Phthiotic Thebes

Phthiotic Thebes (Ancient Greek: Θῆβαι Φθιώτιδες, romanized: Thebai Phthiotides[1] or Φθιώτιδες Θήβες[2] or Φθιώτιδος Θήβες;[3] Latin: Thebae Phthiae[4]) or Thessalian Thebes (Θῆβαι Θεσσαλικαἰ, Thebai Thessalikai) was a city and polis in ancient Thessaly, Greece;[5] its site was north of the modern village of Mikrothives[6][7] and its harbour was at Pyrasus.

The city was located in the northeastern corner of the district of Phthiotis at the northern end of the ancient Crocus Field, to the north of the Pagasetic Gulf, at the distance of 300 stadia from Larissa.

[1] Evidence of human habitation on the site dates back to the Stone Age, but the city is not mentioned by name until the 4th century BCE.

[8] Its territory was bounded on the north by Pherae, on the northeast by Amphanae, on the east by Pyrasus, on the south by Halos, southwest with Peuma, and west with Eretria and Pharsalus.

[13] It is not mentioned in the Iliad, but it was at a later time the most important maritime city in Thessaly, till the foundation of Demetrias, by Demetrius Poliorcetes, about 294 BCE.

[16] It became at a later time the chief possession of the Aetolians in northern Greece; but it was wrested from them, after an obstinate siege, by Philip V of Macedon in 217 BCE, who changed its name into Philippopolis (Greek: Φιλιππούπολις).

Though initially the city offered determined resistance the citizens surrendered when a section of the wall that Philip had mined collapsed.