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| INTRODUCTION TO LARISSIAN THESSALY |
Thessalian Geography and Institutions
Thessaly, the most fertile region of Greece, comprised two large plains hemmed in by mountains on all sides, with only a narrow access to the sea. The Thessalians retained an archaic social and economic order, based on aristocratic landowners and the rearing of cattle and horses. The strength of the Thessalian army, based especially on its elite cavalry, made Thessaly one of the dominant powers among the Greek states.
Plutarch tells us that Aleuas the Red, legendary founder of the Aleuad family of Larissa, was named king of the Thessalians in the sixth century B.C., after the Thessalians delegated the choice of their leader to Apollo of Delphi.1 According to the Aristotelian Constitution of the Thessalians, this Aleuas created the characteristic institutions of the Thessalian state. He divided Thessaly into four geographical districts called tetrads, each with four cities. He established kleroi or military land allotments in each tetrad, and dictated the numbers of cavalry and infantry each tetrad was to provide.2 The kleroi of each tetrad were controlled by a civic magistrate probably called the tagos, who was responsible for mobilizing the citizens of his district in wartime.3
Larissa lay on the banks of the River Peneus, in the most important and most populous of the four tetrads, Pelasgiotis. This district was situated in the north of Thessaly and also included the cities of Crannon, Scotussa, and Pherae. The other tetrads were Histaeotis to the west, with its capital at Tricca; Thessaliotis in the center of Thessaly, its capital Pharsalus; and Phthiotis to the south, its capital Hellas.
Although Plutarch considered Aleuas the Red to be a king, the Thessalians probably called their national leader the tetrarch. This office had some ceremonial duties but its principal function was command of the Thessalians as a military force, with the attending financial responsibilities. One of the most important concerns was to enforce the subjugation of the neighboring peoples, the perioikoi, to ensure that they contributed troops to Thessalian military campaigns and that their tribute flowed into the federal treasury.4 It appears that the leader of the Thessalians normally held his office for life, which explains why the Greeks regarded him as a king.
The leadership of the Thessalians was dominated by a few great aristocratic families. After the divinely inspired choice of Aleuas the Red, his descendants, hereditary tyrants of Larissa, virtually monopolized the office in the late sixth and early fifth centuries. Later the position was occupied by the Creonds of Pharsalus and the Scopads of Crannon. From the late fifth to the mid-fourth century it was avidly sought by the tyrants of Pherae. Competition for control of the federal institutions caused frequent conflicts, often interconnected with factional strife within the Thessalian cities. When violent rivalries in the cities became extreme, the Thessalians resorted to another of their characteristic practices, entrusting civic affairs to a mediating magistrate whose authority was backed by troops. At the national level, similar failures of self-government often led the Thessalians to request foreign intervention.
History of Larissa during the Time of its Civic Silver Coinage
At the time of the Persian Wars, the Aleuads of Larissa held the leadership of the Thessalians. Seeking to dominate Locris and Phocis, they invited the Persian Great King Xerxes into Greece (480 B.C.) and joined his army to attack Phocis. The defeat of Xerxes meant disgrace and exile for the medizers, notably the Aleuads and their allies the Pisistratids of Athens. Aleuad power and prestige in Thessaly suffered a long eclipse. Thessaly was invaded at least twice from the south, once by Leotychidas of Sparta after the Persian Wars, and again by the Athenians around mid-century. In the second half of the fifth century Larissa was weakened by factional strife and social unrest. The process seems to have broken down baronial domination in favor of urbanization, so that the Aleuads emerged as a city aristocracy. These negative characterizations, based on bits of information in the historical sources, are inconsistent with the growth of Larissa’s coinage in the second half of the fifth century. Its volume attests to the city’s increasing wealth and, by extension, to a recovery of power and influence.
