Greek city of Trikka in Thessaly Bronze 21mm (8.46 grams) Struck circa 400-344 B.C. Reference: Sear 2230; HGC 4, 336; Rogers 555, fig. 312 var. (A below stool); BCD Thessaly 788 Head of nymph Trikka right, hair in sphendone. TRIKKAIΩN, Asclepius seated right on stool, holding dove by its wings and feeding snake coiled to left.
A center for the worship of Asclepius, Trikka was named after a daughter of the river-god Peneios.
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Asclepius is the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia (“Health”), Iaso (“Medicine”), Aceso (“Healing”), and Panacea (“Universal Remedy”). The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff, remains a symbol of medicine today, although sometimes the caduceus, or staff with two snakes, is mistakenly used instead. He was associated with the Roman/Etruscan god Vediovis. He was one of Apollo’s servants.
The rod of Asclepius, also known as the asklepian, is an ancient symbol associated with astrology, the Greek god Asclepius and with medicine and healing. It consists of a serpent entwined around a staff. The name of the symbol derives from its early and widespread association with Asclepius, the son of Apollo, who was a practitioner of medicine in ancient Greek mythology. His attributes, the snake and the staff, sometimes depicted separately in antiquity, are combined in this symbol. The Rod of Asclepius also represents the constellation Ophiuchus (or Ophiuchus Serpentarius), the thirteenth sign of the sidereal zodiac. Hippocrates himself was a worshipper of Asclepius.
Trikala is a city in northwestern Thessaly, Greece. It is the capital of the Trikala Prefecture, and is located NW of Athens, NW of Karditsa, E of Ioannina and Metsovo, S of Grevena, SW of Thessaloniki, and W of Larissa.
Located in the fertile plain of Thessaly in central Greece, modern Trikala is the Homeric Trikka (or Trikki), the birthplace of three of the Argonauts and one of the areas touted as the birthplace of Asclepius (Asklepios), who is more often said to have been born at Epidaurus, where his main temple was sited in antiquity. Ruins of an old sanctuary to the physician-god, an Asklepieion, or healing place, are located between the central square and the church of Saint Nicholas (Agios Nikolaos) in Trikala; it is the oldest Aesculapium of Greece – a kind of medical centre, from which the worship of Aesculapius gradually spread.
There are other late Hellenistic and Roman period remains to be seen, mosaic floors, a stoa, and baths. Dominated by its Byzantine fortress on Hellenistic foundations occupying the ancient Acropolis, the picturesque city is divided in two by the river Lithaios, with the churches of Agios Demetrios and Agii Anargyri lending more Byzantine character to the modern town. She was managed by First Bulgarian Empire (920-922, 977-983, 996-997) due to occupations by Simeon I and Samuil. She was part of Great Wallachia (1204-1215), Despotate of Epirus (1215-1335), Despotate of Thessaly, who was a branch of one of Epirus, (1230-1335) (Suzerenity of Second Bulgarian Empire between 1230-1241, Nicean Empire between 1241-1261 and Byzantine Empire between 1261-1335), Serbian Empire (1348-1373), Byzantine Empire (1335-1348, 1373-1394, 1403-1411) and Ottoman Empire (1394-1403 and 1411-1881). Trikala was ceded to Greece in 1881 after the Treaty of Berlin. It was captured again by Ottomans during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 on April 28 for six months. During the Principality of Pindus the national assembly of this state sat in Trikala.
Ruins of the Asclepeion.
Thessaly was home to extensive Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures around 6000-2500 BC (see Cardium Pottery, Dimini and Sesklo). Mycenaean settlements have also been discovered, for example at the sites of Iolcos, Dimini and Sesklo (near Volos). In Archaic and Classical times, the lowlands of Thessaly became the home of baronial families, such as the Aleuadae of Larissa or the Scopads of Crannon. In the 4th century BC Jason of Pherae transformed the region into a significant military power, recalling the glory of Early Archaic times. Shortly after, Philip II of Macedon was appointed Archon of Thessaly, and Thessaly was thereafter associated with the Macedonian Kingdom for the next centuries. Thessaly later became part of the Roman Empire as part of the province of Macedonia.
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