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| Ancient Thessaly |
Thessaly During the Persian War of 480–479 BCE
In the spring of 480 BCE, the Persian king Xerxes I (reigned ca. 486–465 BCE) mustered his huge invasion force at Sardis in Asia and sent out heralds to each of the Greek states—with the significant exceptions of Lakedaimon [Sparta] and Athens—demanding earth and water to signify their surrender to the Persians. Contrary to the customs of all mankind that foreign emissaries should enjoy diplomatic immunity, the Lakedaimonians and Athenians had barbarically murdered the previous Persian heralds sent in ca. 491 BCE by Xerxes’ father Darius I the Great (reigned ca. 521–486 BCE). (Herodotos 6.48–49; 7.131-136)[1]
While the Aleuadai of Larisa contrived to welcome Xerxes, other Thessalians appealed for aid against the Persians. In response, the southern and central Greeks dispatched a considerable force consisting of 10,000 hoplites to defend the pass of Tempe at the border between southern Makedonia and northern Thessaly. The Lakedaimonians were commanded by their polemarch Euainetos and the Athenians by their stratēgos Themistokles. The Greek army landed at Halos in Akhaia Phthiotis and marched north through Thessaly to the pass at Tempe. They were joined by the cavalry of the Thessalians, which seemingly means the cavalry of the Thessalian koinon. However, the allied Greek army stayed only a few days at Tempe and then abruptly returned to their ships at Halos and sailed home! We can imagine that many Thessalians must have desperately pleaded with their fellow Greeks to stay, but to no avail.
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Messengers from the Makedonian king Alexander I the Philhellene (reigned ca. 498/496–454 BCE) had warned the Greek army at Tempe of the enormous size of the approaching Persian host. This was something about which the Greeks were already well acquainted, so it is curious that the Makedonian warning would have had such a dramatic impact. Herodotos opined that the real reason for the precipitous Greek withdrawal from Thessaly was that the Greeks were informed of an alternative pass from upper Makedonia through Perrhaibia down to Gonnos and consequently withdrew in fear. This would seem to be the more likely warning given by Alexander the Philhellene. Several months later, the southern and central Greeks were blissfully ignorant of the alternative paths and passes around Thermopylai, so it should not exite any surprise that they were initially unware of the many routes which lead from Makedonia into northern Thessaly. (Herodotos 7.32; 7.172-174)
While the allied Greeks were at Tempe, the Persian king Xerxes and his army had arrived at Abydos on the Asian side of the Hellespont and were preparing to cross to the European side. Xerxes had ordered that a bridge of boats be constructed to allow his army to walk across the Hellespont from Asia to Europe. It was an incredible feat of engineering.
Following the ill managed debacle in Thessaly and upon the arrival of the Persians at Therme in Makedonia, the Thessalians and their neighbours justifiably felt that they had been abandoned by the Lakedaimonians [Spartans] and their allies. Consequently, the Thessalians and their dependencies—the Phthiotic Akhaians, Perrhaibians, Magnesians, Malians, Ainianes, and Dolopians—all sent earth and water to Xerxes. Some of the central Greeks such as the Eastern Lokrians as well as the Thebans along with most of the other Boiotians—with the notable exceptions of the Thespieans and Plataians—also sent earth and water to the Persians. The Greeks who courageously chose to fight the Persians sanctimoniously swore an oath that, after the war, they would extract a tenth of the possessions of the Greeks who submitted to Xerxes and dedicate it to the god at Delphi. In other words, the Greeks who were abandoned by the Lakedaimonians and their allies were to be considered traitors if they submitted to the Persians! (Herodotos. 7.131–132; Diodoros. 11.3 claimed that the Ainianes, Dolopians, Malians, Perrhaibians, and the Magnesians all sided with the Persians while the Greeks were still at Tempe.)
While the Aleuadai of Larisa contrived to welcome Xerxes, other Thessalians appealed for aid against the Persians. In response, the southern and central Greeks dispatched a considerable force consisting of 10,000 hoplites to defend the pass of Tempe at the border between southern Makedonia and northern Thessaly. The Lakedaimonians were commanded by their polemarch Euainetos and the Athenians by their stratēgos Themistokles. The Greek army landed at Halos in Akhaia Phthiotis and marched north through Thessaly to the pass at Tempe. They were joined by the cavalry of the Thessalians, which seemingly means the cavalry of the Thessalian koinon. However, the allied Greek army stayed only a few days at Tempe and then abruptly returned to their ships at Halos and sailed home! We can imagine that many Thessalians must have desperately pleaded with their fellow Greeks to stay, but to no avail.
