Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Mythology for wider area of: "LARISSA Town THESSALIA" .
LARISSA (Ancient city) THESSALIA
Aleuas and Aleuadae (Aleuadai). Aleuas is the ancestorial hero of the Thessalian,
or, more particularly, of the Larissaean family of the Aleuadae (Pind. Pyth. x.
8). The Aleuadae were the noblest and most powerful among all the families of
Thessaly, whence Herodotus (vii. 6) calls its members Basileis. The first Aleuas,
who bore the surname of Purros, that is, the red-haired, is called king (here
synonymous with Tagus)
of Thessaly, and a descendant of Heracles through Thessalus, one of the many sons
of Heracles. (Suidas, s. v. Aleuadai; Ulpian, ad Dem. Olynth. i.; Schol. (ad Apollon.
Rhod. iii. 1090; Vellei. i. 3.) Plutarch (de Am. Frat. in, fin.) states, that
he was hated by his father on account of his haughty and savage character; but
his uncle nevertheless contrived to get him elected king and sanctioned by the
god of Delphi. His reign was more glorious than that of any of his ancestors,
and the nation rose in power and importance. This Aleuas, who belongs to the mythical
period of Greek history, is in all probability the same as the one who, according
to Hegemon (ap. Ael. Anim. viii. 11), was beloved by a dragon. According to Aristotle
(ap. Harpocrat. s.v. Tetrarchia) the division of Thessaly into four parts, of
which traces remained down to the latest times, took place in the reign of the
first Aleuas. Buttmann places this hero in the period between the so-called return
of the Heraclids and the age of Peisistratus. But even earlier than the time of
Peisistratus the family of the Aleuadac appears to have become divided into two
branches, the Aleuadae and the Scopadae, called after Scopas, probably a son of
Aleuas. (Ov. Ibis, 512.) The Scopadae inhabited Crannon and perhaps Pharsalus
also, while the main branch, the Aleuadae, remained at Larissa. The influence
of the families, however, was not confined to these towns, but extended more or
less over the greater part of Thessaly. They formed in reality a powerful aristocratic
party (Basileis) in opposition to the great body of the Thessalians. (Herod. vii.
172)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Some take the Pelasgian Argos as a Thessalian city once situated in the neighborhood of Larisa but now no longer existent; but others take it, not as a city, but as the plain of the Thessalians, which is referred to by this name because Abas, who brought a colony there from Argos, so named it (Strab. 9,5,5).
ATRAX (Ancient city) THESSALIA
Atrax, a son of Peneius and Bura, from whom the town of Atrax in Hestiaeotis was believed to have derived its name. (Steph. Byz. s. v.) He was the father of Hippodameia and Caenis, the latter of whom by the will of Poseidon was changed into a man, and named Caenus. (Antonin. Lib. 17; Ov. Met. xii. 190, &c.)
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