At about the same time, the Third Sacred War (356-346 BC) broke out. It was a protracted war that exhausted the energies and resources of its participants. Among these were the Thessalians, who were divided in their support of the participants. Thus, while the rest of Greece was engaged in this war, Philip used the opportunity (and the political divisons in Thessaly) to advance his presence in that region. In 354 or 353 BC, the Aleuadai summoned Philip II to assist them against Pherai. At the Battle of the Crocus Field in 353 BC, Philip, along with the Thessalian defeated a combined force of Pheraians and their Phokaian allies. The last tyrant of Pherai, Lykophron II, was removed from power. Now, Philip embarked on consolidating his control of Thessaly. His appointment as archon tagos for life gave Philip control of the League treasury and command of the League forces. He used this position to reorganize various Thessalian cities, thereby minimalizing the friction that had brought Macedon into Thessaly in the first place. He expanded his hold over the districts of Perrhaibaia, and Magnesia. To seal all of this, he took two Thessalian women as wives (Diod. Sic. 16.38). One of these wives, Philinna, came from Larissa and was the mother of Philip III Arrhidaios; the other, Nikesipolis, came from Pherai (she may have been the niece of Jason), and was mother of Thessalonike, the wife of Kassander. Under Alexander the Great, the Thessalians were among the first to support him in obtaining his supremacy of Greece (Diod. Sic. 17.4), and the Thessalian cavalry formed an integral allied component of the Macedonian army. At the battles of Issos (333 BC) and Gaugamēla (331 BC), they stood successfully against a much larger Persian force. At Ekbatana, they were mustered out as a group and sent back to Thessaly; those that chose to remain followed the Macedonian army all the way to the Oxus River, when they too were sent home. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Greeks, including the Thessalians, attempted to break away from Macedonian control. Led by Athens and having the support of the Athenian orator Demosthenes, in what has been known as the Lamian War (323-322 BC), the allied Greeks – Aitolia, Lokris, Phokis, and Thessaly – fought Antipater, the Macedonian regent and commander of Macedonian forces in Europe, in a war of liberation. Laying siege to Antipater at the heavily fortified town of Lamia (from which the war takes its name), the Athenian forces were unsuccessful. Eventually, they were defeated at Krannon in 322 BC. From then until the end of the Second Macedonian War (200-197 BC), Thessaly remained under the control of Macedon. Following the defeat of Philip V at Kynoskephalai in Thessaly by the Romans in 197 BC, the Roman commander T. Quinctius Flamininus at the Isthmian Games in 196 BC proclaimed the “freedom of the Greek states” – a declaration by which Rome hoped to ally itself with the Greek aristocrats. In the intervening period, Thessaly became a battleground as Perseus, the new king of Macedon, attempted to revive ancient Macedonian fortunes. During the Third Macedonian War (171-168 BC), the Thessalian cavalry was once again a vital component - for Rome. At the Battle of Kallinikos, fought at the war’s outset in the vicinity of Larissa, it was the cavalry’s position behind the Roman forces that prevented a complete rout. Although Perseus was initially victorious, the stalemate near Phalanna and the retirement of the Romans to a narrow strip of coast near the Vale of Tempe was overshadowed by the failure of support from the Attalids of Pergamon and the Seleukid king, Antiochos IV. In 168 BC, Perseus was defeated at the Battle of Pydna and the Kingdom of Macedon was broken up into four districts, or merides (μερίδες). In 150 BC, Andriskos, often known as the “pseudo-Philip” and claiming to be the son of Philip V, declared his intention to be the rightful king of Macedon. To this end, he began making diplomatic overtures to the Seleukids. They imprisoned Andriskos and handed him over to the Romans. Escaping them, Andriskos made his way to Thrace, where he acquired an army, invaded Macedon, and successfully defeated the Roman praetor there. Now, declaring himself Philip VI, and making a pact with Carthage, Andriskos invaded Thessaly. In 148 BC, Andriskos was defeated at Pydna, where Perseus had been defeated two decades earlier. The Roman victor, Q. Caecilius Metellus, who adopted the agnomen Macedonicus for his success, turned Macedon into a Roman province. As part of this process, Thessaly was officially incorporated into the new Roman province of Macedonia. During the Roman Empire, Thessaly became a koinon, or commonwealth, within the larger province. Among its privileges, Thessaly’s nobles still participated in the Thessalian League, which by now had a purely ceremonial function and, by the reign of Augustus, ceased striking its own independent coinage, which bore the annual magistrates’ names. From then until the time when local coinage in Thessaly stopped during the reign of Gallienus (AD 253-268), the coinage retained the traditional reverse, showing the League image of Athena Itonia and the legend KOINON ΘEΣΣАΛΩN, while the obverse replaced the head of Zeus with that of the reigning emperor (or empress). In AD 300, Thessaly became the the province of Thessalia, one of the eleven provinces making up the new Diocese of the Moesias, which itself was part of the Prefecture of Illyricum. Under Constantine I (AD 307-337), this diocese was split into two, and Thessaly became part of the new Diocese of Macedonia. Please note that introductions to the Thessalian League, as well as the individual cities represented in this collection, precede their respective sections of the catalog. For further general information, please consult the following books: G.M. Cohen. The Hellenisic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor (Berkeley, 1995). M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen, eds. An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Greek poleis (Oxford, 2004). R.J.A. Talbert, general ed. Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton, 2000). Or see the specific sections for any specialized reference on that area.
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