rocky was released in 2002 for the GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, and Xbox, and a sequel, Rocky Legends, was released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. In 2016, Tapinator released a mobile game named ROCKY for the iOS platform, with a planned 2017 release for Google Play and Amazon platforms.

Musical
A musical was written by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics and music), with the book by Thomas Meehan, based on the film. The musical premiered in Hamburg, Germany in October 2012. It began performances at the Winter Garden Theater on Broadway on February 11, 2014, and officially opened on March 13, 2014.

Documentaries
Rocky is featured in the 2017 documentary John G. Avildsen: King of the Underdogs about Academy Award-winning Rocky director John G. Avildsen, directed and produced by Derek Wayne Johnson.

Stallone later hand-picked Johnson to direct and produce a documentary on the making of the original Rocky, entitled 40 Years of Rocky: The Birth of a Classic, which was released in 2020. The documentary features Stallone narrating behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the film.

Parodies
Rocky has been parodied a lot over the years, even getting a feature length spoof called Ricky 1 in 1988. In 1986, Aki Kaurismaki, a Finnish director, made an 8-minute spoof of Rocky IV called "Rocky VI".

National Museum of American History
The red satin robe and black hat worn by Stallone in Rocky are featured in the National Museum of American History. Likewise, the red gloves worn by Stallone in Rocky II (1979), his white Nike boxing shoes, and striped boxing trunks from Rocky III (1981) are archived at the museum. All items were on display for a temporary period following Stallone's donation in 2006, and have since been moved to the museum archives.

title: Rocky