[insert map]
Messengers from the Makedonian king Alexander I the Philhellene (reigned ca. 498/496–454 BCE) had warned the Greek army at Tempe of the enormous size of the approaching Persian host. This was something about which the Greeks were already well acquainted, so it is curious that the Makedonian warning would have had such a dramatic impact. Herodotos opined that the real reason for the precipitous Greek withdrawal from Thessaly was that the Greeks were informed of an alternative pass from upper Makedonia through Perrhaibia down to Gonnos and consequently withdrew in fear. This would seem to be the more likely warning given by Alexander the Philhellene. Several months later, the southern and central Greeks were blissfully ignorant of the alternative paths and passes around Thermopylai, so it should not exite any surprise that they were initially unware of the many routes which lead from Makedonia into northern Thessaly. (Herodotos 7.32; 7.172-174)
_through_the_Vale_of_Tempe.jpg) |
| The Peneios River flowing through the valley of Tempe. (Image compliments of the Wikimedia Commons) |
While the allied Greeks were at Tempe, the Persian king Xerxes and his army had arrived at Abydos on the Asian side of the Hellespont and were preparing to cross to the European side. Xerxes had ordered that a bridge of boats be constructed to allow his army to walk across the Hellespont from Asia to Europe. It was an incredible feat of engineering.
Following the ill managed debacle in Thessaly and upon the arrival of the Persians at Therme in Makedonia, the Thessalians and their neighbours justifiably felt that they had been abandoned by the Lakedaimonians [Spartans] and their allies. Consequently, the Thessalians and their dependencies—the Phthiotic Akhaians, Perrhaibians, Magnesians, Malians, Ainianes, and Dolopians—all sent earth and water to Xerxes. Some of the central Greeks such as the Eastern Lokrians as well as the Thebans along with most of the other Boiotians—with the notable exceptions of the Thespieans and Plataians—also sent earth and water to the Persians. The Greeks who courageously chose to fight the Persians sanctimoniously swore an oath that, after the war, they would extract a tenth of the possessions of the Greeks who submitted to Xerxes and dedicate it to the god at Delphi. In other words, the Greeks who were abandoned by the Lakedaimonians and their allies were to be considered traitors if they submitted to the Persians! (Herodotos. 7.131–132; Diodoros. 11.3 claimed that the Ainianes, Dolopians, Malians, Perrhaibians, and the Magnesians all sided with the Persians while the Greeks were still at Tempe.)
While the Persian army journeyed through Thessaly in 480 BCE, the Persian king Xerxes held contests for his own cavalrymen and also tested the Thessalian horsemen, who he had learned were the best in Greece. The Greek horses were said to have been left far behind in the races. Of course, these losses may have been a prudent ploy on the part of the Thessalians to please their Persian ‘guests’. (Herodotos 7.196)
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| Silver drachma of Larissa, Thessaly, ca. 410–405 BCE. A prancing Thessalian stallion. |
Once their homeland was occupied by the invading army and their population was pressed into service, the Thessalians zealously aided the Persians and were khrēsimōtatoi (most useful) to Xerxes (Herodotos 7.174).
