Ancient Paleros was a city of ancient Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, situated in the northwest part of what is now the region ('periphery

Peripheries of Greece

The current official regional administrative divisions of Greece were instituted in 1987. Although best translated into English as "regions", the transcription peripheries is sometimes used, perhaps to distinguish them from the traditional regions which they replaced. The English word 'periphery'...

') of Epirus

Epirus (periphery)

Epirus , formally the Epirus Region , is a geographical and administrative region in northwestern Greece. It borders the regions of West Macedonia and Thessaly to the east, West Greece to the south, the Ionian Sea and the Ionian Islands to the west and the country of Albania to the north. The...

. During the antiquity it part of Acarnania

Acarnania

Acarnania is a region of west-central Greece that lies along the Ionian Sea, west of Aetolia, with the Achelous River for a boundary, and north of the gulf of Calydon, which is the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Today it forms the western part of the prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania. The capital...

, according to the Theodorokoi. The city, ruinous for centuries, is thought to have existed during the Mycenean

Helladic period

Helladic is a modern archaeological term meant to identify a sequence of periods characterizing the culture of mainland ancient Greece during the Bronze Age. The term is commonly used in archaeology and art history...

 period, since parts of the city walls appear to date back to 2000 B.C. The construction of the walls interchanges between the square-shaped and the polygonal system and the parts belong to different periods.

It lies high in the mountains overlooking the Ionian sea

Ionian Sea

The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...

 and Lake Vourkaria. The city is thought to have had a population of over 10,000 people.

At nearby Actium

Actium

Actium was the ancient name of a promontory of western Greece in northwestern Acarnania, at the mouth of the Sinus Ambracius opposite Nicopolis, built by Augustus on the north side of the strait....

, Mark Antony

Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...

 and Cleopatra were defeated in a sea battle

Battle of Actium

The Battle of Actium was the decisive confrontation of the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was fought between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the city of Actium, at the Roman...

 by Octavius

Octavius

Octavius or Eudaf Hen is a figure of Welsh tradition. He is remembered as a King of the Britons and the father of Elen Luyddog and Conan Meriadoc in sources such as the Welsh prose tale The Dream of Macsen and Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae...

. According to tradition, the salt lake was the saviour of Cleopatra, who hid her ships there.

The citadel

Citadel

A citadel is a fortress for protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle. The term derives from the same Latin root as the word "city", civis, meaning citizen....

on the eastern part of the yard is separated by a partition and is considered to be the most ancient part of the wall, probably from the Mycenean period.

It is close to the present-day village of Paleros, Greece.