ATRAX
Thessaly, Greece.
A city of Pelasgiotis (
Strab. 9.441), 10 Roman miles from Larissa (
Livy
32.15.8) by the Peneios (
Strab. 9.438), evidently prosperous from at least the 5th c. It issued coinage en. 400
B.C. It had a Macedonian garrison and was besieged by
T. Quinctius Flamininus in 198 B.C. but he failed to take
it, as did Antiochus III in 191 B.C. when it was a Roman
stronghold (
Livy 32.15.8, 17.4-18; 33.10.2, 13.4).
Atrax is commonly now identified with a site (Palaiokastro) on the right bank of the Peneios near modern
Alifaka, ca. 23 km W of Larissa. The walls of the site
have a circuit of about 3 km, surrounding an acropolis
peak (265 m) which is a N spur of modern Mt. Dhovroutsi, and coming down the hill to the river plain, where
the wall is poorly preserved. A cross wall divided the
circuit into an upper and lower city. The original wall
was built of rough stones and was about 3 to 4 m thick;
it may have been Mycenaean. In Hellenistic times (?)
this wall was repaired with rectangular blocks and the
wall between the acropolis and city, immediately below
the acropolis, was provided with five towers. The wall was
again improved in Byzantine times. In the lower city
architectural fragments are frequent. By the river are a
number of sarcophagi. Some ancient objects have come
from this site, including a 6th c. B.C. marble head.
Six km W of the site by Koutsochiro, a Chapel of
Haghias Nikolaus stands on a mound. Inscriptions of
Atrax were found here. This site may have been a Temple of Poseidon, and the area seems to belong naturally
to the Alifaka site, so supporting the Atrax-Alifaka site
identification.
Leake and later Edmonds favored placing Atrax at
Gunitza, where a large wall circuit of rough stones climbs
the steep hill on the left bank of the Peneios just as it
enters the E Thessalian plain. Stählin placed Argura here.
Lack of Classical and Hellenistic sherds, however, have
led to the belief this was not a city in Greek times. For
the Alifaka site Edmonds suggested Phakion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
W. M. Leake,
Nor. Gr. (1835) I 433;
III 368 (Gunitza); IV 292. H. G. Lolling,
AM 8 (1883)
111, 129f; C. D. Edmonds,
BSA 5 (1898-99) 21f, 24;
A. S. Arvanitopoullos,
Praktika (1910) 187f; (1914)
217f; id.,
ArchEph (1913) 236; F. Stählin,
Das hellenische Thessalien (1924) 101f
P; V. Milojćić,
AA (1955) 219
I; (1960) 171 (Gunitza); H. Biesantz,
Die Thessalischen Grabreliefs (1965) 122; D. Theocharis,
Deltion 21 (1966) chron. 246.
T. S. MACKAY
