Melitaia

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Melitaia ( Greek  Μελιταία , Μελιτεία ; Latin Melitaea ), also Melite ( Μελίτη ) was an ancient Greek city in the Phthiotis region in southern Thessaly near today's Avaritsa , municipality of Domokos (which officially bears the ancient name).

mythology

The city was founded after Antoninus Liberalis , who in turn quotes the metamorphoses of Nicandros from Colophon , by Meliteus , a son of Zeus and the nymph Othreis .

The legend of a servant of Artemis by the name of Aspalis has come down to us from Melitaia , who preferred to hang herself than to be at the mercy of Tartarus , the tyrant of Melitaia. Her body was raptured by and only a wooden image of Aspalis was found next to that of Artemis, which the locals called Aspalis Ameilete Hekaerge . From this point on, every year virgins of the city hung up a billy goat that had not yet jumped because Aspalis was still a virgin.

history

The previously existing settlement of Pyrrha was moved by the immigrating Thessaloi from the Enipeus valley to the proven location on the northern slope of the Othrys .

426 BC Chr. Is held Brasidas into Melitaia. 385 BC Melitaia was part of a border dispute with the neighboring city of Narthakion , which ruled in favor of Melitaia, 350 BC. Was confirmed by the Thessalian council and then again by Pyrrhos of Epirus. The judgment was passed in 196 BC. By a Roman embassy and it was ruled in favor of Narthakion. This decision was made around 140 BC. Confirmed by the Roman Senate .

In the Lamian War of 323/322 BC Against the Macedonian Antipater , Melitaia was a fortress of the Greeks. From around 260 BC The city belonged to the Aetolian League . 217 BC It was besieged in vain by Philip V of Macedonia. In the 2nd century BC Melitaia took over the Thessalian constitution. 86/85 BC Chr. Is held Sulla of the campaign against over Mithridates VI. , King of Pontus , in Melitaia.

In the Roman Empire, Melitaia was given the honorary name Sebaste ( Sebastos is the Greek equivalent of the Roman Augustus ). Melitaia existed until the Byzantine period.

literature

  • Jean-Claude Decourt: La vallée de l'Énipeus en Thessalie: études de topographie et de geographie antique. Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, Supplément 21. École Française d'Athènes, Athènes 1990, ISBN 2-86958-035-5
  • A. Joannidou: Trial Excavations at Melitaea in Phthiotis. In: Archaiologika Analekta ex Athenon 5, 1972, p. 47ff.
  • Herwig Kramolisch: Melitaia. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 7, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01477-0 , Sp. 1189 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 13.
  2. ↑ Strabon , Geographika 9.5.6.
  3. ↑ Thucydides , Peloponnesian War 4.78.1.
  4. ^ Allan Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, Frank Card Bourne: Ancient Roman statutes. 3rd edition 2003, ISBN 1-58477-291-3 , pp. 34f.
  5. ↑ Diodorus , Bibliotheke Historian 18.15.1.
  6. ↑ Polybios , Historíai 5.97.5f .; 9.18.5.
  7. ↑ Plutarch, Sulla 20.

Coordinates: 39 ° 3 '  N , 22 ° 27'  E