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Greek city of
Larissa in
Thessaly for the
Thessalian League
Bronze 21mm (8.75 grams) Struck
second half of the 2nd century B.C.
Hippolo[chos]… and Ari…, magistrates
Reference: BCD Thessaly II 889.3; HGC 4, 213
Laureate head of Apollo right.
ΘEΣΣAΛΩN, Athena Itonia
striding right, hurling spear held in her right hand,
shield on her left arm; ΙΠΠ-ΟΛΟ over spear and A-PI
across central field.
Following the great victory of the Roman general Flamininus
over Philip V of Macedon, in 197 B.C., the freedom of the Greeks was proclaimed
at Corinth and a number of new autonomous coinages were initiated. Those in the
name of the Thessali were struck probably at Larissa. The Thessalian League
was a loose confederacy of feudal-like city-states and tribes in the Thessalian
valley in Northern Greece
and was run by a few aristocratic Thessalian families (Aleuadae
and Skopadae). The seat of the Thessalian diet was
Larissa
.
This city was named after a local
water nymph named Larissa. The story goes that the nymph
drowned while playing ball on the banks of the Peneios
River. In Greek mythology, the Greek hero Perseus
accidentally killed his grandfather, King Akrisios of
Argos when participating in the funeral games held in
the city for nymph Larissa. The people of that city made
their wealth from the rich agricultural area around the
city and from breeding horses.
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are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a
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In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
,
Apollo,
is one of the most important and diverse of the
Olympian deities
. The
ideal of the
kouros
(a beardless
youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of
light and the sun; truth and prophecy;
archery
; medicine and
healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo
is the son of
Zeus
and
Leto
, and has a
twin
sister, the chaste
huntress
Artemis
. Apollo is
known in Greek-influenced
Etruscan mythology
as
Apulu. Apollo was worshiped in both
ancient Greek
and
Roman religion
, as well
as in the modern
Greco
–Roman
Neopaganism
.
As the patron of
Delphi
(Pythian
Apollo), Apollo was an
oracular
god — the
prophetic deity of the
Delphic Oracle
.
Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo,
whether through the god himself or mediated through his
son
Asclepius
, yet Apollo
was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and
deadly
plague
as well as one
who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god’s custodial
charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over
colonists
, and as the
patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of
the
Muses
(Apollon
Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo
functioned as the patron god of music and
poetry
.
Hermes
created the
lyre
for him, and the
instrument became a common
attribute
of Apollo.
Hymns sung to Apollo were called
paeans
.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third
century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became
identified among Greeks with
Helios
,
god of the sun
, and his
sister Artemis similarly equated with
Selene
,
goddess of the moon
. In
Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose
declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo
with
Sol
among the
Augustan poets
of the
first century, not even in the conjurations of
Aeneas
and
Latinus
in
Aeneid
XII
(161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate
beings in literary and mythological texts until the
third century CE.
Athena
or Athene ( Latin:
Minerva
),
also referred to as Pallas Athena, is the goddess of war,
civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, crafts, justice and skill
in
Greek
mythology
.
Minerva
,
Athena’s Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is
also a shrewd companion of
heroes
and the
goddess
of heroic
endeavour. She is the
virgin
patron of
Athens
.
The Athenians built the
Parthenon
on the Acropolis of her namesake city, Athens, in her honour (Athena
Parthenos). Athena’s cult as the patron of Athens seems to have
existed from the earliest times and was so persistent that archaic
myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes. In her
role as a protector of the city ( polis),
many people throughout the Greek world worshiped Athena as Athena
Polias (“Athena of the city”).
Athens
and Athena bear etymologically connected names.
Larissa (Greek:
Λάρισα) is the
capital and largest city of the
Thessaly
region
of
Greece
and capital of
the
Larissa
regional unit.
It is a principal agricultural centre and a national
transportation hub, linked by road and rail with the
port of
Volos
, the city of
Thessaloniki
and
Athens
. Larissa, within
its municipality, has 162,591 inhabitants, while the
regional unit of Larissa reached a population of 284,325
(in 2011). The urban area of the city, although mostly
contained within the Larissa municipality, also includes
the communities of
Giannouli
,
Platykampos
,
Nikaia
, Terpsithea and
several other suburban settlements, bringing the wider
urban area population of the city to about 174,012
inhabitants and extends over an area of 572.3 km2.
