Thorax of Larissa

Last updated March 07, 2019

Thorax (Greek: Θώραξ) of Larissa in Thessaly was a member of the powerful family of the Aleuadae.^[1] He was a son of an Aleuas who was a friend of the poet Simonides.

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It has the longest documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning more than 3000 years of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Larissa is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region, the fourth-most populous in Greece according to the population results of municipal units of 2011 census and capital of the Larissa regional unit. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transport hub, linked by road and rail with the port of Volos, the cities of Thessaloniki and Athens. Larissa, within its municipality, has 162,591 inhabitants, while the regional unit of Larissa reached a population of 284,325. The urban area of the city, although mostly contained within the Larissa municipality, also includes the communities of Giannouli, Platykampos, Nikaia, Terpsithea and several other suburban settlements, bringing the wider urban area population of the city to about 174,012 inhabitants and extends over an area of 572.3 km² (221.0 sq mi).

Thessaly is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey.

Thorax and his brothers, Eurypylus and Thrasydaeus, wishing to confirm or to increase their power, were among those who urged Xerxes to invade Greece, and promised him their assistance in the enterprise. In Xerxes' retreat, after the Battle of Salamis, Thorax formed one of his escort, after which he still continued to show his zeal in the cause of the invaders, and was present with Mardonius at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. When the Persians had been finally driven from Greece, Leotychidas, king of Sparta, led an army into Thessaly to punish those who had sided with the barbarians, but the Aleuadae bribed him to refrain from making reprisals against their kin.^[2]

The Battle of Salamis was a naval battle fought between an alliance of Greek city-states under Themistocles and the Persian Empire under King Xerxes in 480 BC which resulted in a decisive victory for the outnumbered Greeks. The battle was fought in the straits between the mainland and Salamis, an island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens, and marked the high-point of the second Persian invasion of Greece.

Mardonius was a leading Persian military commander during the Persian Wars with Greece in the early 5th century BC who died at the Battle of Plataea.

The Battle of Plataea was the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and was fought between an alliance of the Greek city-states, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I.

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"They took in one of these ships Aridolis, the despot of Alabanda in Caria, and in another the Paphian captain Penthylus son of Demonous; of twelve ships that he had brought from Paphos he had lost eleven in the storm off the Sepiad headland, and was in the one that remained when he was taken as he bore down on Artemisium. Having questioned these men and learnt what they desired to know of Xerxes' armament, the Greeks sent them away to the isthmus of Corinth in bonds."

References

↑ Elder, Edward (1867). "Thorax (1)". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . 3. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 1105.
↑ Herodotus. Histories, vi. 72, vii. 6, ix. 1, 58.

Sources

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William, ed. (1870). "article name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology .

The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.

Sir William Smith was an English lexicographer. He also made advances in the teaching of Greek and Latin in schools.

The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 pages. It is a classic work of 19th-century lexicography. The work is a companion to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.

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[DGRBM-1] Elder, Edward (1867). "Thorax (1)". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology . 3. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 1105.

[2] Herodotus. Histories, vi. 72, vii. 6, ix. 1, 58.