Part 15

There existed in Thessaly a number of towns forming independent states by themselves; but that at the same time they were united by political bonds, is evident partly from the coins with the inscription κοινὸν Θεσσαλῶν, and partly from the fact, that in the πεντηκοντετηρίς, before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, kings of Thessaly, such as Orestes and Echecratides, are mentioned. We must, therefore, infer, that Thessaly formed one state; but at times the inhabitants of Larissa, Pharsalus, Pherae, and Cranon appear as citizens of independent towns, whence we may conclude that the bonds which connected them were extremely loose.

Thessaly, in its narrower sense, was divided into four parts, Phthiotis, Hestiaeotis, Thessaliotis, and Pelasgiotis. The principal passage on this subject is Strabo, ix. p. 430, _b._ and _c._; which, however, as printed in our editions, is senseless, and the beginning alone is correct. I will, therefore, mention to you the emendation I have made, for even the unrivalled Casaubonus was mistaken here. Instead of καλούμενοι δὲ Πελασγιῶται, we must read, in accordance with the MSS. cited by Casaubonus, καλούμενοι δὲ _Θεσσαλιῶται_; and immediately after this we must read, συνάπτοντες ἤδη τοῖς κάτω Μακεδόσι, καὶ οἱ _Πελασγιῶται_ ἐφεξῆς τὰ μέχρι Μαγνητικῆς παραλίας ἐκπληροῦντες χωρία, so that Πελασγιῶται is restored in the latter passage. Strabo, however, here confounds Phthiotis, the country of the Phthiotian Achaeans, with that part of Thessaly which the Thessalians had separated from the ancient Phthia and united with Thessaly. Phthia, in the sense of the Achaean country, is never any other than the district between the Malian gulf and the valley of the Peneus; but if we take it as the portion of Thessaly which the Thessalians had torn from it, and incorporated with their own country, it cannot have extended down to the gulf. Thessaly embraced the land from Pharsalus as far as Hestiaeotis, that is, as far as the upper part of the valley of the Peneus, in the neighbourhood of Tricca. The extent of Phthia was not rightly understood by the ancients themselves in their explanation of Homer. The passage in the Βοιωτία:—

Νῦν αὖ τοὺς ὅσσοι τὸ Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος ἔναιον οἵ τ’ Ἄλον, οἵ τ’ Ἀλόπην, οἵ τε Τρηχῖν’ ἐνέμοντο, οἵ τ’ εἶχον Φθίην ἠδ’ Ἑλλάδα καλλιγυναῖκα,

reads entirely as if Phthia and Hellas were towns. This fancy, for it is nothing but a fancy, took a firm hold even of the Alexandrian grammarians; but the verses must be transposed, οἵ τ’ εἶχον must follow directly after the line beginning with Νῦν αὖ. Both Hellas and Phthia are countries, and stand in apposition to the Pelasgian Argos.

