Description
Book SynopsisThessaly was a region of great importance in the ancient Greek world, possessing both agricultural abundance and a strategic position between north and south. It presents historians with the challenge of seeing beyond traditional stereotypes (wealth and witches, horses and hospitality) that have coloured perceptions of its people from antiquity to the present day. It also presents a complex and illuminating interaction between polis and ethnos identity. In daily life, most Thessalians primarily operated within, and identified with, their specific polis; at the same time, the regional dimension – being Thessalian – was rarely out of sight for long. It manifested itself in stories told, in deities worshipped, in modes of political co-operation, in language, rituals, sites and objects.
Chapter by chapter, this book follows the emergence, development and adaptation of Thessalian regional identity from the Archaic period to the early second century BC. In so doing, rather than rejecting ancient stereotypes as a mere inconvenience for the historian, it considers the constant dialogue between Thessalian self-presentation and depictions of the Thessalian character by other Greeks. It also confronts some of the prejudices and assumptions still influencing modern approaches to studying the region. All in all, the reader is invited to see Thessaly not as a region of marginal significance in Greek history, but as occupying a central role in many aspects of ancient cultural and political discourse.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1: Historical Outline
Chapter 2: Thessaly and the Ethnos in Archaic Central Greece
Chapter 3: Thessaly and Archaic Epic
Chapter 4: The Creation of Thessaly in Late Archaic and Early Classical Myth: Stories of Origin and Arrival
Chapter 5: The Creation of Thessaly in Cult
Chapter 6: Political Co-operation in Thessaly from the Sixth to the Fourth century
Chapter 7: Thessaly between Athens and Macedon
Chapter 8: Recreations of Thessaly in the Early Hellenistic period
Epilogue
Bibliography
