Map of the Roman Empire - Larissa

Larissa
L-5 on the Map

Ancient Larissa It was the chief city of Thessaly.

Larissa. The name of several Pelasgian places, whence Larissa is called in mythology the daughter of Pelasgus. In Assyria, an ancient city on the eastern bank of the Tigris, some distance north of the mouth of the river Zabatus or Lycus. It was deserted when Xenophon saw it. The name Larissa is in this case no doubt a corruption of some Assyrian name (perhaps Al-Assur), which Xenophon naturally confounded with Larissa, through his familiarity with the word as the name of cities in Greece. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

Larissa (Greek: Λάρισα, [ˈlarisa]) is a city and the capital of the Thessaly periphery of Greece, and capital of the Larissa Prefecture. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by road and rail with the port of Volos and with Thessaloniki and Athens. The population of the greater area is around 250,000, and takes in of Nikaia, Giannouli and other smaller suburban communities. According to archaeological evidence, the capital of Thessaly, Larissa, lies atop a site that has been inhabited since the tenth millennium BCE. A major commercial and industrial centre. Legend has it that Achilles was born here and Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, died here. In Mythology the city is said in Greek mythology to have been founded by Acrisius, who was killed accidentally by his son, Perseus[2]. There lived Peleus, the hero beloved by the gods, and his son Achilles; however, the city is not mentioned by Homer, unless it should be identified with Argissa of the Iliad[3]. In mythology, the nymph Larissa was a daughter of the primordial man Pelasgus.[4]

Hellenistic and Roman era. It was in Larissa that Philip V of Macedonia signed in 197 BC a treaty with the Romans after his defeat at Cynoscephalae, and it was there also that Antiochus III, the Great, won a great victory, 192 BC. As the chief city of ancient Thessaly, Larissa was directly annexed by Philip II of Macedon in 344, and from then on Larissa was under Macedonian control; in 196 B.C. 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 empire and Pompey sought refuge there after the defeat of Pharsalus. - Wikipedia

Larissa LARISSA
LARISSA (Λάρισα, Xen. Anab. 3.4.7), a town of Assyria, at no great distance from the left bank of the Tigris, observed by Xenophon on the [2.128] retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks. It appears to have been situated a little to the north of the junction of the Lycus (Z�b) and the Tigris. Xenophon describes it as a deserted city, formerly built by the Medes, with a wall 25 feet broad, and 100 high, and extending in circumference two parasangs. The wall itself was constructed of bricks, but had a foundation of stone, 20 feet in height (probably a casing in stone over the lower portion of the bricks). He adds, that when the Persians conquered the Medes, they were not at first able to take this city, but at last captured it. during a dense fog. Adjoining the town was a pyramid of stone, one plethron broad, and two plethra in height. It has been conjectured that this was the site of the city of Resen, mentioned in Genesis (10.12); and there can be little doubt, that these ruins represent those of Nimr�d, now so well known by the excavations which Mr. Layard has conducted. - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.