PTE´LEUM
PTE´LEUM
1.
（
Πτελεόν Eth.
Πτελεάτης, Eth.
Πτελεούσιος, Eth.
Πτελεεύς), a town of Thessaly, on the south-western side of Phthiotis, and near the entrance of the Sinus Pagasaeus.
It stood between Antron and Halos, and was distant from the latter 110 stadia, according to Artemidorus. (
Strab. ix. p.433.)
It is mentioned by Homer as governed by Protesilaus, to whom the neighbouring town of Antron also belonged. (
Il. 2.697.) In B.C. 192, Antiochus landed at Pteleum in order to carry on the war against the Romans in Greece (
Liv. 35.43). In B.C. 171, the town, having been deserted by its inhabitants, was destroyed by the consul Licinius. (
Liv. 42.67.)
It seems never to have recovered from this destruction, as Pliny speaks of Pteleum only as a forest ( “nemus Pteleon,”
Plin. Nat. 4.8. s. 15).
The form Pteleos is used by Lucan (
6.352) and Mela (2.3). Pteleum stood near the modern village of
Pteleó, or
Ftelió, upon a peaked hill crowned by the remains of a town and castle of the middle ages, called
Old Ftélio. On its side is a large marsh, which, as Leake observes, was probably in the more flourishing ages of Greece a rich and productive meadow, and hence the epithet of
λεχεποίην, which Homer (
l.c.) has applied to Pteleum. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 341, seq.)
2.
A town of Triphylia, in Elis, belonging to Nestor (
Hom. Il. 2.594), is said by Strabo to have been a colony from the Thessalian Pteleum.
This town had disappeared in Strabo's time; but its uninhabited woody site was still called Pteleasimum. (Strab. viii. pp. 349, .350.)
3.
A fortress in the territory of Erythrae, in Ionia. (
Thuc. 8.24,
31.) Pliny (
5.29. s. 31) mentions Pteleon, Helos, and Dorium as near Erythrae, but those places are confused by Pliny with the Triphylian towns in Homer (
l.c.).