This division into four parts applies only to Thessaly in the narrower sense, and is not so much of geographical interest, as it is of real political importance: there must at one time have existed four real Thessalian states standing to one another in the relation of isopolity, like the Romans and Hernicans, and the Samnite nations among one another. But this point, like all that concerns Thessaly, is involved in very great obscurity. This much, however, is certain, that the division was restored under Philip of Macedonia, who, for the purpose of breaking the power of Thessaly cut it up into four different states, just as afterwards the Romans did with Macedonia, and as, in 1812, Napoleon, while making the Poles believe that he was restoring their state, divided their country into three parts, in order to prevent its rising, at a great distance from him, to the rank of a powerful state. This is the tetrarchy of which Theopompus in Harpocration gives the well known explanation. Demosthenes (_Philip._ ii. p. 71, ed. Reiske), however, states that Philip divided Thessaly into decadarchies: this reading occurs indeed in all the MSS., but they are of little authority, as all of them are founded upon a single recension, and are perhaps derived from one original manuscript. From Harpocration, too, an author of the second century, we see that in his time this reading already existed, and puzzled him as well as other archaeologists. It is historically certain, that the Lacedaemonians, in every town that became subject to them, established a decadarchy, as at first they did at Athens, though they there increased the number to thirty; but how we have to view the statement in regard to Thessaly, is, as Harpocration admits, a matter of doubt. The explanation, however, is not so very difficult. The δεκαδαρχίαι in the second Philippic are, if we examine the context, quite the same as the tetrarchies in the third (p. 117). The fault arose from the compendious mode of writing: Δ in ancient Greek writing has, as a number, a double meaning; according to the common Phoenician practice it signified _four_, and according to the Attic system of writing _ten_. In nearly all the earlier inscriptions, where it occurs as a number, Δ signifies _ten_, as Π signifies _fifty_; when, therefore, Δ with a line (Δʹ) occurred before ἀρχία (ΔʹΑΡΧΙΑ), the reader knew that it indicated a number, but he made it either _ten_ or _four_, according as he imagined that he had before him an Attic or a common number; and if he was familiar with the Lacedaemonian decadarchy, he read in this passage also δεκαδαρχία. This division into tetrarchies, then, existed in the Macedonian period, but we do not know how long.

I will now put together the few fragments of Thessalian history which have come down to us. The family of the Aleuadae, a Heracleid family, was the most celebrated of all, and ruled at Larissa; it formed an oligarchy even within the ruling nation; at the time of the Persian wars it was so powerful as to be in possession of the whole government, and it is probable that the Thessalian kings mentioned by Thucydides belonged to it. The Scopadae were another great and noble family at Pharsalus. The nobility of Thessaly, like that of the Sarmatians and that of the middle ages, were numerous, whence the best part of the Thessalian armies consisted of horsemen; they scarcely had any infantry at all; a Thessalian phalanx does not occur anywhere, and peltasts are not mentioned till later times. Notwithstanding the state of dissolution in which we find Thessaly, there still existed a bond among the different states, which embraced even the neighbouring nations, the Magnetes, the Achaeans of Phthia, and the Peraebians; it is possible that the Thessalians, may have ruled over the tribes which touched upon their borders, but the latter were never really subdued by them, and the Peraebians seem to have been under the direct supremacy of Larissa. About thirty or forty years after the Peloponnesian war, when the disorganisation had increased, the town of Pherae, which had formerly been insignificant, rose into importance, and Jason, a man of great parts, came forward there as tyrant, and was elected dictator by the whole of Thessaly under the title of ταγός, in which capacity he ruled over Thessaly and even over the countries dependent on it. He was succeeded by his brothers, and then by his nephew Alexander; but his dynasty, like those of all usurpers in Greece, passed away, and afterwards Thessaly was in a state of greater dissolution than ever. The Aleuadae now renewed their claims, but the Thessalians happened at the time, in common with the Boeotians, to be involved in the unfortunate war against the Phocians, and Magnesia on that occasion recovered its independence. In these circumstances, Philip of Macedonia appeared among them under the mask of a friend, pretending that he would assist them, that he would subdue the Phocians, and reduce Magnesia to obedience; he was accordingly appointed tagus, and intrusted with the administration of their revenues arising from port dues and the tribute of their dependencies. Philip abused this ridiculous confidence, which was in reality an act of treason of the Thessalians against themselves, and put himself in permanent possession of the common domain of which he had undertaken the management, especially the Thessalian port of Pagasae, from which the revenues were very large. Thessaly, which was now divided into four parts, henceforth belonged to the crown of Macedonia. Very feeble attempts only were made by the Thessalians to recover their independence: in the Lamian war they endeavoured in vain to shake off the yoke, and the same was attempted in the subsequent wars against Cassander and Demetrius Poliorcetes. Thessaly, in the narrower sense, however, remained subject to Macedonia until the second Roman war of Philip. Under Antigonus Gonatas and Demetrius, the father of Philip, the Aetolians gained Achaia Phthiotis, which thus became separated. Philip recovered indeed a portion of it (Olymp. 140), but the greater part remained in the hands of the Aetolians, who even conquered parts of Thessaly Proper, such as Pharsalus, which, though it was recovered by the Macedonians, yet remained for a time in the hands of the Aetolians. Thessaly, however, even in its connection with Macedonia, continued to form a state by itself, with the exception of Magnesia, which was regarded as part of Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος, and where Demetrius Poliorcetes built the great fortress of Demetrias, which often served the Macedonian kings as a place of residence; it was very strong, and possessed a military port with arsenals for both the land army and the navy. When the Romans took Greece from Macedonia, Thessaly, as far as Mount Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, was separated from Macedonia, and obtained autonomy. It now formed a separate state, probably including the Peraebians and the Achaean Phthiotians; but Magnesia, which remained separate, surrendered to Antiochus, and afterwards remained in the possession of Philip, who had conquered it together with Demetrias, and with the sanction of the Romans retained it, a fact which has often been overlooked. Many believe that Philip was confined within the boundaries of Macedonia; but this is erroneous; his dominion extended over several other countries besides, for he was rewarded by the Romans with possessions, which afterwards they took from him. The fasti of the Thessalian strategi have come down to us in the Armenian translation of Eusebius; and from them we learn that the strategi were appointed for the whole of Thessaly in common, that Larissa not only had no privileges, but that they were sometimes chosen from smaller places, nay even from districts, as Phthiotis and Orestis, which had formerly been subject to Thessaly. One strategus belonged to Argos, which must have been Argos in Orestis, and not the Amphilochian Argos. During the war against Perseus, the Thessalians were in disgrace with the Romans; whether at that time they lost their autonomy cannot be proved with any degree of probability. In the war of the Pseudo-Philip, one part of the Thessalians joined him; but the history of that war is so obscure, that we cannot say whether they were independent or not. They seem, however, to have had, or at least to have recovered, a kind of autonomy, for during the war between Caesar and Pompey, the Thessalians appear as a state or κοινόν with a strategus (_praetor_). The Achaeans then had no common strategus, and this accordingly appears to prove the autonomy of the Thessalians. After this their history cannot be traced.