At the pass of Thermopylai, 300 Lakedaimonians [Spartans], commanded by King Leonidas I (reigned ca. 490–480 BCE), and several thousand other Greeks attempted to block the advance of the Persian land army from Thessaly into central Greece. At the same time, the fleet of the allied Greeks battled the huge Persian fleet for three days off Artemision on the island of Euboia. The allied Greek fleet was commanded by the Lakedaimonian Eurybiades and by the Athenian Themistokles. Following the Persian slaughter and rout of the Greeks at the pass of Thermopylai in the late summer of 480 BCE and the subsequent withdrawal of the allied Greek fleet, the Thessalians immediately sent a herald to the Phokians demanding 50 talents of silver in order for the Thessalians to intervene with the Persians on their behalf. The Phokians refused to pay this extortion demand or to take the Persian side. Consequently, bypassing Thermopylai the Thessalians led the Persian army from Trakhis via Doris into Phokis, which was overrun by the Persians. According to Herodotos, at least 15 Phokian cities and towns were burned and laid waste along with holy places. (Herodotos 8.27; 8.29–33)[2]
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| Central Greece during the Persian Invasion of 480–479 BCE. Seeing the depiction on this map of the devastation that the Persians inflicted upon the cities of Phokis makes it blatantly obvious how determined the Thessalians were to extract their revenge upon the Phokians for their victories over the Thessalians in the recent past. |
After sacking Athens and watching his fleet be battered by the allied Greeks at Salamis in the autumn of 480 BCE, Xerxes withdrew his fleet and returned to Asia. Xerxes left behind a large army—with a sizeable Persian contingent—under the command of the experienced Persian general Mardonios. The Persian army wintered in the bountiful plains of Thessaly. In the following summer of 479 BCE, Mardonios led his army south guided by the Thessalian Thorax of Larisa. With the Lakedaimonians [Spartans] cowering in fear behind the wall that they had hurriedly built across the Isthmus of Korinth and with the Athenians grudgingly taking refuge on the island of Salamis, the Persians took a deserted Athens for a second time. A full year after the disheartening catastrophe at Thermopylai, the faint-hearted Lakedaimonians were forced by the possiblity of an eventual Athenian surrender to finally lead the allied Greek forces on the offense against the Persians. In the late summer, the Lakedaimonians and their allies at long last marched out from behind the shelter of the Isthmian wall and advanced into Attica. At the same time, the stouthearted Athenians crossed over from the island of Salamis to join them. It must have been a highly emotional moment for the Athenians, who had been pleading with the timid Lakedaimonians to confront the Persian army in battle for an entire year. In the same circumstances were the Boiotians from Thespiai and Plataia as well as the Euboians from Khalkis, Eretria, and Styra. Like the Athenians, they had also bravely abandoned their homes rather than submit to the Persians. At long last, the Athenians and these others got their way and were joined by the Lakedaimonians and other Greeks at Eleusis in Attica. The Greek allies then advanced into Boiotia in central Greece and won a resounding victory over Mardonios and the Persians near Plataia in August of 479 BCE. The Lakedaimonian commanders of this major campaign were Pausanias, the son of Kleombrotos, and Euryanax, the son of Dorieos. Both men were adult nephews of the elderly, deceased king Leonidas. (Herodotos 8.113–114, 9.1, 9.10)
Just prior to the battle of Plataia, the Aleuadai brothers Thorax, Eurypylos, and Thrasydeios were chastised by Mardonios for their praise of the Lakedaimonians [Spartans], who—while manoeuvring for a better position—had withdrawn under the cover of nightfall. Mardonios considered this to have been a cowardly act that belied the Thessalian claims about Lakedaimonian bravery. (Herodotos 9.58)
There is no mention of any Greek cavalry serving on the anti-Persian side at the battle of Plataia. Herodotos reported that 8,000 Athenian hoplites commanded by Aristeides held the far left wing of the allied Greek army. To their right were 600 Plataian hoplites followed by 3,000 Megarean hoplites. In addition, each of these hoplites were supported by one psilos (light infantryman). Thus the grand total of the anti-Persian left wing of the Greek allies was 23,200 with 11,600 holplites and 11,600 psiloi. In addition to the Boiotians of Plataia, the Boiotians of Thespiai also supplied a contingent to the allied Greek army, but at another point in the line. (Herodotos 9.28–30)
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| Silver drachma of Larisa, Thessaly, ca. 380-365 BCE. Thessalian heavy cavalryman wearing a Boiotian helmet and a cuirass with pteryges. Holding a javelin? |
