Orestis (region)
For the modern municipality, see Orestida
Orestis (Ancient Greek: Ὀρεστίς from the term orestias meaning "mountainous") was a region of Upper Macedonia, corresponding roughly to the modern Kastoria regional unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Its inhabitants were the Greek tribe Orestae[1] who were part of the Molossian tribal state.[2][3] As most of Upper Macedonia, it became part of Macedon only after early 4th century BC; before that it had close relations with Epirus. A silver finger ring of 6th century BC bearing the frequent Orestian name "Antiochus" has been found in Dodona sanctuary.[4] During the Peloponnesian War, a thousand Orestians led by King Antiochus accompanied the Parauaeans of Epirus. Hecataeus and Strabo identified these mountain kingdoms as being of Epirotic stock. Natives of the region were: Pausanias of Orestis, the lover and murderer of Philip II, and three of Alexander's prominent diadochi, Perdiccas (son of Orontes), Seleucus I Nicator (son of Antiochus) and Craterus, son of a noble from Orestis named Alexander.
The region became again independent in 196 BC when the Romans, after defeating Philip V, declared the people free because they had adhered to the Roman cause in the recent war against Macedon. According to Appian, Argos Orestikon (in modern Orestida), rather than Peloponnesian Argos, was the homeland of the Argead dynasty.[5]
References
Inline citations
- ↑ John Boardman and Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond. The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 3, Part 3: The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C. Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 266.
- ↑ The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2012, p.966
- ↑ Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, Epirus: the Geography, the Ancient Remains, the History and Topography of Epirus and Adjacent Areas, Clarendon Press, 1967, p.703: "The Orestae were Molossian (as we know from a fourth-century inscription)."
- ↑ PAAH (1929) 122.
- ↑ Appian. Syrian Wars, 11.10.63.