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Malis (he Malis ge; Melis Herod. vii. 198: Eth. Malieus Melieus),
a small district of Greece, at the head of the Maliac gulf, surrounded on all
sides by mountains, and open only in the direction of the sea. The river Spercheius
flowed through it. The limits of Malis are fixed by the description of Herodotus.
It extended a little north of the valley of the Spercheius to the narrowest part
of the straits of Thermopylae. Anticyra was the northernmost town of the Malians
(Herod. vii. 198); the boundary passed between Lamia and Anticyra. Anthela was
their southern-most town (vii. 176, 200). Inland, the Anopaea, the path over Mount
Oeta, by which the Persians turned the army of Leonidas, in part divided the territory
of the Trachinian Malians from that of the Oetaeans (vii. 217). According to Stephanus
B. (s. v. Malieus), the Malians derived their name from a town Malieus, not mentioned
by any other ancient author, said to have been founded by Malus, the son of Amphictyon.
The Malians were reckoned among the Thessalians; but although tributary to the
latter, they were genuine Hellenes, and were from the earliest times members of
the Amphicytonic council. They were probably Dorians, and were always in close
connection with the acknowledged Doric states. Hercules, the great Doric hero,
is represented as the friend of Ceyx of Trachis, and Mount Oeta was the scene
of the hero's death. Diodorus (xii. 59) even speaks of Trachis as the mother-town
of Lacedaemon. When the Trachinians were hard pressed by their Oetaean neighbours,
about the commencement of the Peloponnesian War, they applied for assistance to
the Spartans, who founded in consequence the colony of Heracleia near Trachis.
(Thuc. iii. 92.)
Scylax (p. 24), who is followed by Diodorus (xviii. 11), distinguishes
between the Melieis and Malieis, the former extending along the northern coast
of the Maliac gulf from Lamia to Echinus; but, as no other writer mentions these
towns as belonging to the Lamians, we ought probably to read Damieis, as K. O.
Muller observes. Thucydides mentions three divisions (mere) of the Malians, called
Paralii (Paralioi), Priests (Hieres), and Trachinii (Trachinioi). Who the Priests
were is a matter only of conjecture: Grote supposes that they may have been possessors
of the sacred spot on which the Amphictyonic meetings were held; while Leake imagines
that they were the inhabitants of the Sacred City (hieron hastu), to which, according
to Callimachus (Hymn. in Del. 287), the Hyperborean offerings were sent from Dodona
on their way to Delus, and that this Sacred City was the city Oeta mentioned by
Stephanus B. The names of the Paralii and Trachinii sufficiently indicate their
position. The Malians admitted every man to a share in the government, who either
had served or was serving as a Hoplite (Aristot. Polit. iv. 10. § 10). In war
they were chiefly famous as slingers and darters. (Thuc. iv. 100.)
Trachis was the principal town of the Malians. There were also Anticyra
and Anthela on the coast; and others, of which the names only are preserved, such
as Colaceia (Theopom. ap. Athen. vi. p. 254, f.), Aegoneia (Lycophr. 903; Steph.
B. s. v.), and Irus (Schol. in Lycophr. l. c.; Steph. B. s. v.). (Muller, Dorians,
vol. i. p. 50; Grote, Greece, vol. ii. p. 378; Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii.
p. 20.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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