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PAtrai[pA´trA] Pronunciation Key or Patras[putrAs´, pat´rus] Pronunciation Key, Lat. Patrae, city (1991 pop. 153,344), capital of AkhaIa prefecture, central Greece, in the Peloponnesus. It is a port on the Gulf of PAtrai, which connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Ionian Sea. PAtrai is a commercial, industrial, and transportation center that ships currants, tobacco, wine, olive oil, and sheepskins. It was allied with Athens in the Peloponnesian War and became (3d cent. B.C.) a leading member of the Second Achaean League. It led a revolt against the Macedonians in 218 B.C. but sank into insignificance before the Roman conquest (146 B.C.) of Greece; it was revived (late 1st cent. B.C.) as a Roman military colony by Augustus and soon flourished as a port. The city was conquered by the French nobleman Geoffroi I de Villehardouin in 1205 and was included in the Latin principality of Achaia. PAtrai was captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1458, passed to Venice in 1687, and was retaken by the Turks in 1715. The city was destroyed (1821) in the Greek War of Independence and was rebuilt on a rectangular pattern by Count Capo d'Istria in 1829. A university is there.
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