It was probably during the Peloponnesian War that the Aleuads began to cultivate close relations with the Argead kings of Macedonia, with whom they shared an alleged descent from Heracles.5 This policy carried risks, as when King Archelaus (413–399) intervened in the internal affairs of Larissa.6
From the end of the fifth century, the Aleuads of Larissa led the aristocratic opposition to the tyrants of Pherae. Lycophron of Pherae (c. 406–390) may have championed democracy in his efforts to become the Thessalian federal leader. In 404 he defeated the Aleuads and allied nobles from other cities. Medius of Larissa, supported by Boeotia and Argos, may have prevailed in another round of fighting in 395, when Lycophron was allied with Sparta.
In 392 the Aleuads took the part of the exiled Macedonian king Amyntas III (c. 393–370), and helped restore him to his throne.
Pherae reemerged as a serious problem under its tyrant Jason (385–370). At some point he actually got control of Larissa. By 374 his military reforms, his private force of mercenaries, and the capitulation of Pharsalus combined to persuade the cities of Thessaly to elect him their national leader by common consent, thus reviving the federal state. Now bearing the title tagos, Jason dictated to the cities the size of the contingent each must supply to his army. Apparently he aspired to establish a Thessalian hegemony over Greece, Macedonia, and the Persian empire. In 370, after mobilizing the entire Thessalian army ostensibly to supervise the celebation of the Pythian games, he was assassinated by a group of young conspirators.
Jason was succeeded as tyrant of Pherae and as tagos of the Thessalian federation by his brother Polydorus. Polydorus was murdered by another brother, Polyphron, who lost the consent of the Thessalians by executing nine prominent citizens of Pharsalus and exiling many citizens of Larissa.
Polyphron was murdered by Jason’s nephew, Alexander (369–358), who in turn became tyrant of Pherae and national leader of the Thessalians. He too was perceived as abusing his authority as tagos. The Aleuads promptly invited the intervention of Alexander II of Macedon (369–368), but the king betrayed their trust, placing garrisons in Larissa and Crannon. Larissa then appealed to the Theban statesman Pelopidas, who led an army into Thessaly in 369, expelled the Macedonian garrisons, and ordered Alexander of Pherae to respect the traditional limits of his office. A second expedition by Pelopidas proved necessary in 368, during which he was captured by Alexander and then freed by his great countryman Epaminondas. In the course of yet a third campaign, in 364, Pelopidas defeated Alexander at Cynoscephalae but died in the battle. One of Pelopidas’ legacies was the creation of a second Thessalian league to rival the one controlled by Alexander, so that his opponents could take joint action against him. It was this Boeotian-inspired confederacy that allied with Athens in 361–360 against the tyrant of Pherae.
Alexander of Pherae was removed by a court conspiracy in 358, but his successors were no more acceptable to the other Thessalians. The Aleuads, despite the bad result of the last Macedonian intervention, invited Philip II (359–336) to Thessaly to help in their struggle. Pherae was defeated and Philip returned with his army to Macedonia. The alliance between Philip and the Thessalians was formalized by his marriage to Philinna, a woman of Larissa and almost certainly a member of the Aleuad family.
Philip’s alliance with the Aleuads next drew him into the Third Sacred War. Disputes within the Delphic Amphictyony—the league that governed the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi—provoked the Phocians to seize the holy site in 356. The following year the combined forces of Thessaly, Locris, and Boeotia attempted to recover Delphi but were repulsed by the Phocians. In 354/3 Pherae allied with Phocis and renewed its threats against the other Thessalians. Onomarchus, leader of the Phocians, occupied part of Thessaly and once again the Aleuads called on Philip. After two defeats he withdrew to Macedonia. But he returned in 352 and in that year’s campaign he captured the port city of Pagasae, through which Pherae controlled Thessalian exports; defeated the Phocians at the battle of the Crocus Field; and accepted the surrender of Pherae from its tyrant Lycophron. In a remarkable expression of gratitude, the Thessalians elected Philip archon of their confederacy.
