Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "OMOLIO Ancient city AGIA".
It was the city of Magnesia (and Hellas) farthest N, at the borders
of Macedonia, situated on the slopes of Ossa where the Peneios emerges from the
Tempe gorge (Strab. 9.443; Scylax 33; Steph. Byz. s.v. homolion). It lay on a
route to Thessaly from Macedonian Dium (Livy 42.38) and controlled both the E
end of the Tempe pass and the N end of a more difficult route which led around
the shoulder of Ossa, along the E coast of Magnesia, and back between Ossa and
Pelion into the interior of Thessaly. It seems to have been one of the most important
Magnesian cities in the 4th c. B.C. With the rest of Magnesia, it was made subject
to Macedonia from 352 B.C. It lost importance when Demetrias was founded in 293
B.C., but continued to issue coinage in the 3d c. There are indications it was
something of a center of resistance against the power of Demetrias, but it was
apparently absorbed into that city in 117 B.C.
The scanty, rarely visited or described ruins of ancient Homolion
lie on the slopes of Ossa just above the Peneios plain, by the modern town of
Laspochori, which is just at the edge of the plain. Some of the city walls remain.
The acropolis, a rocky ridge ca. 220 m above the plain, is surrounded by a circuit
wall of small flat stones laid in more or less regular courses. From the acropolis
the remains of the city walls run down towards the plain, just inside and above
two parallel ravines.
The N wall of the city lies a little above the plain. The remains
of a cross wall can be seen dividing the lower city not far below the acropolis.
Within the acropolis, under a chapel of Haghios Elias, the remains of a temple
were excavated in 1911. It had probably been constructed of mudbrick and wood,
and was perhaps elliptical, like the temple at Gonnos. There were fragments of
archaic terracotta revetment, and some from a later (4th-3d c. B.C.) rebuilding,
and some Hellenistic stamped tiles. The temple had apparently had two periboloi;
SE of the outer one were the remains of another building. Here was found the right
foot (sole ca. 1 m long) of a colossal terracotta statue, possibly of Zeus. The
objects from the excavation are in the museum at Volo. By the W wall of the lower
city are visible the cavea of the theater hollowed into the hill, and the remains
of some other buildings (described in 1910). In the middle of the lower city is
a cave with carvings by it. Outside the city to the E of the acropolis are some
graves of the Geometric period, and other graves have been discovered in the area.
Some Protogeometric and Classical graves have been excavated recently, and a tomb
containing some very handsome 4th c. B.C. jewelry (finds in the Volo Museum).
Outside and to the N of the city walls the modern road from Laspochori
to Tempe comes very close to the Peneios about one km W of Laspochori. Here (1911)
are the remains of an ancient bridge and above it on a hill called Kokkinokoma,
sherds and some marble slabs. On a hill called Dapi Rachi part of a wall of large
stones, perhaps of the 4th c. B.C., was discovered in 1961. The territory of Homolion
seems to have adjoined that of Gonnos to the W (cf. Hiller von Gaertringen) and
apparently extended N of the Peneios, since a sales contract (stele, now in Volo)
of the 3d-2d c. B.C. found near modern Pyrgeto (on the lowest slopes of Olympos
just W of the Peneios plain) indicated that the city of Homolion had purchased
land in that area (see Arvanitopoullos in RevPhil)
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.
Or Homolium (Homolion). A town in Magnesia in Thessaly, at the foot of Mount Ossa, near the Peneus.
A town of Thessaly, situated at the foot of Mt. Homole, and near the edge of the vale of Tempe. Mt. Homole was the part of the chain of Ossa lying between Tempe and the modern village of Karitza. Mt. Homole is sometimes used as synonymous with Ossa. It was celebrated as a favourite haunt of Pan, and as the abode of the Centaurs and the Lapithae. Pausanias describes it as the most fertile mountain in Thessaly, and well supplied with fountains. (Paus. ix. 8. § 6; Eurip. Here. Fur. 371; Theocr. Idyll. vii. 104; Virg. Aen. vii. 675; Steph. B. s. v. Omole.) The exact site of the town is uncertain. Both Scylax and Strabo seem to place it on the right bank of the Peneius near the exit of the vale of Tempe, and consequently at some distance from the sea (Scylax, p. 12; Strab. ix. p. 445); but in Apollonius Rhodius and in the Orphic poems Homole is described as situated near the sea-shore, and in Apollonius even another town, Eurymenae, is placed between Homole and Tempe. (Apoll. Rhod. i. 594; Orpheus, Argon. 460.) Eurymenae, how. ever, stood upon the coast more to the south. Leake conjectures that the celebrated convent of St. Demetrius, situated upon the lower part of Mt. Kissavo, stands on the site of Homolium.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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