Larissa


Larissa is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fourth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also 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. The municipality of Larissa has 162,591 inhabitants, while the regional unit of Larissa reached a population of 284,325.
Legend has it that Achilles was born here. Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine", died here. Today, Larissa is an important commercial, transportation, educational, agricultural and industrial centre of Greece.

Geography

There are a number of highways including E75 and the main railway from Athens to Thessaloniki crossing through Thessaly. The region is directly linked to the rest of Europe through the International Airport of Central Greece located in Nea Anchialos a short distance from Larissa. Larissa lies on the river Pineios.
The municipality Larissa has an area of, the municipal unit Larissa has an area of, and the community Larissa has an area of.
The Larissa Chasma, a deep gash in the surface of Dione, a natural satellite of Saturn, was named after Larissa.

Climate

The climate of Larissa is semi-arid in the cool version but it is close to a hot summer Mediterranean climate. The winter is fairly mild, and some snowstorms may occur. The summer is particularly hot, and temperatures of may occur. Thunderstorms or heavy rain may cause agricultural damage. Larissa receives of rain per year.

Mythology

According to Greek mythology it is said that the city was founded by Acrisius, who was killed accidentally by his grandson, Perseus. There lived Peleus, the hero beloved by the gods, and his son Achilles.
In mythology, the nymph Larissa was a daughter of the primordial man Pelasgus.
The city of Larissa is mentioned in Book II of Iliad by Homer:
Hippothous led the tribes of Pelasgian spearsmen, who dwelt in fertile Larissa- Hippothous, and Pylaeus of the race of Mars, two sons of the Pelasgian Lethus, son of Teutamus.
In this paragraph, Homer shows that the Pelasgians, Trojan allies, used to live in the city of Larissa. It is likely that this city of Larissa was different to the city that was the birthplace of Achilles. The Larissa that features as a Trojan ally in the Iliad was likely to be located in the Troad, on the other side of the Aegean Sea.

History

Antiquity

Pre-history

Traces of Paleolithic human settlement have been recovered from the area, but it was peripheral to areas of advanced culture. The area around Larissa was extremely fruitful; it was agriculturally important and in antiquity was known for its horses.

Archaic Era

The name Larissa is in origin a Pelasgian word for "fortress". There were many ancient Greek cities with this name.
The name of Thessalian Larissa is first recorded in connection with the aristocratic Aleuadai family. It was also a polis.

Classical Era

Larissa was a polis during the Classical Era. Larissa is thought to be where the famous Greek physician Hippocrates and the famous philosopher Gorgias of Leontini died.
. Obv: Head of Aleuas facing slightly left, wearing conical helmet, ALEU to right; labrys behind. Rev: Eagle standing right, head left, on thunderbolt; ELLA to left, LARISAYA to right. Thessaly, Larissa. Circa 370-360 BC
When Larissa ceased minting the federal coins it shared with other Thessalian towns and adopted its own coinage in the late 5th century BC, it chose local types for its coins. The obverse depicted the nymph of the local spring, Larissa, for whom the town was named; probably the choice was inspired by the famous coins of Kimon depicting the Syracusan nymph Arethusa. The reverse depicted a horse in various poses. The horse was an appropriate symbol of Thessaly, a land of plains, which was well known for its horses. Usually there is a male figure; he should perhaps be seen as the eponymous hero of the Thessalians, Thessalos, who is probably also to be identified on many of the earlier, federal coins of Thessaly.
towards the end of the 3rd century BC. The theatre was in use for six centuries, until the end of the 3rd century AD
Larissa, sometimes written Larisa on ancient coins and inscriptions, is near the site of the Homeric Argissa. It appears in early times, when Thessaly was mainly governed by a few aristocratic families, as an important city under the rule of the Aleuadae, whose authority extended over the whole district of Pelasgiotis. This powerful family possessed for many generations before 369 BC the privilege of furnishing the tagus, the local term for the strategos of the combined Thessalian forces. The principal rivals of the Aleuadae were the Scopadae of Crannon, the remains of which are about 14 miles south west.
Larissa was the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia.
The constitution of the town was democratic, which explains why it sided with Athens in the Peloponnesian War. In the neighbourhood of Larissa was celebrated a festival which recalled the Roman Saturnalia, and at which the slaves were waited on by their masters. As the chief city of ancient Thessaly, Larissa was taken by the Thebans and later directly annexed by Philip II of Macedon in 344. It remained under Macedonian control afterwards, except for a brief period when Demetrius Poliorcetes captured it in 302 BC.

