Homolion
It was the city of Magnesia (and Hellas) farthest N, at the borders of Macedonia, situated on the slopes of Ossa where the Peneios emerges from the Tempe gorge (Strab. 9.443; Scylax 33; Steph. Byz. s.v. ὁμόλιον). It lay on a route to Thessaly from Macedonian Dium (Livy 42.38) and controlled both the E end of the Tempe pass and the N end of a more difficult route which led around the shoulder of Ossa, along the E coast of Magnesia, and back between Ossa and Pelion into the interior of Thessaly. It seems to have been one of the most important Magnesian cities in the 4th c. B.C. With the rest of Magnesia, it was made subject to Macedonia from 352 B.C. It lost importance when Demetrias was founded in 293 B.C., but continued to issue coinage in the 3d c. There are indications it was something of a center of resistance against the power of Demetrias, but it was apparently absorbed into that city in 117 B.C.
The scanty, rarely visited or described ruins of ancient Homolion lie on the slopes of Ossa just above the Peneios plain, by the modern town of Laspochori, which is just at the edge of the plain. Some of the city walls remain. The acropolis, a rocky ridge ca. 220 m above the plain, is surrounded by a circuit wall of small flat stones laid in more or less regular courses. From the acropolis the remains of the city walls run down towards the plain, just inside and above two parallel ravines.
The N wall of the city lies a little above the plain. The remains of a cross wall can be seen dividing the lower city not far below the acropolis. Within the acropolis, under a chapel of Haghios Elias, the remains of a temple were excavated in 1911. It had probably been constructed of mudbrick and wood, and was perhaps elliptical, like the temple at Gonnos. There were fragments of archaic terracotta revetment, and some from a later (4th-3d c. B.C.) rebuilding, and some Hellenistic stamped tiles. The temple had apparently had two periboloi; SE of the outer one were the remains of another building. Here was found the right foot (sole ca. 1 m long) of a colossal terracotta statue, possibly of Zeus. The objects from the excavation are in the museum at Volo. By the W wall of the lower city are visible the cavea of the theater hollowed into the hill, and the remains of some other buildings (described in 1910). In the middle of the lower city is a cave with carvings by it. Outside the city to the E of the acropolis are some graves of the Geometric period, and other graves have been discovered in the area. Some Protogeometric and Classical graves have been excavated recently, and a tomb containing some very handsome 4th c. B.C. jewelry (finds in the Volo Museum).
Outside and to the N of the city walls the modern road from Laspochori to Tempe comes very close to the Peneios about one km W of Laspochori. Here (1911) are the remains of an ancient bridge and above it on a hill called Kokkinokoma, sherds and some marble slabs. On a hill called Dapi Rachi part of a wall of large stones, perhaps of the 4th c. B.C., was discovered in 1961. The territory of Homolion seems to have adjoined that of Gonnos to the W (cf. Hiller von Gaertringen) and apparently extended N of the Peneios, since a sales contract (stele, now in Volo) of the 3d-2d c. B.C. found near modern Pyrgeto (on the lowest slopes of Olympos just W of the Peneios plain) indicated that the city of Homolion had purchased land in that area (see Arvanitopoullos in RevPhil)
BIBLIOGRAPHYHiller von Gaertringen, Berl. Philol. Wochenschr. no. 49 (1910); A. S. Arvanitopoullos, Praktika (1910) 188-90; (1911) 284-87P; id., RevPhil, NS 35 (1911) 132, no. 36; AJA 17 (1913) 108; F. Stählin, RE (1913) s.v. ὁμόλη 1 and 2; id., Das Hellenische Thessalien (1924) 46f; E. D. Van Buren, Greek Fictile Revetments in the Archaic Period (1926) 41; D. Theocharis, Deltion 17 (1961-62) chron. 175-79I; 20 (1965) chron. 319I; H. Biesantz, Die Thessalischen Grabreliefs (1965) 130-31.
T. S. MACKAY