Opposite the Athenians, Plataians, and Megareans, the Persian battle line was composed from left to right of the Boiotians, Lokrians, Malians, Thessalians, one thousand Phokians, Makedonians, and those dwelling around Thessaly (in other words the Thessalian subject-allies). The latter held the far right flank of the entire Persian army. One thousand Phokian hoplites had come and belatedly joined the army of Mardonios just prior to the battle. Regrettably, Herodotos gave no other details about the medizing Greeks other than estimating their number at 50,000. Assuming that the Thessalians and the Thebans along with most of the other Boiotians had both supplied roughly 8,000 to 10,000 hoplites and cavalrymen each, the other medizing Greeks could have contributed 5,000 to 9,000 hoplites to make a total of approximately 25,000 hoplites and cavalrymen. If we add 25,000 psiloi—on the theory of a one to one equivalency with their hoplites and cavalry—then the grand total of the medizing Greeks would have been something in the neighbourhood of Herodotos’ figure of 50,000. It is likely that the Thessalians and the Boiotians were the only Greeks to supply an appreciable cavalry force to either side. During the battle, the Boiotian and other pro-Persian Greek cavalry (i.e. the Thessalians!) successfully covered the flight of their own infantry. When the Theban hipparch Asopodoros saw 3,000 Megarean and 1,000 Phleiasian hoplites pursuing the enemy in disorder, he attacked them, slew 600, and swept the rest from the battlefield. (Herodotos 9.17–18, 9.31–32, 9.68–69)
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FOOTNOTES
[1]↩ This Lakedaimonian [Spartan] barbarity was portrayed as an admirable and indeed noble act in the horrible movie “300” by Frank Miller, Lynn Varley, and Zack Snyder. Despite their inexplicable glorification of the horrendous murder of the Persian envoys, I doubt that the movie’s makers were supportive of a similar act in 1979 when supporters the American embassy in Tehran by assaulting the embassy and imprisoning 52 Americans for 444 days! The Iranian terrorists treated the captured American embassy staff atrociously, but thankfully—unlike the Lakedaimonians and Athenians—they were civilized enough not to murder any of their diplomatic captives!
[2]↩ Herodotos (8.50–53) records that the Persians also burnt Thespiai and Plataia in Boiotia as well as Athens and that Attica was laid waste. The small towns that were dependencies of Thespiai and Plataia were presumably also burned. No doubt East Lokris was ravaged as the East Lokrians had initially sent earth and water to Xerxes as a sign of their submission, but had then sent their entire army to oppose the Persians at Thermopylai! Based upon archaeological remains, the temple of Athena at Halai in East Lokris may have been destroyed by the Persians in ca. 480 BCE. It is actually surprising that the Persians did not wipe East Lokris from off the map as punishment for this treachery. Parts of Euboia were in all probability laid waste by the Persians. Following the naval battles off Artemision, the Euboian city of Histaia was taken by the Persians and its territory beside the sea in the Ellopian region was overrun. Euboians from Khalkis, Eretria, and Styra fought against the Persians at Artemision, Salamis, and Plataia. It seems inconceivable that the Persians would not have ravaged these three cities as they passed by them. (An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. 2004. Pages 667–668; Herodotos 7.132, 7.203, 8.1, 8.23, 8.46, 9.28.5)
FOOTNOTES
[1]↩ This Lakedaimonian [Spartan] barbarity was portrayed as an admirable and indeed noble act in the horrible movie “300” by Frank Miller, Lynn Varley, and Zack Snyder. Despite their inexplicable glorification of the horrendous murder of the Persian envoys, I doubt that the movie’s makers were supportive of a similar act in 1979 when supporters the American embassy in Tehran by assaulting the embassy and imprisoning 52 Americans for 444 days! The Iranian terrorists treated the captured American embassy staff atrociously, but thankfully—unlike the Lakedaimonians and Athenians—they were civilized enough not to murder any of their diplomatic captives!
[2]↩ Herodotos (8.50–53) records that the Persians also burnt Thespiai and Plataia in Boiotia as well as Athens and that Attica was laid waste. The small towns that were dependencies of Thespiai and Plataia were presumably also burned. No doubt East Lokris was ravaged as the East Lokrians had initially sent earth and water to Xerxes as a sign of their submission, but had then sent their entire army to oppose the Persians at Thermopylai! Based upon archaeological remains, the temple of Athena at Halai in East Lokris may have been destroyed by the Persians in ca. 480 BCE. It is actually surprising that the Persians did not wipe East Lokris from off the map as punishment for this treachery. Parts of Euboia were in all probability laid waste by the Persians. Following the naval battles off Artemision, the Euboian city of Histaia was taken by the Persians and its territory beside the sea in the Ellopian region was overrun. Euboians from Khalkis, Eretria, and Styra fought against the Persians at Artemision, Salamis, and Plataia. It seems inconceivable that the Persians would not have ravaged these three cities as they passed by them. (An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. 2004. Pages 667–668; Herodotos 7.132, 7.203, 8.1, 8.23, 8.46, 9.28.5)
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