Hellenistic Era

Roman Era

It was in Larissa that Philip V of Macedon signed in 197 BC a treaty with the Romans after his defeat at the Battle of Cynoscephalae, and it was there also that Antiochus III the Great, won a great victory in 192 BC. In 196 BC 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 Roman Empire and Pompey sought refuge there after the defeat of Pharsalus.

Middle Ages and Ottoman period

Larissa was sacked by the Ostrogoths in the late 5th century, and rebuilt under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I.
In the 8th century, the city became the metropolis of the theme of Hellas. The city was captured in 986 by Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria, who carried off the relics of its patron saint, Saint Achilleios, to Prespa. It was again unsuccessfully besieged by the Italo-Normans under Bohemond I in 1082/3.
After the Fourth Crusade, the King of Thessalonica, Boniface of Montferrat, gave the city to Lombard barons, but they launched a rebellion in 1209 that had to be subdued by the Latin Emperor Henry of Flanders himself. The city was recovered by Epirus soon after.
It was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1386/87 and again in the 1390s, but only came under permanent Ottoman control in 1423, by Turahan Bey. Under Ottoman rule, the city was known as Yeni-şehir i-Fenari, "new citadel". As the chief town and military base of Ottoman Thessaly, Larissa was a predominantly Muslim city. During Ottoman rule the administration of the Metropolis of Larissa was transferred to nearby Trikala where it remained until 1734, when Metropolitan Iakovos II returned the see from Trikala to Larissa and established the present-day metropolis of Larissa and Tyrnavos.
The town was noted for its trade fair in the 17th and 18th centuries, while the seat of the pasha of Thessaly was also transferred there in 1770. Larissa was the headquarters of Hursid Pasha during the Greek War of Independence. It was also renowned for its mosques and its muslim cemeteries.
The city remained in Ottoman hands until Thessaly became part of the independent Kingdom of Greece in 1881, except for a period where Ottoman forces re-occupied it during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. In the late 19th century, there was still a small village in the outskirts of the town inhabited by Africans from Sudan, a curious remnant of the forces collected by Ali Pasha.
In the 19th century, the town produced leather, cotton, silk and tobacco. Fevers and agues were prevalent owing to bad drainage and the overflowing of the river; and the death rate was higher than the birth rate.

Modern Greek era

In 1881, the city, along with the rest of Thessaly, was incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece during the prime ministry of Alexandros Koumoundouros. On 31 August 1881 a unit of the Greek Army headed by General Skarlatos Soutsos entered the city. A considerable portion of the Turkish population emigrated into the Ottoman Empire at that point. In this new era the city starts gradually to expand and to be rebuilt by the Greek authorities.
during WWII
During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the city was the headquarters of Greek Crown Prince Constantine. The flight of the Greek army from here to Farsala took place on April 23, 1897. Turkish troops entered the city two days later. After a treaty for peace was signed, they withdrew and Larissa remained permanently in Greece. This was followed by a further exodus of Turks in 1898. The Hassan Bey mosque was demolished in 1908.
During the Axis Occupation of the country, the Jewish community of the city suffered heavy losses. Today in the city there is a Holocaust memorial and a synagogue.

After WWII

After WWII the city was expanded rapidly. Today Larissa is the fourth largest Greek city with many squares, taverns and cafes. It has three public hospitals with one being a military hospital. It hosts the Hellenic Air Force Headquarters and NATO Headquarters in Greece. It has a School of Medicine and a School of Biochemistry – Biotechnology and the third largest in the country Institute of Technology. It occupies the first place among Greek cities into green coverage rate per square-metre urban space and the first place with the highest percentance of bars-taverns-restaurants per capita in Greece. It also has two public libraries and five museums.

