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GONI (Ancient city) TYRNAVOS
Gonnus or Gonni (Gonnos, Herod., Strab.; Gonnoi, Polyb., Steph. B.: Eth. Gonnios,
also Gounios, Gonatas, Steph. B. s. v.), an ancient town of the Perrhaebi in Thessaly,
which derived its name, according to the later Greek critics, from Gonneus, mentioned
in the Iliad. (Il. ii. 748; Steph. B. s. v. Gonnoi.) Its position made it one
of the most important places in the north of Thessaly. It stood on the northern
side of the Peneius, near the entrance of the only two passes by which an enemy
can penetrate into Thessaly from the north. The celebrated vale of Tempe begins
to narrow at Gonni; and the pass across Mt. Olympus a little to the west of Tempe
leads into Thessaly at Gonni. It was by the latter route that the army of Xerxes
entered Thessaly. (Herod. vii. 128, 173.) The position of Gonni with respect to
Tempe is clearly shown by the numerous passages in which it is mentioned by Livy.
After the battle of Cynoscephalae, in B.C. 197, Philip fled in haste to Tempe,
but halted a day at Gonni, to receive such of his troops as might have survived
the battle. (Liv. xxxiii. 10; Polyb. xviii. 10.) In the war against Antiochus,
in B.C. 191, when the king, having marched from Demetrias, had advanced as far
north as Larissa, a portion of the Roman army under the command of App. Claudius
marched through the pass across Mt. Olympus, and thus arrived at Gonni. On this
occasion Livy says that Gonni was 20 miles from Larissa, and describes it as situated
in ipsis faucibus saltus qu? Tempe appellantur. (Liv. xxxvi. 10.) In B.C. 171
it was strongly fortified by Perseus; and when this monarch retired into Macedonia,
the Roman consul Licinius advanced against the town, but found it impregnable.
(Liv. xlii. 54, 67.) Gonni does not occur in history after the wars of the Romans
in Greece,. but it is mentioned by Strabo (ix. p. 440; Ptol. iii. 13. § 42).
The site of Gonni is fixed by Leake at a place called Lykostomo, or
the Wolf's Mouth, in the vale of Dereli, at the foot of a point of Mt. Olympus,
about a mile from the Peneius. Here are some remains of a Hellenic city, mixed
with other ruins of a later date. It would therefore appear that the town of Lycostomium
(Lykostomion), which occurs in Byzantine history as early as the eleventh century
(Cantacuz. ii. 28, iv. 19), was built upon the site of Gonni. (Leake, Northern
Greece, vol. iv. p. 388.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
(Gonnoi) or Gonnus (Gonnos). A strongly fortified town of the Perrhaebi in Thessaly, on the river Peneus and at the entrance of the vale of Tempe.
An important city of Perrhaibia, located on the left bank of the Peneois
river, at the W entrance to the Tempe pass. It controlled the pass and the S end
of a route which led from Macedonia to Thessaly over the E shoulder of Olympos
via Lake Askyris. Xerxes came by here in 480 B.C. (Hdt. 7.128, 173). The area
was settled in prehistoric times, and the city evidently prospered in the archaic
and Classical periods. Owing to its position, it was important to Macedon in the
Hellenistic period, and it played a part in wars between Rome and various Hellenistic
kings. Philip V collected stragglers here on his way back to Macedonia in 197
B.C. after Kynokephalai (Livy 33.10; Polyb. 18.27.12). It was freed and important
after the Roman liberation of 196 B.C. Antiochus III, advancing N in Thessaly
in 191 B.C., was frightened back to Demetrias by Appius Claudius who came down
from Macedonia to the heights above Gonnos (via the Askyris route? [Livy 36.10]);
Perseus in 171 B.C. took the city and strengthened its fortifications with a triple
ditch and rampart, and left a garrison there which remained until Pydna (Livy
42.54, 67; 44.6). The city prospered thereafter, but seems to have dwindled in
importance in the Roman provincial period.
The ruins of the site are on the end of a ridge of lower Olympos which
stretches down into the Peneios plain 1 km from the river and ca. 3 km from the
W end of the Tempe pass. The ancient town is almost 2 km SE of modern Gonnoi (formerly
Dereli). The end of the ridge is broken into three separate hills aligned in a
half-moon shape facing SE. Along the NW side of the ridge is a deep ravine. In
the archaic period the NE hill was circled by a wall made of small, flat, roughly
squared stone slabs laid in fairly regular courses; part of it is still preserved
to 6 m high. In Hellenistic times the city wall was extended along the ridge to
include the other two hills, and then across the wide, theater-shaped slope between
the SE hill and the acropolis. The line of the wall along the ridge (ca. one course
high) can be traced; the stretch across the valley has largely disappeared. The
wall between the middle hill and the SE one, and around the SE hill was fortified
by some 12 projecting towers. In the middle of this stretch of wall was a gate
flanked by towers. Another gate could be seen in the middle of the stretch crossing
the valley, and outside this gate Arvanitopoullos in 1910 saw a ditch and earth
rampart he took to be the fossa triplex built by Perseus.
The archaic acropolis was inhabited since Neolithic times. On the
summit, excavations in 1910-11 uncovered the foundations of an elliptical temple
of small stones with an entrance to the SE. It probably had two poros columns
in the door; fragments of an archaic Doric capital were found. The temple seems
to have been built with a stone socle and mudbrick upper parts. Fragments of archaic
painted terracotta antefixes and cornice were found here. The temple was rebuilt
on the same plan in the 4th-3d c. B.C.: Hellenistic terracottas and roof tiles
were also found. Three half-round terrace walls support the slope to the S of
the temple, which Arvanitopoullos called the Temple of Athena Polias. Foundations
of another building, possibly a temple, were discovered and excavated at this
time just inside the NW gate. Dedications to Artemis were found near it. To the
E of the city walls, in the plain, are the foundations of a temple (partially
excavated in 1914) perhaps to Asklepios. South of this are the foundations of
another temple.
Arvanitopoullos supposed the agora of the city to be on the gentle
slope at the 5 foot of the acropolis hill, where he saw the remains of a large
building. Just outside the wall here he saw the remains of a Roman (?) building.
He discovered a water channel just to the N of the acropolis, which brought water
from a spring called Manna on the peak of Lower Olympos called Solio, where there
was said to be (1910) a cemented reservoir. South of the walled city is a mound
in the plain called Besik Tepe, which was a prehistoric site. Around the mound
are traces of a (period?) wall, and on the summit remains of buildings of small
stones. Ancient graves have been found at this tepe, outside the N gate of the
city, and outside the S gate. The site of Gonnos has yielded a rich quantity of
inscriptions, some sculpture and other remains.
T. S. Mackay, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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