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The Kingdom of Peleus and Achilles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

R. Hope Simpson  and
J. F. Lazenby
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Extract

And now I will tell of the men who lived in Pelasgian Argos, who dwelt in Alos and Alope, in Trechis, Phthia, and Hellas of the Fair Women. Their names were Myrmidons and Hellenes and Achaeans; and they and their fifty ships were unde Achilles’ command.’ (Iliad, 11, 681-5.)

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 33 , Issue 130 , June 1959 , pp. 102 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1959

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References

1 Whereas his location, e.g. at Pharsala (Schol. Odyssey, IV, 9), is easily explained in this way. For the best previous discussion of the Kingdom of Peleus cf. Allen, The Homeric Catalogue of Skips (1921), 108–113.

2 The main site was Lianokladhi (Wace and Thompson, Prehistoric Thessaly, 171–92). Surface finds were made at Amouri (op. cit., 11).

3 Marinates, Bericht uoer den Intern. KongressfUr Arch. (1939), 334.

4 In B.C.H. 70 (1946), 636 (cf. Prehistoric Thessaly, 5 and 240), Professor Wace indicated the gaps in our knowledge of the Spercheios Valley and Malis. Our work is largely the result of his personal encouragement.

5 Paulys, R. E., XII 1, 840–5; Béquignon, La Vallée du Spercheios (1937), 140–1. The walls are of Irregular Trapezoidal masonry, and probably 5th century B.C. (Scranton, Greek Walls (1941), 71–3 and 169).

6 Béquignon, op. cit., 299–3<>3i fig. 12, and pi. XV.

7 A.J.A., 46 (1942), 5°°, fig- 2.

8 The western shore of the Malian Gulf once lay a considerable distance inland of the present coastline (cf. Pausanias, X, 20, 7).

9 Béquignon, op. cit., 263–78, figs. 5–6, pl. XII.

10 Scranton, op. cit., 160. Béquignon, op. cit., pl. XII, 2.

11 Béquignon, op. cit., 243–60, fig. 4, pls. IX-X.

12 Béquignon, op. cit., 308–12, fig. 13, pl. XVI, 1.

13 Cf. Béquignon, op. cit., 313–15, fig. 14, pl. XVI, 2.

14 The site (previously unrecorded) is on the north bank of the river.

15 Professor Wace thought that the upper half of the valley had been part of a primeval forest belt (Prehistoric Tkessaly, 240, cf. 6–7). To west of Kastri the valley is now lightly wooded.

16 Cf. Allen, The Homeric Catalogue of Ships (1921), 54.

17 Op. cit., 113.

18 Travels in Northern Greece (1835), 11, 8.

19 Prehistoric Thessaly, 255.

20 Op. cit., 108 ff.

21 The Heroic Age (191a). 280, n. 1.

22 Livy (XLII, 56) refera to the attack by the Roman fleet under Q. Marchia Rex on Larisa Cremaste and Alope in 171 B.c., which suggests that Alope was near Larisa Cremaste. However, since the fleet eventually sailed to Chalcis, it must have passed Locrian Alope, and it may have been this town which was taken by it.

23 The remains at Rakhes (Béquignon, op. cit., 367–8, pl. XX, 2) are insufficient to support the conjecture that Alope was here.

24 B.S.A., 32 (1931–2). 149.

25 Hellas is described as ‘with broad dancing places’ (Iliad, IX, 478) and Phthia as ‘rich in loam’, ‘feeder of men’, and ‘mother of sheep’ (Iliad, 1, 155; IX, 363 and 479).