Ecclesiastical history

Christianity penetrated early to Larissa, though its first bishop is recorded only in 325 at the Council of Nicaea. St. Achillius of the 4th century, is celebrated for his miracles. Le Quien cites twenty-nine bishops from the fourth to the 18th centuries; the most famous is Jeremias II, who occupied the see until 733, when the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian transferred it from the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In the first years of the 10th century it had ten suffragan sees; subsequently the number increased and about the year 1175 under the Emperor Manuel I Comnenus, it reached twenty-eight. At the close of the 15th century, under the Ottoman domination, there were only ten suffragan sees, which gradually grew less and finally disappeared.
of Larissa.
Larissa is an Orthodox Metropolis of the Church of Greece.
It was also briefly a Latin archbishopric in the early 13th century, and remains a Latin Metropolitan titular see of the Roman Catholic Church, which must not be confused with the Latin episcopal titular see Larissa in Syria. Today there is a Catholic church in the city.

Administration

The municipality Larissa was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 3 former municipalities, that became municipal units:
The municipal unit of Larissa is divided into four city-districts or municipal communities plus 2 suburban communities. The municipality includes also the Community of Terpsithèa.
1st Municipal District
  1. Papastàvrou
  2. Saint Athanàsios
  3. Alkazàr
  4. Hippocrates-Pèra
  5. Potamòpolis
  6. Philippòpolis
  7. Livadàki
  8. Saint Thomas
  9. Saint Paraskevi-Mezourlo
  10. Neàpolis
2nd Municipal District
  1. Saint Achellios
  2. Saint Nikòlaos
  3. Ambelòkipoi
  4. Saints Sarànta
  5. Saint Konstantinos
  6. Stathmòs
3rd Municipal District
  1. Lachanòkipoi
  2. Nèa Smyrne-Kamynia
  3. Kalyvia-Saint Marina
  4. Saint Geòrgios
  5. Anatoli
  6. Koulouri
  7. Amphithèa
4th Municipal District
  1. Charavgi-Toumba-OKE
  2. Pyrovolikà-Pharos
  3. Avèrof-Sèkfo
  4. Nèa Politia
  5. Epiròtika
  6. Anthoupolis
  7. Neràida
  8. Kàmpos
Community of Terpsithèa
  1. Terpsithèa
  2. Argyssa
From 1 January 2011, in accordance with the Kallikratis Plan, the new municipality of Larissa includes also the former municipalities of Giannouli and Koilada.

Province

The province of Larissa was one of the provinces of the Larissa Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipalities Larissa and Tempi. It was abolished in 2006.

Main streets

Larissa is a major agricultural center of Greece, due to the plain of Thessaly.
In manufacturing sector, Larissa is among others home to Biokarpet carpet company and Orient Bikes.
It comes also in first place with the highest percentance of bars-taverns-restaurants per capita in Greece. Mikel Coffee Company chain started and has its base in the city.

Culture

Theatres and Odeons

Some historical buildings that have been listed as architecturally preserved, include the Cine Palace, the Charokopos tower, the old Mills of Pappas, such as the complex of the Averofeios Agricultural School.

Cuisine

Local specialities:
Among the notable festivals that the city hosts, is the "Pineiou Festival" and "AgroThessaly", a major agricultural fair.

In popular culture

Larissa sits in the middle of the plain of Thessaly, with connections to Motorway A1 and national roads EO3 and EO6.
The city is in close proximity of many interesting destinations in the region suitable for daily trips.

Sports

The local football club AEL FC currently participates in Superleague Greece. The team won the Greek Championship, in 1988, and won the Greek Cup in 1985 and 2007. These titles place AEL among the five most important football clubs in Greece. AEL has hosted its home games at the AEL FC Arena, a UEFA 3-star-rated football ground, since November 2010.
Other important sport venues are the National Sport Center of Larissa, which includes the Alcazar Stadium and the Neapoli Indoor Hall.
The National Sports Center of Larissa can accommodate a number of sports and events, while the Sports Hall has hosted important athletic events, and it is also used for cultural events, such as dance festivals.

Historical population

Notable people

Ancient

Twin towns — sister cities

Larissa is twinned with: