TRICCA
TRICCA (
Τρίκκη: Eth.
Τρικκαῖος:
Tríkkala), an ancient city of Thessaly in the district Histiaeotis, stood upon the left bank of the Peneius, and near a small stream named Lethaeus. (
Strab. ix. p.438, xiv. p. 647.)
This city is said to have derived its name from Tricca, a daughter of Peneius. (
Steph. B. sub voce It is mentioned in Homer as subject to Podaleirius and Machaon, the two sons of Asclepius or Aesculapius, who led the Triccaeans to the Trojan War (
Hom. Il. 2.729,
4.202); and it possessed a temple of Asclepius, which was regarded as the most ancient and illustrious of all the temples of this god. (
Strab. ix. p.437.)
This temple was visited by the sick, whose cures were recorded there, as in the temples of Asclepius at Epidaurus and Cos. (
Strab. viii. p.374.)
There were probably physicians attached to the temple; and Leake gives an inscription in four elegiac verses, to the memory of a “god-like physician named Cimber, by his wife Andromache,” which he found upon a marble in a bridge over the ancient Lethaeus. (
Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 285.)
In the edict published by Polysperchon and the other generals of Alexander, after the death of the latter, allowing the exiles from the different Greek cities to return to their homes, those of Tricca and of the neighbouring town of Pharcadon were excepted for some reason, which is not recorded. (
Diod. 18.56.) Tricca was the first town in Thessaly at which Philip V. arrived after his defeat on the Aous. (
Liv. 32.13.) Tricca is also mentioned by
Liv. 36.13;
Plin. Nat. 4.8. s. 15 Ptol. 3.13.44; Them.
Orat. xxvii. p. 333.
Procopius, who calls the town Tricattûs (
Τρικάττους), says that it was restored by Justinian (
de Aedif. 4.3); but it is still called Tricca by Hierocles (p, 642) in the sixth century, and the form in Justinian may be a corruption.
In the twelfth century it already bears its modern name (
Τρίκκαλα, Anna Comn. v. p. 137, ed. Paris.; Eustath.
ad Il. ii. p.
[p. 2.1230]330.)
Tríkkala is now one of the largest towns in this part of Greece.
The castle occupies a hill projecting from the last falls of the mountain of
Khassiá; but the only traces of the ancient city which Leake could discover were some small remains of Hellenic masonry, forming part of the wall of the castle, and some squared blocks of stone of the same ages dispersed in different parts of the town. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 425, seq., vol. iv. p. 287.)
