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Oetaea
Ancient Greek: Οἰταῖα
Territory of an ethnic alliance
 
Mount Oeta from the Spercheios Valley.
Etymology: Named after Mount Oeta
 
Coordinates: 38°48′41″N 22°26′42″E / 38.811342°N 22.444896°E / 38.811342; 22.444896
AllianceEither Commonwealth of the Oetaeans or just Oetaeans
Oetaea5th century BC
Founded byThe poleis in Oetaea
Government
 • Typecommonwealth (koinon)

Oetaea or Oitaia (Ancient Greek: Οἰταῖα[1][2]) was a historic region located in the current regional unit of Phthiotis, administrative region of Central Greece. The area took its name from Mount Oeta,[3] today's Oiti. The terrain counted as Oiti is roughly trapezoidal included between the Spercheios River Valley in the north and the Boeotian Cephissus Valley in the south, both of which run roughly west-east, the Asopus River Gorge on the east and the Vistriza River Gorge on the west. The latter two rivers are right tributaries of the Spercheios. They drain the precipitous north slopes of Oiti.

The classical region

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The modern definition of Oiti is not necessarily the same as the ancient. However, presumably any region named after the mountain would contain the major part of it. References to such a name in ancient Greek literature begin in the classical period, continue into the Hellenistic period, and are inherited finally by the Roman Empire and subsequent.

In classical times ancient Greece had a significantly different geopolitical structure, which featured predominantly the polis (plural poleis), a micro-state.[4] A polis had a foundation date and its own constitution,[5] although many were in fact subordinate to a more powerful polis, as the perioikoi, or surrounding states of Lacedaimon, were subordinate to Sparta, even though they had their own constitutions.[6]

Regions of poleis typically were more or less united by alliances, which were generally of two types: symmachia[7] or koinon.[8] The symmachia was a military pact. The koinon, or commonwealth, had primarily two meanings: the government of a single polis, bringing districts together, or a national league of poleis.

In either case the individual citizens were given a name reflective of their membership; i.e., an Oetaean, which could be grammatically male or female. The collective named the citizen body, Oetaeans, which name is termed the ethnic in modern scholarship, as the ancient Greeks considered the citizen body as a distinct people.[9] The constitutional range of the ethnic was the name of the country, a toponym, Oetaea.

Whenever an ethnic comprises more than one polis, it refers to an alliance. Alliances are generally referenced in literature by the ethnic, which is understood to be a koinon. Sometimes the word is explicit, as in the koinon of the Oetaeans. Not every settlement in the alliance was a polis. A region was not necessarily restricted to only one alliance.

 
Looking down Asopos Gorge to the Spercheios Valley. Mount Oiti is on the left. Visible is the path up the gorge.

The earliest mention of the Oetaean ethnic is in Herodotus.[10] Acting on intelligence, the Persian army crosses the Asopos River near the shore of the Malian Gulf and proceeds up the Asopos Gorge keeping the "mountains of the Oetaeans" on the right. At the top they bypass a guard of 1000 Phocians, who refuse to fight, and descend eastward to outflank the 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, 480 BC. Less than a century later, according to Thucydides,[11] the same ethnic were engaged in war with their neighbors in Doris and Trachis, implying that the three were independent states, and that they were not at that time under Thessaly, as it was not mentioned as being in the war.

Alliance or tribal confederacy?

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Considering that the poleis of the Oetaeans have not been clearly defined, two theories about the social structure of the ethnic developed in modern times. The earliest was that of William Smith in the 19th century.

residuum

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of ancient Thessaly, Greece inhabited by the Oetaeans (Οἰταῖοι). It was the mountainous district around Mount Oeta in the upper valley of the Spercheius, and to the east of Dolopia. The Oetaeans appear to have been the collective name of the various predatory tribes, dwelling upon the northern declivities of Mt Oeta, who are mentioned as plundering both the Malians on the east, and the Dorians on the south.[12] The most important of these tribes were the Aenianes (Αἰνιᾶνες - Aeniānes), called Eniēnes (Ἐνιῆνες) by Homer[13] and Herodotus,[14] an ancient Hellenic Amphictyonic race.[15][16] They are said to have first occupied the Dotian plain in Pelasgiotis; afterwards to have wandered to the borders of Epirus, and finally to have settled in the upper valley of the Spercheius, where Hypata was their chief town.[17] Besides Hypata, which was the only place of importance in Oetaea, we find mention of Sperchiae and Macra Come by Livy,[18] and of Sosthenis (Σωσθενίς), Homilae (Ὅμιλαι), Cypaera (Κύπαιρα) and Phalachthia (Φαλαχθία) by Ptolemy.[19]

Oetaea formed a political unit in antiquity. It minted silver and bronze coins with the following legends: «ΟΙΤ», «ΟΙΤΑ», «ΟΙΤΑΩΝ», and «ΟΙΤΑΙΩΝ».[20]

References

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  1. ^ DeCourt 2004, p. 676
  2. ^ DeCourt points out that the name in Herodotus may have to be reconstructed as Ancient Greek: Οἰταίης
  3. ^ Peck, Harry Thurston (1898). "Oeta". Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York: Harper and Brothers.
  4. ^ Hansen 2004, p. 4
  5. ^ Hansen 2004, p. 80
  6. ^ Hansen 2004, p. 87
  7. ^ Hansen 2004, p. 111
  8. ^ Hansen 2004, p. 99, Note 16
  9. ^ Hansen 2004, p. 58
  10. ^ Herodotus 7.185 cited in DeCourt 2004, p. 676
  11. ^ Thucydides 3.92.3, cited in DeCourt 2004, p. 676
  12. ^ Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Vol. 3.92-97, 8.3.
  13. ^ Homer. Iliad. Vol. 2.749.
  14. ^ Herodotus. Histories. Vol. 7.132.
  15. ^ Pausanias (1918). "8.2". Description of Greece. Vol. 10. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.
  16. ^ Harpocrat. s.v. Ἀμφικτύονες
  17. ^ Plut. Quaest. Gr. 13. p. 294; Strabo. Geographica. Vol. i. p.61, ix. p. 442. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  18. ^ Livy. Ab urbe condita Libri [History of Rome]. Vol. 32.13.
  19. ^ Ptolemy. The Geography. Vol. 3.13.45.
  20. ^ Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen (2004). "Thessaly and Adjacent Regions". An inventory of archaic and classical poleis. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 684-685. ISBN 0-19-814099-1.

Reference bibliography

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  • DeCourt, Jean-Claude; et al. (2004). "Thessalia and Adjacent Regions". In Hansen, Mogens Herman; Nielsen, Thomas Heine (eds.). An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Hansen, Mogens Herman; et al. (2004). "Introduction". In Hansen, Mogens Herman; Nielsen, Thomas Heine (eds.). An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Sources

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  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Thessalia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

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