After the description I have already given of the physical features of Thessaly in the narrowest sense of the name, I have only to add a few remarks on some other points.

LARISSA was the most important town of Thessaly both in antiquity and the middle ages; and it is so still. Its situation is extremely favourable, the district around it being unusually fertile. Neither Larissa nor any other Thessalian town has a distinct history.

PHERAE, next to Larissa the greatest town, was situated in the plain towards the bay; it was not indeed as great as Larissa, but still a respectable town, and is renowned in mythology for the story of Admetus; in the historical times, Jason and his family gave a certain celebrity to it.

PHARSALUS, remarkable for the ever memorable battle which decided the fate of Rome, belonged for a time to the Aetolians.

TRICCA, a town of which considerable ruins still exist, was celebrated for the worship of Asclepius. At least twenty other Thessalian places are mentioned, but I will not detain you with an enumeration of their names, as they are not sufficiently known.

PAGASAE was the sea-port of Thessaly. The country, in its narrower sense, extended only thirty stadia along the sea-coast, beginning with the gulf of Pagasae or Iolcos; the Thessalians, therefore, had no fleet, though they may have had a few ships to keep up their commerce by sea. Pagasae had been united with their country for the sake of commerce; in the earlier times it is mentioned on several occasions, but it disappears during the Macedonian period, as Demetrius Poliorcetes transplanted all the inhabitants of the towns in that neighbourhood to his new fortress of Demetrias.

PERAEBIA, one of the three countries subject to Thessaly, extended along the foot of mount Olympus towards Macedonia; its mountainous parts were for a time independent, but afterwards surrendered to Thessaly; they did so, however, on more favourable terms than the Aeolian inhabitants of the plains; for, though they lost their political independence, they did not become serfs. The inhabitants were Epirots of the tribe of the Peraebians dwelling in the neighbourhood of Dodona.

