A Geographical and Historical Description of Ancient Greece, 1; With a Map and a Plan of Athens (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1828. Excerpt: ... SECTION VI. THESSALIA. General history of Thessaly--Its boundaries and principal divisions--Estiaeotis, Pelasgiotis, Phthiotis, Magnesia, and Dolopia, with the districts of the jEnianes and Melienses, topographically described--Islands on the coast. Early traditions, preserved by the Greek poets and other writers, ascribe to Thessaly the more ancient names of Pyrrha, iEmonia, and iEolis. (Rhian. ap. Schol. Apoll. Rh. III. 1089. Steph. Byz. v. A/(xovi'a, Herod. VII. 176.) Passing over the two former appellations, which belong rather to the age of mythology, the latter may afford us matter for historical reflections, as referring to that remote period when the plains of Thessaly were occupied by the iEolian Pelasgi, to whom Greece was probably indebted for the first dawnings of civilization, and the earliest cultivation of her language. (Strab. V. p. 220.) This people originally came, as Herodotus informs us, from Thesprotia, (VII. 176. Cf. Strab. IX. p. 444.) but how long they remained in possession of the country, and at what precise period it assumed the name of Thessaly, cannot perhaps now be determined. In the poems of Homer it never occurs, although the several principalities and kingdoms of which it was composed are there distinctly enumerated and described, together with the different chiefs to whom they were subject: thus Hellas and Phthia are assigned to Achilles; the Melian and Pagasaean territories to Protesilaus and Eumelus; Magnesia to Philoctetes and Eurypylus; Estiaeotis and Pelasgia to Medon, and the sons of iEsculapius, with other petty leaders. It is from Homer therefore that we derive the earliest information relative to the history of this fairest portion of Greece. This state of things, however, was not of long continuance; and a new c...