ORESTAE
ORESTAE (
Ὀρέσται, Hecat. ap.
Steph. B. sub voce Thuc. 2.80;
Plb. 18.30;
Strab. vii. p.326, ix. p. 434;
Plin. Nat. 4.17), a people who are shown by Thucydides (
l.c.) to have bordered upon the Macedonian Paravaei, and who partly, perhaps, as having been originally an Epirote tribe (
Steph. B. sub voce terms them a Molossian tribe), were united with the other Epirots, under their prince Antiochus, in support of the expedition of Cnemus and the Ambraciots against Acarnania.
Afterwards they were incorporated in the Macedonian kingdom.
In the peace finally granted to Philip, B.C. 196, by the Romans, the Orestae were declared free, because they had been the first to revolt. (
Liv. 33.34.)
ORESTIS (
Ὀρεστίς, Ptol. 3.13. § § 5, 22;
Steph. B. sub voce Liv. 27.33,
31.40) or
ORESTIAS (
Ὀρεστίας, Strab. vii. p.326), was the name given to the district which they occupied, which, though it is not named by Livy and Diodorus among the countries which entered into the composition of the Fourth Macedonia, was probably included in it, because the greater part, at least, of Orestis was situated to the E. of Pindus.
This subdivision of Upper Macedonia is represented by the modern districts of
Grámista, Anaselítza, and
Kastoría. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 305, vol. iv. pp. 121--124.)
[
E.B.J]
