Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1189

 THESPROTI. river Kanavdn risinc; here. Leake noticwl the foundations of an oblong or oval enclosure, built of very solid masonry of a regular kind, about half a mile in circumference; but he observes that all the adjacent ground to the SE. is covered, like the interior of the fortress, with ancient foundations, squared stones, and other remains, proving that if the enclosure was the only fortified part of the city, many of the public and private edifices stood without the walls. The site of some of the ancient temples is probably marked by the churches, which contain fragments of architraves, columns, and other ancient remains (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 479, seq.; Dodwell, vol. i. p. 253.) COIN OF TIIESPIAE. THESPRO'TI, THESPEO'TIA. [Epeirus.] THESSA'LIA (0fo-o-aia or ©crraAia : Eth. ®€rTaas or ©eTToAd?, Thessalus, fern. QfcraaAis. QfTTaAij, Thessalis: Adj. BeaaaXtKos, QtrraAiKus, Thessalicus, The.ssalius), the largest political divi- sion of Greece, was in its widest extent the whole country lying N. of Thermopylae as far as the Cambunian mountains, and bounded upon the W. by the range of Pindus. But the name of Thes- saly was more specifically applied to the great jilain, by far the widest and largest in all Greece, enclosed by the four great mountain barriers of Pin- dus, Othrys. Ossa and Pelion. and the Cambunian mountains. From Mount Pindus, — the Apennines or back-bone of Greece, — which separates Thes- ^aly from Epeirus, two large arms branch off towards the eastern sea, running parallel to one another at the distance of 60 miles. The northern, called the Cambunian mountains, forms the boundary between Thessaly and ]Iacedonia, and terminates in the sum- mit of Olympus, which is the highest mountain in all Greece [Olympus]. The southern arm, named Othrys, separates the plain of Thessaly from JIalis, and reaches the sea between the JLalian and Paga- saean gulfs [Otiip.ys]. The fourth barrier is the range of mountains, first called Ossa and afterwards Pelion, which run along the coast of Thessaly upon the E., nearly parallel to the range of Pindus [Ossa; Pelion]. The plain of Thessaly, which is thus enclosed by natural ramparts, is broken only at the NE. corner by the celebrated vale of Tempe, which separates Ossa from Olympus, and is the only way of entering Greece from the N., except by a pass across the Cambunian mountains. This plain, which is drained by the river Peneius and its afiluents, is said to have been originally a vast lake, the waters of which were afterwards carried off through the vale of Tempe by some sudden convulsion, which rent the rocks of the valley asunder. (Herod, vii. 129.) [Tempe.] The lakes of Nessonis and Boe- beis, which are connected by a channel, were sup- posed by Strabo (ix. p. 430) to have been the re- mains of this vast lake. In addition to this plain there are two other districts included under the ge- neral name of Thessaly, of which one is the long and THESSALIA. 1165 narrow slip of rocky coast, called JFagnesia, extending from the vale of Tempe to the gulf of Pagasae, and lying between :Iounts Ossa and Pelion and the sea; while the other, known under the name of Malis, is quite distinct in its physical features from the rest of Thessaly, being a long narrow valley between Jlounts Othrys and Oeta, through which the river Spercheius flows into the JIaliac gulf. The plain of Thessaly properly consists of two plains, which received in antiquity the name of Upper and Lower Thessaly ; the Upper, as in similar cases, meaning the country near Jlount Pindus most distant from the sea, and the Lower the country near the Thei-maic gulf. (Strab. ix. pp. 430, 437.) These two plains are separated by a range of hills be- tween the lakes Nessonis and Boebeis on the one hand, and the river Enipeus on the other. Lower Thes- saly, which constituted the ancient division Pelas- giotis, extends from Jlounts Titarus and Ossa on the N. to Jlount Othrys and the shores of the Pagasaean gulf on the S. Its chief town was Larissa. Upper Thessaly, which corresponded to the ancient divi- sions Thessaliotis and Histiaeotis, of which the chief city was Pharsalus, stretches from Aeginium in the N. to Thaumaci in the S., a distance of at least 50 miles in a straight line. The road from Ther- mopylae into Upper Thessaly entered the plain at Thaumaci, which was situated at the pass called Coela, where the traveller came in sight of a plain resembling a vast sea. (Liv. xxxii. 4.) [Thau- maci.] The river Peneius, now called the Salamvria or SaJambria (^aafj.§pias, SaAa^uTrpias), rises at the NW. extremity of Thessaly, and is composed of streams collected in the valleys of Mount Pindus and the offshoots of the Cambunian mountains. At first it flows through a contracted valley till it reaches the jjerpendicular rocks, named the Mete&ra, upon the summits of which several monasteries are perched. Below this spot, and near the town of Aeginium or Starjus, the valley opens out into the vast plain of Upper Thessaly, and the river flows iu a general southerly direction. At Tricca, or 'Irik- kala, the Peneius makes a bend to the E., and shortly afterwards reaches the lowest point in the plain of Upper Thessaly, where it receives within a very short space many of its tributaries. Next it passes through a valley foi'meil by a range of hills, of which those upon the right divide the plains of Upper and Lower Thessaly. It then emerges into the plain a few miles westward of Larissa; after passing which city it makes a sudden bend to the X., and Hows through the vale of Tempo to the sea. Although the Peneius drains the greater part of Thessaly, and receives many tribu- taries, it is in the greater part of its course a shallow and sluggish river, except after the melt- ing of the snows, when it sometimes floods the surrounding plain. Hence on either side of llio river there is frequently a wide gravelly uncultivablo space, described by Strabo as irora^dKXvmos (ix. |). 430; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 420). When the river is swollen in the spring, a ihanml near Larissa conducts the superfluous wafers into the Karatjn'i'r or UavpoKitivt), the ancient Nessonis; and when this basin is filled, another ihaimcl conveys the waters into the lake of Karhi, the aTuient Boebeis. (Leake, iv. p. 403.) In the lower ]iart of its course, after leaving Larissa, the Peneius flows with more rapidity, and is full of small vortices, which may iiave suggested to Homer the epithet