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PROERNA (Ancient city) DOMOKOS
A town of Phthiotis, in Thessaly (Strab. ix. p. 434), which Stephanus
B. writes Proarna (Proarna), and calls by mistake a town of the Malians. In B.C.
191 Proerna, which had been taken by Antiochus, was recovered by the consul Acilius.
(Liv. xxxvi. 14.) We learn from this passage of Livy that Proerna stood between
Pharsalus and Thaumaci, and it is accordingly placed by Leake at Ghynekokastro.
(Northern Greece, vol. i.p.459)
A city in Tetras or Achaia Phthiotis (Strab. 9.434) on the main road
from Thaumaki to Pharsalos probably located (first by Leake) at Gynaikokastro,
the end of a spur of Mt. Kassidhiaris which projects into the W plain of Thessaly
halfway between Thaumaki and Pharsalos. It dominates a small marshy plain to the
N of it. The modern town of Neon Monastirion is a little to the SE. Scarcely anything
is known about Proerna's history.
In the plain just to the W of the modern Dhomoko-Pharsala highway
is a large, oval, flat-topped mound, called Tapsi. This is surrounded on the top
by a wall of polygonal masonry. In 1965-66 excavations on the mound uncovered
foundations of 4th c. B.C. houses on its flat top and on the W and S slopes. A
section of the circuit wall was excavated, which proved to be not just the archaic
wall, but the Classical as well. Some remains of Classical houses were also discovered
on the top of the mound, which had been occupied since at least the Bronze Age.
East of the highway, 400 m E of the mound, can be seen another wall circuit preserved
to several courses high. This wall has a circumference of ca. 2 km and encloses
a hill with two peaks and a hollow between resembling a theater facing the plain
on the N. The wall is double-faced, built of well-cut, thick; rectangular and
trapezoidal blocks with rough faces, laid in fairly regular courses in the towers,
more irregularly or in step fashion elsewhere. The wall is some 2 m thick. Twenty
projecting square towers have been preserved along it. There are three gates with
complex entrances flanked by towers preserved on the SW, S, and SE sides. The
exterior face of the wall is pierced by drain channels. Just to the N of the SE
gate can be seen a long section of a cross wall running E-W which cut off the
highest, E, peak from the rest of the enclosure. The wall was disturbed by an
earthquake in 1955, but was restored.
The most interesting discovery of 1965-66 was on the W side of a small
hill in the modern town, and outside the ancient city walls. This was the rough
stone foundation of a long, rectangular stoa-like building, 6 x 30 m, of the 4th
c. B.C., oriented E-W. At the W end it overlay some older building (s), perhaps
of the late 6th or early 5th c. A large number of objects were found, now in the
Volo Museum, which identified this as a Shrine of Demeter. A number of terracotta
figurines were discovered, all apparently earlier than the stoa, some being of
the 6th c. B.C. A small bronze vase and an archaic (7th c.) bronze figurine of
a deer (?) came from the sanctuary area, among other bronze items such as rings
and pins.
It appears that the acropolis of the archaic and Classical city was
the mound Tapsi, and that the city of that period was located on the slopes of
the mound, chiefly on the S side. The Shrine of Demeter (the first discovered
for certain in Thessaly), which flourished from the 6th to at least the 2d c.
B.C., was located on a low hill to the SE of the mound, near the road. The walls
on the hill to the E of the road may date from the early 3d c. B.C. (as Stahlin
surmised) or somewhat earlier. Hellenistic sherds have been found within this
circuit, but no remains of the city of that period.
T. S. Mackay, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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