THESSALY 



5789 



THESSALY 



Paul from Corinth, between 52 and 54 A.D., to 

 the Church in Thessalonica, in Greece, which he 

 had recently organized. The first was written 

 for consolation and encouragement at a time 

 when the Church was suffering persecution from 

 the Jews, and the second to correct the dis- 

 order that resulted from an exaggerated belief 

 in the early coming of Christ. 



THESSALY, thes'ali, a district in Northern 

 Greece, in ancient times the largest of the his- 

 toric divisions of that country. It is an exten- 

 sive plain, enclosed on all sides by mountains, 

 which form an irregular square, each side of 



LOCATION MAP 



Thessaly is the black area. 



(d) Phocis 



(e) Boeotia 



(a) Epirus 



(b) Aetolia 



(c) Locris 



which is about sixty miles in extent. On the 

 north side is the Cambunian range, on the 

 south, Mount Othrys; the majestic Pindus 

 chain forms the western boundary and separates 

 the country from Epirus; Ossa and Pelion, on 

 the east, shut it off from the Aegean Sea. 

 Mount Olympus, the fabled abode of the gods, 

 rises on the northeast to a height of nearly 

 10,000 feet. The plain of Thessaly is drained 

 by the river Peneus (the modern Salambria), 

 which finds an outlet to the sea in the northeast 

 through the beautiful Vale of Tempe, between 

 Ossa and Olympus. 



Among the various sections into which Thes- 

 saly is geographically divided, the region to the 

 southeast, on the Pegasaean Gulf (the modern 

 Gulf of Volo) is of special interest because of 

 its association with ancient myth. From there 



Jason led the Argonauts in quest of the Golden 

 Fleece, and it was the birthplace of the great 

 Achilles. Near the modem Volo is the site of 

 lolcus, around which cluster many legendary 

 tales. Thucydides is authority for the state- 

 ment that this region was the early home of the 

 Hellenic race. 



The fertility of the soil of Thessaly was a 

 powerful incentive to invasion by tribes from 

 beyond the mountains, and during the period 

 between the heroic and historic eras, this region 

 was the scene of various migrations. The in- 

 vaders who permanently occupied the country 

 reduced the original inhabitants to the position 

 of serfs, and themselves instituted a landed 

 nobility centered in the cities. Almost unlim- 

 ited power lay with a few great families, and 

 the cities maintained only a semblance of union, 

 except when they combined in a common 

 cause. When occasion demanded a uniting for 

 war they chose a commander-in-chief who was 

 known as the tagus. Their chief strength was 

 in their cavalry ; the plains were adapted to the 

 raising of horses, and the Thessalians bred the 

 finest in all Greece. 



Only occasionally did the Thessalians enter 

 actively into the affairs of Greece as a whole. 

 In the fourth century B. c., however, united un- 

 der Jason, the able tyrant of Pherae, they be- 

 gan seriously to threaten the rest of Greece, and 

 were checked only by the assassination of their 

 leader. Thessaly passed under the control of 

 Macedonia in 352 B. c., through the conquest of 

 Philip of Macedon, and was subject to that 

 country until the Roman Flaminius, by the vic- 

 tory of Cynoscephalae, in 197 B. c., made Mace- 

 donia a dependency of Rome. Thessaly re- 

 mained a Roman province until the fall of the 

 Eastern Empire, after which it was dominated 

 successively by the Venetians and the Turks 

 During the Greek war for liberation, which 

 ended in 1827, the southern part was freed from 

 Turkish rule, and the greater part of the region 

 was united with Greece in 1881 through the 

 intervention of the Great Powers. Thessaly 

 was the chief battle ground in Greece during 

 the war with Turkey in 1897. 



At the present time Thessaly comprises the 

 nomes, or departments, of Phthiotis, Larissa, 

 Karditsa, Trikkala and Magnesia, having a 

 combined population of about 575,000. The 

 great majority of the inhabitants are Greek. 

 Volo, the one important port, is a town of over 

 23,000 inhabitants, and maintains daily steam- 

 boat communication with Athens. A railroad 

 connects Volo with Larissa, on the Salambria 