The MAGNETES also belonged to the race of the Pelasgians. The Greek form of their name is Magnetes, though we are accustomed to say Magnesians, which is in reality incorrect. Their country embraced the whole coast of Thessaly from mount Ossa and the mouth of the Peneus down to the sea which separates Thessaly from Euboea, and the bay of Iolcos. The whole of mount Pelion belonged to Magnesia, which has few harbours on its coast, the most important being that in the bay of Iolcos. In the map of D’Anville and others of an earlier date, a considerable town of the name of Magnesia is marked near the end of the promontory; but this town never existed, it is a mere blunder, arising from a misunderstood passage of Apollonius Rhodius, who, in describing the voyage of the ship Argo along the coast, mentions Magnesia in such a manner that a person who is not a scholar might mistake it for a town. Scylax and Herodotus, who give a very accurate enumeration of the towns on that coast in their natural succession, do not mention one of the name of Magnesia, which they apply to the country alone. In Demosthenes, too, Magnesia is not a town.

According to their genealogy, the Magnetes belonged to the Pelasgians, but of their history nothing is known. In very early times, however, they also occur in Asia, either because they had emigrated thither, or because the Pelasgian races in Meonia bore the same name: and why should not the Magnetes in Europe have undertaken voyages from their coast to the East?

IOLCOS on the Anaurus in Magnesia, is the place from which the Argonautic expedition is said to have sailed. In the ancient story it appears as an important place of the Minyans, but afterwards it was only a very small town, which subsequently disappears altogether.

But instead of it there arose DEMETRIAS, on the modern bay of Volo, a splendid harbour in the neighbourhood of Iolcos: this town is one of those creations which shew the practical and keen eye of its founder. We have seen that the establishment of Megalopolis was an unsuccessful undertaking; Demetrias was a rude, immoral, detested, and odious man, but of uncommon ability, which he shewed in his great discoveries in mechanics and in the art of engineering; the same talent was manifested here also, for he chose a spot which had been neglected for centuries for the purpose of founding a capital of Greece, which he intended to govern as a kingdom. The fact that his son, Antigonus Gonatas, was enabled to maintain himself as king, without having a definite kingdom, was owing to Demetrias, for it was his place of residence, and his whole strength lay there; it became the capital of Magnesia which was governed by Macedonia as a province in a manner which is somewhat strange to us; for under those despotisms, small countries often had a republican form of government, in which the kings interfered but seldom. In like manner, the small islands of the Archipelago, before the outbreak of the present war, were governed by Constantinople: when a Turkish vessel appeared, the people trembled, the magistrates were called out, and if the commander was so minded, he put them to death. The relations in the Macedonian empire were of a similar kind; the provinces were bound to pay tribute and furnish troops, but otherwise they lived quite under democratic institutions; and when a king founded a city like Antioch or Alexandria, it received a mixed population of Greeks and Macedonians, and a republican municipal constitution. Demetrias, as I have already said, became the capital of Magnesia, when after the war of Philip the country became free, but it then threw itself into the arms of Antiochus. As a punishment for this, the Romans allowed it again to be subdued by Macedonia, and we find Perseus still in possession of it. We are perfectly ignorant as to the manner in which the Romans decided the fate of Magnesia and Demetrias because the last book of Livy has come down to us incomplete; it is not probable that they incorporated it with Thessaly or with Macedonia; it is more likely that, on account of the strength of Demetrias, they reserved for themselves the supremacy over it, and occupied it by a garrison.

