THESSALY,. one of the principal divisions of Northern Greece, and the cradle of many of the inhabitants of Greece in general, is en extensive and generally unbroken plain, about 80 miles in extreme length and 70 miles in breadth, comprising an area of about 5300 square miles, and forming an irregular sort of square. This descrip tion applies only to what may be called Thessaly Proper, which ie bounded W. by the range of Pindus; N. towards Macedonia by the Cambunian Mountains : S. by the range of Mount' Othrye; E. by a range of mountains running along the coast nearly parallel to Pindus, and including the summits of Pelion and Ossa. The basin of Thes saly is thus surrounded by mountain barriers, broken at the north east corner only by the valley and defile of Tempe (or the Cut), which separates Mount Osaa from Olympus, and presents the only road from Thessaly to the north which does not lead over a mountain pass. At the eastern base of the mountain range which runs from Tempe to the Bay of Pagasx, now the Gulf of Volo, there is a narrow strip of land called Magnesia, between the hills and the sea, Interrupted in several places by lofty headlands and ravines, and without any harbour of refuge from the gales of the north-east. South of Othrys, the .southern boundary of Thessaly Proper, lies a long narrow vale, through which winds the river Spercheitts, and which, though gene rally,eousidered as a part of Thee/tidy, is separated from it by the range of Othrys, and is very different from it in physical features. It is bounded on the south by the range of (Eta, which rune from l'indus to the sea at Thermopylae in a general direction nearly parallel to the Cambunisn Mountains ; and on AA eastern side by the shores of the Bay of Malia, now the Gulf of Zeitoun. According to Greek traditions, Thessaly was known in remote times by the names of Pyrrha, sEznonia, and sEolis. The two former names belong to the age of mythology ; the last refers to the time when the country was inhabited by the .Eolian Pelasgi, previous to the occupation of any part of it by the Thessalians, who, according to Ilerodotus (vii. 170), came from Thesprotia, a region in the west of Epirus, and settled in the country, which from them derived its future name. The name does not occur in Homer, although the several principalities of which it was composed at the time of the Trojan war are enumerated.
(' ii. 700.) From very early times Thessaly was divided into four districts, or tetrarchies, HostisTotis, Pelasgiotis, Thessaliotis, and Plathiotie ; and the division still existed in the time of the Peloponnesian war (n.e. 401).
Ileatixotis was the mountainous country between Pindus and Olympus; having generally for its southern limit the river Poneue. Herodotus (i. 156) applies this name to the country in the hood of Ossa and Olympus, the original abode of the Dorians before they settled in Peloponnesus. From a statement iu Strabo (ix., p. 437),
it would seem that the name of Hestimotis was derived from a district in Eubma, whose inhabitants were transplanted to this part of Thessaly by the Perrlimbi. In historical times the Perrhiebi dwelt in the valley of the Titaresius under Olympus. The north-western part of Hes theotis was in ante-historical times (Homer, ' ii. 774) occupied by a mountain tribe of uncertain origin, called the sEthicee. In the time of Strabo (ix., p. 434) scarcely any trace remained of them.
The most remarkable towns of Heatimotis were as follows :— Phoieriu, or Phaloria, the first town of any importance on entering Thessaly from Epirus by the passes of Pardus (Liv., xxxii. 15): O.eyneia and