Doliche (Thessaly)

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

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.

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]

  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. ISBN 978-0-691-03169-9.
  10. ^ Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
  11. ^ William Martin Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 344.