Today, Larissa is a major commercial and industrial
centre in
Greece
. Legend has it
that
Achilles
was born here,
and that
Hippocrates
, the Father
of Medicine, died here.
The first ancient theatre of Larissa
Traces of
Paleolithiccc
human
settlement have been recovered from the area, but it was
peripheral to areas of advanced culture. The area around
Larissa was extremely fruitful; it was agriculturally
important and in
antiquity
was known for
its horses.
Mount Ossa
viewed from
Pineios river
in
Larissa.
The name Larissa (Λάρισα Lárīsa) is in origin
a
Pelasgian
(pre-Greek)
word for “fortress”. There were many ancient Greek
cities with this name. The name of Thessalian Larissa is
first recorded in connection with the aristocratic
Aleuadai
family.
Larissa is thought to be where the famous Greek
physician
Hippocrates
and the
famous philosopher
Gorgias of Leontini
died.
When Larissa ceased minting the federal coins it
shared with other Thessalian towns and adopted its own
coinage in the late 5th century BC, it chose local types
for its coins. The obverse depicted the nymph of the
local spring, Larissa, for whom the town was named;
probably the choice was inspired by the famous coins of
Kimon
depicting the
Syracusan nymph
Arethusa
. The reverse
depicted a horse in various poses. The horse was an
appropriate symbol of Thessaly, a land of plains, which
was well known for its horses. Usually there is a male
figure; he should perhaps be seen as the eponymous hero
of the Thessalians, Thessalos, who is probably also to
be identified on many of the earlier, federal coins of
Thessaly.
The
first ancient theatre
of the city.
Larissa, sometimes written Larisa on ancient coins
and inscriptions, is near the site of the Homeric
Argissa. It appears in early times, when
Thessaly
was mainly
governed by a few aristocratic families, as an important
city under the rule of the
Aleuadae
, whose
authority extended over the whole district of
Pelasgiotis
. This
powerful family possessed for many generations before
369 BC the privilege of furnishing the tagus, the
local term for the
strategos
of the
combined Thessalian forces. The principal rivals of the
Aleuadae were the
Scopadac
of
Crannon
, the remains of
which are about 14 miles south west.
Larissa was indeed the birthplace of
Meno
, who thus became,
along with
Xenophon
and a few
others, one of the generals leading several thousands
Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition
of 401 (retold in Xenophon’s
Anabasis
) meant to
help
Cyrus the Younger
, son
of
Darius II
, king of
Persia
, overthrow his
elder brother
Artaxerxes II
and take
over the throne of Persia (Meno is featured in
Plato
‘s dialogue
bearing his name, in which
Socrates
uses the
example of “the way to Larissa” to help explain
Meno the difference between true
opinion
and
science
(Meno, 97a–c) ;
this “way to Larissa” might well be on the part of
Socrates an attempt to call to Meno’s mind a “way home”,
understood as the way toward one’s true and “eternal”
home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to
seek in his life).
The constitution of the town was
democratic
, which
explains why it sided with
Athens
in the
Peloponnesian War
. In
the neighbourhood of Larissa was celebrated a festival
which recalled the Roman
Saturnalia
, and at
which the slaves were waited on by their masters. As the
chief city of ancient Thessaly, Larissa was taken by the
Thebans
and later
directly annexed by
Philip II of Macedon
in
344. It remained under Macedonian control afterwards,
except for a brief period when
Demetrius Poliorcetes
captured it in 302 BC.
It was in Larissa that
Philip V of Macedon
signed in 197 BC a treaty with the Romans after his
defeat at the
Battle of Cynoscephalae
,
and it was there also that
Antiochus III the Great
,
won a great victory in 192 BC. In 196 BC Larissa became
an ally of Rome and was the headquarters of the
Thessalian League
.
Larissa is frequently mentioned in connection with
the
Roman civil wars
which
preceded the establishment of the
Roman Empire
and
Pompey
sought refuge
there after the defeat of
Pharsalus
.
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