Thessalian League
The Thessalian League (Thessalian Aeolic: Κοινὸν τοῦν Πετθαλοῦν, Koinòn toûn Petthaloûn; Attic: Κοινὸν τῶν Θετταλῶν, Koinòn tôn Thettalôn; Ionic and Koine Greek: Κοινὸν τῶν Θεσσαλῶν, Koinòn tôn Thessalôn) was a koinon or loose confederacy of feudal-like poleis and tribes in ancient Thessaly, located in the Thessalian plain in Greece. The seat of the Thessalian League was Larissa.
Organization and Civil War
The history of the Thessalian League can be traced back to the rule of king Aleuas, a member of the Aleuadae clan. One source states that it was under Aleuas that Thessaly was divided into four regions. Some time after the death of Aleuas, it is believed that the Aleuadae split into two families, the Aleuadae and the Scopadae. The former were based in the city of Larissa, which later became the capital of the League. The two families formed two powerful aristocratic parties and bore considerable influence over Thessaly.[1]
Jason and Macedon
A lack of records makes it difficult to have any details of Thessalian life or politics until the 5th century BCE, when records discuss the rise of another Thessalian family—the dynasts of
The late fourth and early third centuries witnessed uneasy peace, which were punctuated by the emergence of civil war.
While
One historian spoke of this period as follows, “Thessaly remained politically fragmented and hence unstable, and the chaos of civil war in the region attracted the interest of a series of outsiders: Boeotia, Athens, and eventually
War
The League and Philip of Macedon
In 355 BCE, Thebes convinced several members of the
The League and Rome
On the eve of the Second Macedonian War, Thessaly was divided between the two dominant powers of Aitolia and Macedonia. When the Roman commander Titus Quinctius Flamininus’s legions set foot on mainland Greece in 199 BCE, he and Aitolian allies defeated the Thessalians under Philip V of Macedon at the battle at Cynoscephalae by 197 BCE, bringing a systematic change of the political boundaries of central Greece. His victory proved the superiority of the legion over the phalanx and Roman influence and control spread throughout Thessaly.
At the end of Second Macedonian War in 196 BCE, Rome established Thessaly as a koinon, Federal League, and cultivated its development to make it part of hegemonic powers of central and northern Greece.[8] At the ceremony of the Isthmian Games in 196 BCE, Flamininus, associated in name with the Roman Senate, published a decree that declared: “The Senate of Rome and Titus Quinctius the pro-consul having overcome King Philip and the Macedonians, leave the following peoples free, without garrisons and subject to no tribute and governed by their countries’ laws—the Corinthians, Phocians, Locrians, Euboeans, Phthiotic Achaeans, Magnesians, Thessalians, and Perrhaibians”.[8] Hence, Thessalian Leagues started administering their affairs with a judicious condition of order for the first time in 150 or more years of chaos and turmoil. Flamininus started to act as a central political figure of Thessaly and took initiatives to restore the local governments, through establishing a new census and restricting high classes’ possibility to hold magistrates and council positions, that led to a stable federal league of Thessaly. Under Roman control, the Thessalian League gradually increased in size and power as a loyal ally and it played a significant role in the campaigning and theatre of operation during the Roman civil wars.[8] During the Third Macedonian War about 300 Thessalian cavalry fought alongside Rome.[9] The Thessalian League was one of the several Greek leagues the Roman tolerated until 146 BCE, when the Roman commander Mummius razed the city of Corinth to the ground, disbanded the leagues, and informally reduced Greece to provincial status.[10]
See also
References
- ^ a b Smith, William (1849). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. pp. 108–109.
- ^ a b Gabriel, R.A. (2010). Philip II of Macedonia: Greater Than Alexander. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. pp. 13, 199.
- ^ Botsford, George (1956). Hellenic History (4th ed.). United States of America: New York: The MacMillan Company. p. 273.
- ^ Lewis, Sian (2006). Ancient Tyranny. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 136.
- ^ a b Ashley, James (2004). The Macedonian Empire: the Era of Warfare under Philip II and Alexander the Great, 359-323 B.C. McFarland & Company. pp. 130–132.
- OCLC 29703810.
- ^ Bury, J.D. (1937). A History of Greece. New York: Modern Library. p. 725.
- ^ a b c Graninger, Denver (2011). Cult and Koinon in Hellenistic Thessaly. United States of America: Leiden:Brill. pp. 7, 28, 40.
- ISBN 9780904417265.
- ^ Botsford, George; Robinson (1956). Hellenic History (4th ed.). United States of America: New York: McMillan. pp. 452–454.
External links
Media related to Ancient Thessaly at Wikimedia Commons