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Larissa

According to archaeological evidence, the capital of Thessaly, Larissa, lies atop a site that has been inhabited since the tenth millennium before Christ. A major commercial and industrial center, Larissa sits in the middle of the plain of Thessaly, a few kilometers off the Athens-Thessaloniki National Road. Tradition has it that Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, died here.

When Larissa ceased minting the federal coins it shared with other Thessalian towns and adopted its own coinage in the late fifth century B.C., it chose local types for its coins. The obverse depicted the local fountain nymph Larissa, for whom the town was named, probably inspired by the famous coins of Kimon depicting the Syracusan nymph Arethusa.
The reverse depicted a horse in various poses. The horse was an appropriate symbol of Thessaly, a land of plains, which was well-known for its horses. The male figure accompanying the horse on this coin appears to be ready to mount. He should perhaps be seen as the eponymous hero of the Thessalians, Thessalos, who is probably also to be identified on many of the earlier, federal coins of Thessaly.

The chief city of ancient Thessaly, Larissa, was annexed in the 4th. Century B.C., by Philip II of Macedon and in 196 B.C. became an ally of Rome. It was taken from the Byzantine Empire by Bulgaria and later was held by Serbia, with which it passed in the 15th. Century under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. In the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the city was the headquarters of Ali Pasha. Turkey ceded the city to Greece in 1881.

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