Geography

​And continuous with this portion are said to be those under Polypoetes: “And those who held Argissa and dwelt in Gyrtone, and those who held Orthe and Elone, and the white city of Oloosson.” This country was formerly inhabited by the Perrhaebians, who held the part near the sea and near the Peneus as far as its mouth and Gyrton, a Perrhaebian city. Then the Lapiths, having humbled them, themselves occupied these places, Ixion and his son Pirithous, who also acquired Pelion by forcing out the Centaurs who occupied it, a wild race. These indeed he “drove out of Pelion and made them approach the Aethices,” and delivered the plains to the Lapiths; but some of these parts the Perrhaebians also held, namely those near Olympus; and in some places they lived mixed altogether with the Lapiths. Argissa indeed, now called Argoura, lies on the Peneus; and above it at a distance of forty stadia lies Atrax, this city also being near the river; and the Perrhaebians held the river territory between them. Some have said that Orthe is the acropolis of the Phalannaeans; and Phalanna is a Perrhaebian city near the Peneus close to Tempe. The Perrhaebians indeed, being dominated by the Lapiths, withdrew for the most part into the mountainous region around Pindus and the Athamanes and Dolopes, while the Larisaeans occupied the country and those of the Perrhaebians who were left behind; they dwelt near the Peneus, being neighbors to them, and held the most fertile parts of the plains, except for any very low-lying part near Lake Nessonis, into which the river, overflowing, used to deprive the Larisaeans of some of their arable land; but later the Larisaeans corrected this with embankments. These people, then, for a time held Perrhaebia and exacted tribute, until Philip became master of these places. And Larisa is also a place on Mount Ossa; and there is Larisa Cremaste, called Pelasgia by some; and in Crete a city now settled together into Hierapytna, from which also the plain lying beneath is now called Larisium; and in Peloponnese both the acropolis of the Argives and the Larisus river which divides Eleia from Dyme. And Theopompus speaks of a city Larisa lying on the same boundary; and in Asia there is Larisa Phriconis near Cyme, and the one near Hamaxitus in the Troad; and there is the Ephesian Larisa, and one in Syria; and fifty stadia from Mitylene are the Larisaean Rocks on the road to Methymna; and there is also a Larisa in Attica; and a village thirty stadia distant from Tralles, above the city, on the way to the plain of Cayster through Mesogis, near the temple of Mother Isodrome, having a similar position and fertility to Larisa Cremaste; for it is well-watered and planted with vines; and perhaps Zeus Larisius was named from there; and on the left of the Pontus, a certain village is called Larisa, between Naulochus and [...] near the summits of Haemus. And Oloosson, called white from its consisting of white clay, and Elone are Perrhaebian cities, and also Gonnus. And Elone changed its name, being renamed Leimone; it has now been razed; and both lie under Olympus not very far from the Europus river, which the poet calls Titaresius.