Pieres

The Pieres (Ancient Greek,"Πίερες") were a Thracian tribe[1] connected with the Brygi[2], that long before the archaic period in Greece occupyied the narrow strip of plain land, or low hill, between the mouths of the Peneius and the Haliacmon[3] rivers, at the foot of the great woody steeps of mount Olympus[4].

Contents

Expulsion

The Pieres were expelled[5] by the Macedonians in the 8th century BC[6] from their original seats, and driven to the North beyond the Strymon river and Mount Pangaeus[7], where they formed a new settlement.Herodotus mentions that they had mines in Mount Pangaeus[8] and two fortresses,After passing through the aforementioned land, Xerxes next passed the fortresses (teicheia)[9] Phagres ,fort (Ancient Greek,"Φάγρης") and the other Pergamus ,fort (Ancient Greek,"Πέργαμος"). He writes the Pierians were among the nations that supplied Xerxes army[10]. This district, which, under the name of Pieria (Ancient Greek,"Πιερία") or Pieris (Ancient Greek,"Πιερίς"), is mentioned in the Homeric poems, was, according to legend, the birthplace of the Muses[11] and of Orpheus[12], the father of song. When this worship was introduced into Boeotia, the names of the mountains, grots, and springs with which this poetic religion was connected, were transferred from the North to the South.

The boundaries which historians and geographers give to this province vary. In the systematic geography of Ptolemy the name is given to the extent of coast between the mouths of the Ludias and the Haliacmon rivers. Pieria was bounded on the West from the contiguous district of the Thessalian Perrhaebia by the great chain of Olympus. An offshoot from Olympus advances along the Pierian plain, in a North-west direction, as far as the ravine of the Haliacmon, where the mountains are separated by that chasm in the great eastern ridge of Northern Greece from the portion of it anciently called Bermius. The highest summit of the Pierian range called Pierus Mons and is a conspicuous object in all the country to the East. It would seem that there was a city called Pieria, which may be represented by a tumulus, overgrown with trees upon the extremity of the ridge of Andreotissa, where it ends in a point between Dium and Pydna, the other two chief cities of Pieria. Beyond Pydna was a considerable forest, called Pieria Silva, which may have furnished the Pierian pitch, which had such a high reputation.The road from Pella to Larissa in Thessaly passed through Pieria, and was probably the route which the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus pursued in the third and fourth years of the third Macedonian War (171 BC–168 BC).

See also

References

  1. ^ Orpheus and Greek Religion (Mythos Books) by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink,1993,page 62: "... assigned, Pieria, was originally inhabited by a Thracian tribe, the Pieres, who according to Thucydides (ii. ..."
  2. ^ W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus,6.45 ,"Βρύγοι. These Thracian neighbours of Macedon may be placed between the Strymon and Mount Athos. In the list of tribes given in vii. 185 they come between the men of Chalcidice and the Pieres. The two passages agree if in vii. 185 the Pieres are the branch of the tribe who lived east of the Strymon (vii. 112). Scymnus Chius (434) and Strabo (326) locate the Brygi far to the west on the borders of Epirus and Illyria. Probably they are connected with the Βρίγες (vii. 73), the European ancestors of the Phrygians."
  3. ^ E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2,Στενήν—the Paeonians had possessed ‘a narrow strip on the bank of the Axius, down to Pella and the sea.’ Grote points out that this would leave hardly any room for the Bottiaeans, who dwelt north of the Pierians, between the mouth of the Haliacmon (the Indjeh Kara-su) and that of the Axius. Probably Thuc. is mistaken in saying μέχρι θαλάσσης, and the Paeonians did not extend so far east
  4. ^ Strab. 7.7,"As for the Thracians, the Pieres inhabited Pieria and the region about Olympus"
  5. ^ Archaic Eretria: A Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 BC by Keith G. Walker,2004,page 154: "... 498-54)12' had incorporated coastal Pieria into Macedonia and expelled the 'Pieres', who af- terwards took up their abode in areas at Mt.Pangaion..."
  6. ^ An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation,ISBN 0-19-814099-1,2005,page 865
  7. ^ Archaic Eretria: A Political and Social History from the Earliest Times to 490 BC by Keith G. Walker,2004,page 154: "... 498-54)12' had incorporated coastal Pieria into Macedonia and expelled the 'Pieres', who af- terwards took up their abode in areas at Mt.Pangaion..."
  8. ^ Hdt. 7.112, of the Pierians, one called ...... By going this way he marched right under their walls, keeping on his right the great and high Pangaean range, where the Pierians and Odomanti and especially the Satrae have gold and silver mines.
  9. ^ An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation,ISBN 0-19-814099-1,2005,page 865
  10. ^ Hdt. 7.185, As regards the land army supplied by all the nations—Thracians, Paeonians, Eordi, Bottiaei, Chalcidians, Brygi, Pierians
  11. ^ E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2,Πιερίας—between Mt. Olympus and the Thermaic Gulf, the origiual home of the muses and birth-place of Orpheus.
  12. ^ Orpheus and Greek Religion (Mythos Books) by William Keith Guthrie and L. Alderlink, 1993), ISBN 0691024995, page 62

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).