THESSALY, PHOCIS, BOEOTIA (CENTRAL GREECE)
South of Mount Olympus, on the east coast of Greece, was
Thessaly. Homer calls this territory “Horse-rolling Thes-
saly,” and its f lat, grassy plains were among the relatively
few areas conducive to raising horses and training cavalry.
The soil of Thessaly, carried down as sediment by snow-
melt from Olympus, was extremely fertile, and in antiquity
Thessaly was an exporter of food. Between Thessaly and
the area to the south, Boeotia, the mountains came close to
the sea, near the gulf of Magnesia, forming a narrow pass
through which ran the main road. This pass was also the
site of geothermal springs, giving it the name Thermopy-
lae, or “Hot Gates.”
Boeotia, the territory of the ancient cities of Th ebes and
Plataea, was ringed by mountains, including Mount Helicon
to the west, site of an important cult of the Muses, the nine
daughters of Zeus and patronesses of the arts. Poetry asso-
ciated with this cult claims that the Muses taught the art of
singing to the rustic farmer Hasid, making him an epic poet
and entrusting him with agricultural and theological wis-
dom. Boeotia was fertile, although its climate tended toward
extremes of heat in the summer and damp cold in the win-
ter. Its main city, Th ebes, was the home of the poet Pindar,
the site of many of the myths that are the subject of Greek
tragedy, and a great military power during the fourth cen-
tury b.c.e. under the generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas.
To the south of Th ebes was Plataea, long an important ally
of Athens, farther to the south, and famous for its participa-
tion in the Greco-Persian Wars at the beginning of the fi ft h
century b.c.e.
West of Boeotia, in the high mountains around Mount
Parnassus, was the territory of Phocis, site of Delphi. Th e
ancient Greeks considered Delphi to be the center of the
world, the site where Apollo spoke to humans through his
oracle. Th e sanctuary at Delphi was considered a possession
of all Greeks, was governed by an international council, and
contained treasuries belonging to many individual cities, in
which were stored the gift s that those cities had dedicated to
the god. Even non-Greek nations sent gift s to Apollo, most
notably King Croesus of Lydia, whose lavish dedications are
described in Herodotus’s history.
ATTICA (THE SOUTHEASTERN MAINLAND)
Th e southeastern corner of the Greek peninsula, north of the
Isthmus of Corinth, was Attica, the region around the city of
Athens. Originally a region of many independent cities, the
ancient Greeks claimed that the legendary king Th eseus unit-
ed the area into a single unifi ed political entity with Athens
at its head. Attica is bounded by the sea to the east and south.
It connects with Boeotia to the north. To the west is Eleusis,
once an independent city but said to have been conquered by
Th eseus. Farther to the west is Megara, a neighboring state
and oft en an enemy of Athens. Just off shore to the south
are the islands of Salamis, the site of the great victory of the
Greeks over the Persian fl eet in the 480s b.c.e., and Aegina,
another Athenian possession.THE PELOPONNESE (THE SOUTHERN PENINSULA)
Th e southern peninsula of Greece, the Peloponnese, is con-
nected to the northern mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth,
whose principle city, Corinth, was an important center of
trade. Th ere is a canal across the Isthmus today, but in an-
tiquity any commerce moving between east and west by sea
would have either to make the (potentially dangerous) pas-
sage around the south of the Peloponnese or to stop at the
Isthmus, unload cargo, and have the ships dragged across the
land on rollers. Th is enterprise was profi table for the Corin-
thians, not least because the crews of these ships would be
tempted to spend money in the city. Likewise, all north-south
commerce by land, between the northern mainland and the
Peloponnese, had to pass through Corinth. Th e Isthmus lies
between the Gulf of Corinth to the west and the Saronic Gulf
to the east. Immediately to its south is the area of the Argolid,
named for its principal city of Argos.
Th e Argolid, site of the palace of Mycenae, was an im-
portant center during the Bronze Age. Another Bronze Age
settlement on the coast, just across the Saronic Gulf from
Athens, was Troezen, legendary birthplace of the Athenian
king Th eseus. Th e Argolid in antiquity was mostly self-suf-
fi cient, with access to the sea, fertile plains, and mountain-
ous pasturelands to the west, as was its southern neighbor,
Laconia, the region that included the ancient city of Sparta
and the territory of Messenia. Th e Spartans, famous for their
rigorous lifestyle and warlike abilities, had by the Classical
Period reduced Messenia to a client-state, its population lit-
tle more than slaves for the Spartans. As was oft en the case
among ancient Greek cities, Sparta was regularly at war with
its neighbor Argos, as Athens was with Megara.
Th e central Peloponnese, Arcadia, was isolated. High
and rocky, far from the sea, it was a relatively sparsely in-
habited land of forests and pastures, and the mythological
home of wild spirits of the mountains. Th e main city of Ar-
cadia was Megalopolis, in the south, closest to the sea, on
the river Pamisus, which drained the high Arcadian plateau.
To the west of Arcadia were Elis and Olympia. Th e latter was
the site of the Olympic Games, in honor of Zeus, an interna-
tional event founded in 776 b.c.e. and held every four years
until closed by Th eodosius, the Christian emperor of Rome,
in 393 c.e. Th e games at Olympia are now the most famous
of these ancient festivals, but there were many such events
in antiquity: the Nemean Games in the Argolid, the Isth-
mian Games at Corinth, and the Pythian Games at Delphi
in Phocis.THE IONIAN ISLANDS
Th e islands of the Ionian Sea off ered protected ports; the
western coast of Greece did not. So, most trade between the
mainland of Italy and Greece came through the islands of
Cephallenia, Zacynthus, Corcyra, and Ithaca. Th e islandclimate and geography: Greece 259