Although Onomarchus fell in battle on the Crocus Field, Philip was unable to advance into central Greece. A few years later, in 348, the Phocians looted the shrine at Delphi. This is the context of Demosthenes’ report of tensions between Philip and the Thessalians, who accused him of using Thessalian revenues for his own purposes. The Thessalians also complained about the status of two cities, Pagasae and Magnesia, which had formerly been controlled by the tyrants of Pherae but were perhaps now garrisoned by Philip. Nevertheless in 347 Thessaly and Thebes again requested Philip to intervene in the war. Athens, which had previously backed Phocis, joined the alliance, and the Phocians were forced to surrender. In 346 Philip reconvened the Delphic Amphictyony, restored the ancestral privileges of the Thessalians, and transferred the votes of the Phocians to himself.
Philip’s enormous success provoked a backlash in Thessaly, even at Larissa. In the midst of an unidentified civic crisis, an Aleuad named Simos was appointed as a mediating magistrate and given command of a troop of mercenaries. Apparently he abused his authority, though the old claim that he signed coins at Larissa is no longer tenable.7 In summer of 344 Philip again entered Thessaly, expelled the Aleuads from Larissa, and garrisoned Pherae after capturing it for a third time. After quelling the disorders in the cities, Philip reorganized Thessalian federal institutions, preserving some of the old forms but probably recognizing that cities and their surrounding territories had long ago replaced the kleroi and were now the basic units of the system.
When Philip was murdered in 336, the Thessalians elected his son Alexander as archon of their confederacy. A large contingent of Thessalian cavalry accompanied Alexander when he left for his great Persian campaign in 334; most returned to Thessaly in 330 when he released his Greek troops. The sources are silent concerning later relations between the Thessalians and their distant archon. But after Alexander’s death in 323, most Thessalian cities joined the movement to expel the Macedonians from Greece, provoking the Lamian War. The Macedonian governor, Antipater, defeated the rebels at Crannon (322) and then proceeded to sack Thessalian cities to intimidate the Greeks into accepting his peace terms. The following year Antipater departed for Asia to confront the regent Perdiccas. In his absence the Aetolians invaded Thessaly and persuaded most of the Thessalians to revolt once again (321). Polyperchon, left in command of Macedonia, crushed the revolt.
Thessaly remained part of the Macedonian kingdom until Ti. Quinctius Flamininus, the Roman consul who defeated Philip V at Cynoscephalae, proclaimed the freedom of the Greeks at the Isthmian Games of 196. The Thessalian confederacy was then reconstituted, with Larissa as its capital.
C. Lorber
Notes
1. Plutarch, Moralia 492A–B.
2. Frags. 497-498
3. By the mid-fifth century, these officials were supplemented or, more likely, replaced by elected polemarchs who served annually and were the eponymous magistrates for each tetrad, see SEG XVII, 243; IG II2 116 (361/0 B.C.), 175; SVA II, 293.
4. The perioikoi were the original Pelasgian inhabitant of Thessaly, who were displaced by the migration of the Thessalians and took refuge in the surrounding mountains. They included the Perrhaebi, who lived north of Pelasgiotis and west of Histaeotis; the Magnetes, who lived along the sea and in the mountains to the east and southeast of Thessaly; the Achaeans, who lived south and southwest of Phthiotis; and also the Dolopians, Malians, Aegnianes, and Oetai. When the federal leader of the Thessalians was weak, the perioikoi might become tributary to a neighboring city; for example, the coinage of the Perrhaebi may represent tribute paid to Larissa.
5. Thuc. 4.78.2, 4.132.2.
6. Thrasymachus frag. 2.
7. Arist. Pol. 5.1306a 26–31. But see also the dissenting view of T.R. Martin, Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece (Princeton, 1985), pp. 255–261, where it is argued that there is no clear evidence for the career of Simos or for the expulsion of the Aleuads.
Bibliography
J.R. Ellis, Philip II and Macedonian Imperialism. Princeton, 1986.
B. Helly, L’état Thessalien: Aleuas le Roux, les tetrads et les tagoi. Lyon, 1995.
T.R. Martin, Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece. Princeton, 1985.
M. Sordi, La lega tessala fine ad Alessandro Magno. Rome, 1958.
H.B. Westlake, Thessaly in the Fourth Century B.C. London, 1935.
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