The third dependent state was ACHAIA (Phthiotis). We are surprised to find this name here again; and the ancients unhesitatingly assume that emigrants from Peloponnesus had come to these parts, for which there is no authority at all. A thoughtful ethnographer is content with the observation that people of the same name lived in both countries, and that accordingly they were of the same origin, but he refrains from the attempt to explain the particular manner in which they were connected. Achaia formed a state under Thessalian supremacy, and it may have been somewhat more or less important than Brescia, Verona, or Padua under the supremacy of Venice. Brescia, _e.g._, was governed by a senate of forty persons, consisting of its own nobility; but the town was obliged to pay a certain tribute to Venice. The territory of Brescia again consisted of smaller states under the supremacy of Brescia. The government of Brescia in regard to the administration of justice, was subject to Venice, to which an appeal was open in criminal cases, and which, when appealed to, sent commissioners (_proveditore_) to re-examine the case. These gradations of dependence are quite obscure to us, and we cannot see our way clearly in them. We are apt to think only of a government from above, which makes the laws, but such was not the case in antiquity nor in the middle ages. Thus previously to the year 1798 there existed within the papal dominions several places, which stood indeed under the protection of the popes, but had their own laws, and even carried into execution sentences of death without the sanction of the sovereign. A person making himself familiar with the variety of the Swiss constitutions is going through an excellent course of preparation for a profound knowledge of ancient history.

The case of Achaia was precisely the same: it had the administration of its internal affairs, but no political independence; it was not allowed to carry on war on its own account, but was obliged to serve in the armies of Thessaly, and to pay a certain tribute according to the terms of its capitulation, and in extraordinary cases even more.

THEBE, the only important town of Phthiotis, was one of the strongest fortresses of Greece, being well fortified both by nature and by art. For a time it belonged, like the rest of Phthiotis, to the Aetolians, but was taken from them by Philip, and was one of the places out of which the Aetolians wanted to cheat the Romans, although the latter had well-founded claims to it. Hence their exasperation was natural enough, but the manner in which they gave vent to their rage and fury was senseless.

The MELIANS, a little people, dwelt on the Sperchius in the corner of the gulf called Μαλιακός or Πυλιακὸς κόλπος. It is strange to find a distinction made there between the Malians and Melians, though the difference appears to be only one of dialect. They are in reality but one people, and that too a very small one; the doubts cannot be satisfactorily solved. TRACHIS, the capital of the Melians, plays a prominent part in poetry for being the seat of Ceyx, and in the Heracleiae it was a place of great importance. In the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonians established there the colony of Heraclea; it was a Doric place and had Doric νόμιμα, although its population was a mass of people driven together from all quarters, but it had Spartan oecistae, that is, commanders who made the laws and established the constitution. This town of Heraclea maintained itself down to the latest times; during the Macedonico-Aetolian period, it belonged to Aetolia, and was called Ἡρακλεία ἡ ἐπὶ Τραχῖνι, but often simply Ἡρακλεία. It was taken by the Romans after the defeat of Antiochus.

The OETAEANS, likewise a very small people, lived in mount Oeta; they are generally overlooked in our geographical books and maps. But although they were a small people, they enjoyed perfect political independence, just like Jersey, with its 1,800 inhabitants previously to the revolution. They occur as an independent people even in Herodotus and Thucydides; but we know nothing further about them, for afterwards they disappear.

The AENIANIANS, a somewhat more important people, dwelt above the Melians and Oetaeans, but more to the west; they are called Αἰνιᾶνες in Thucydides, Xenophon and others, but Herodotus calls them Ἐνιῆνες. This is the most ancient instance of the Attic αι being expressed in another dialect by ε, which is the modern Greek pronunciation of αι. The termination αν is Pelasgic, and also appears in Italy as _ans_ or _as_. The Aenianians, like the Melians, do not seem to have been among the subjects of Thessaly; for Aristotle, in speaking of the internal commotions among the Thessalian subjects does not mention them. Their small capital, HYPATA, occurs in the wars of the Romans and Aetolians, and is also interesting, from the circumstance of its being the scene of the romance of Apuleius, who considers it as belonging to Thessaly. The Thessalian women were believed to be skilled in witchcraft; but this belief referred more particularly to the women of Hypata, and in this respect they are spoken of by Apuleius.

THE DOLOPIANS.