File:Larissa drachma.jpg|thumb|Silver drachma of Larissa (410-405 BC). Head of the nymph Larissa left, wearing pearl earring, her hair bound in sakkos / ΛΑΡΙΣΑ above, [IA] below (retrograde), bridled horse -symbol of the city- galloping right.
Pre-history Traces of
Paleolithic human settlement have been recovered from the area, but it was peripheral to areas of advanced culture. The area around Larissa was extremely fruitful; it was agriculturally important and in
antiquity was known for its horses. The name Larissa (Λάρισα
Lárīsa) is in origin a
Pelasgian word for "fortress". There were many ancient Greek cities with this name. The name of Thessalian Larissa is first recorded in connection with the aristocratic
Aleuadai family. It was also a
polis (city-state).
Classical Age Larissa was a
polis (city-state) during the Classical Era. Larissa is thought to be where the famous Greek physician
Hippocrates and the famous philosopher
Gorgias of Leontini died. .
Obv: head of Aleuas facing slightly left, wearing conical helmet, ALEU to right; labrys behind.
Rev: Eagle standing right, head left, on thunderbolt; ELLA to left, LARISAYA to right. Thessaly, Larissa. BC. When Larissa ceased minting the federal coins it shared with other Thessalian towns and adopted its coinage in the late fifth century BC, it chose local types for its coins. The obverse depicted the nymph of the local spring, Larissa, for whom the town was named; probably the choice was inspired by the famous coins of
Kimon depicting the Syracusan nymph
Arethusa. The reverse depicted a horse in various poses. The horse was an appropriate symbol of Thessaly, a land of plains, which was well known for its horses. Usually, there is a male figure; he should perhaps be seen as the eponymous hero of the Thessalians, Thessalos, who is probably also to be identified on many of the earlier, federal coins of Thessaly. of the city. It was constructed inside the ancient city's centre during the reign of
Antigonus II Gonatas towards the end of the third century BC. The theatre was in use for six centuries, until the end of the third century AD. Larissa, sometimes written Larisa on ancient coins and inscriptions, is near the site of the Homeric Argissa. It appears in early times, when
Thessaly was mainly governed by a few aristocratic families, as an important city under the rule of the
Aleuadae, whose authority extended over the whole district of
Pelasgiotis. This powerful family possessed for many generations before 369 BC the privilege of furnishing the
Tagus, the local term for the
strategos of the combined Thessalian forces. The principal rivals of the Aleuadae were the
Scopadae of
Crannon, the remains of which are about 14 miles southwest. Larissa was the birthplace of
Meno, who thus became, along with
Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands of Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 (retold in Xenophon's
Anabasis) meant to help
Cyrus the Younger, son of
Darius II, king of
Persia, overthrow his elder brother
Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia (Meno is featured in
Plato's dialogue bearing his name, in which
Socrates uses the example of
"the way to Larissa" to help explain to Meno the difference between true
opinion and
science (Meno, 97a–c); this "way to Larissa" might well be on the part of Socrates an attempt to call to Meno's mind a "way home", understood as the way toward one's true and "eternal" home reached only at death, that each man is supposed to seek in his life). The constitution of the town was
democratic, which explains why it sided with
Athens in the
Peloponnesian War. A festival celebrated near Larissa resembled the Roman
Saturnalia, and at which the slaves were waited on by their masters. As the chief city of ancient Thessaly, Larissa was taken by the
Thebans and later directly annexed by
Philip II of Macedon in 344. It remained under Macedonian control afterwards, except for a brief period when
Demetrius Poliorcetes captured it in 302 BC. It was in Larissa that
Philip V of Macedon signed in 197 BC a treaty with the Romans after his defeat at the
Battle of Cynoscephalae, and it was there also that
Antiochus III the Great, won a great victory in 192 BC. In 196 BC Larissa became an ally of Rome and was the headquarters of the
Thessalian League. Larissa is frequently mentioned in connection with the
Roman civil wars which preceded the establishment of the
Roman Empire and
Pompey sought refuge there after the defeat of
Pharsalus.
Middle Ages , destroyed during the Ottoman era , with the
Bezesten of Larissa in the background Larissa was sacked by the
Ostrogoths in the late
5th century, and rebuilt under the
Byzantine emperor
Justinian I. In the eighth century, the city became the
metropolis of the
theme of
Hellas. Under the Ottoman rule, the city was known as
Yeni-şehir i-Fenari, "new citadel". As the chief town and military base of
Ottoman Thessaly, Larissa was a predominantly Muslim city. according to Gökbilgin (1956), it also included
Albanian and
Jewish communities. During Ottoman rule the administration of the
Metropolis of Larissa was transferred to nearby
Trikala where it remained until 1734, when Metropolitan Iakovos II returned the see from Trikala to Larissa and established the present-day metropolis of Larissa and Tyrnavos. The town was noted for its trade fair in the 17th and 18th centuries, while the seat of the pasha of Thessaly was also transferred there in 1770. The city remained a part of the Ottoman Empire until
Thessaly became part of the independent
Kingdom of Greece in 1881, except for a period when Ottoman forces re-occupied it during the
Greco-Turkish War of 1897. ==Ecclesiastical history==