Doliche (Thessaly)

Doliche (Greek: Δολίχη)[1] was an ancient Greek city and polis (city-state) in Perrhaebia in Thessaly, situated at the foot of Mount Olympus.[2] Doliche, with the two neighbouring towns of Azorus and Pythion (Pythium), formed a Tripolis.

For the modern settlement, see Dolichi.
Map showing ancient Thessaly. Doliche is shown to the centre top near Mount Olympus.

During the Roman–Seleucid War, the Tripolis was ravaged by an army of the Aetolian League in the year 191 BCE.[3] During the Third Macedonian War the three towns surrendered to the army of Perseus of Macedon in the year 171 BCE,[4] but that same year the Romans reconquered the three.[5] In the year 169 BCE troops arrived from the Roman consul Quintus Marcius Philippus who camped between Azorus and Doliche.[6][7]

The three cities minted a common coin with the inscription "ΤΡΙΠΟΛΙΤΑΝ".[8]

The site is occupied by the modern town of Dolichi;[9][10] when William Martin Leake visited the site in the 19th century, he found two fragments of Doric columns 2 feet 8 inches (81 cm) in diameter in a ruined church, and a sepulchral stone in the burying-ground, together with some squared blocks.[11]

References
  1. Ptolemy. The Geography. Vol. 3.13.42.
  2. Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen (2004). "Thessaly and Adjacent Regions". An inventory of archaic and classical poleis. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 722-723. ISBN 0-19-814099-1.
  3. Livy. Ab urbe condita Libri [History of Rome]. Vol. 36.10.
  4. Livy. Ab urbe condita Libri [History of Rome]. Vol. 42.53.
  5. Livy. Ab urbe condita Libri [History of Rome]. Vol. 42.67.
  6. Polybius. The Histories. Vol. 28.11, 28.13.1.
  7. Livy. Ab urbe condita Libri [History of Rome]. Vol. 44.2.
  8. Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen (2004). "Thessaly and Adjacent Regions". An inventory of archaic and classical poleis. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 721-722. ISBN 0-19-814099-1.
  9. Richard Talbert, ed. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. p. 50, and directory notes accompanying.
  10. Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
  11. William Martin Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 344.

Sources

40°03′27″N 22°10′00″E

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