HISTORICAL REFERENCE POINTS OF ANCIENT LARISSA

Abstract

The historicity of the entire Greek territory is indisputable however, some places, even today, face the lack of academic and archaeological research and historical oblivion. One such case is observed in central Greece and more specifically, in the city of Larissa. If something differentiates this city from all the others in Greece, this is its antiquity, along with Argos in the Peloponnese. In the mosaic of its past, the most important tessera is the first ancient theater which is also the central emblem of the city due to its great importance. Although the restoration and maintenance processes have not yet ended, the monument continues until this day, to update information about the past of the city, contributing to a very large extent to the configuration of Larissa’s cultural identity. Since emphasis has given on the conservation and preservation of the ancient theater, the paper moves in the opposite direction and aims at a holistic depiction of the city’s history based on the data so far, mainly through Larissa’s antiquity and the first ancient theater, covering an era from prehistory to the Roman occupation. The difference about this specific theater is that its function was complicated and various, offering even an innovation on the level of state organization, filling thus a literature gap regarding the history of ancient Larissa, in total.