RESURRECTION OF ACHILLES’ HOMELANDAND CAPITAL CITY PHTHIA –

WHAT HISTORICAL RESEARCH REVEALS

By DR. JAMES G. BRIANAS Professor and President June 2011 The Achilles Foundation

Abstract: Some scholars continue to believe that the Trojan War and Achilles were mythologicalevents. Evidence from ancient sources, modern writings, excavations, and onsite visits tell adifferent story. Through photographs and this evidence we trace the kingdom and capital cityof Achilles, first military hero of a Greece, to ancient Thessaly and his homeland Phthia withfuture challenges and opportunities provided through the “Achilles Project.”

EVIDENCE FOR THE TROJAN WAR Ancient Greece – The Legacy of Troy

Greece is a very ancient land. Considering that it hasprobably been inhabited by people beginning about 400,000 yearsago (hominids at that time) at the start of the Paleolithicperiod, the 2500 to 3000 years typically given to the recordedhistory of the country seems very short (Runnels p5). But it iscertain that modern humans inhabited Greece from 30,000 years ago(Runnels p25, Vermeule p5). 10,000 years ago the great glaciersretreated and with a warming of the earth the seas rose and thechange in climate brought migrations of people which began toshape Mediterranean Greece (Runnels p31). It is from Crete andThessaly that most information about Neolithic Greece, 7000 to3500BC, comes. At that time agriculture and domestication ofanimals was widespread and later trade routes began to connectpeoples of the region. The Bronze Age, beginning 3500BC, broughtgreater migrations to Greece (from the north and the east acrossthe islands) which led to the great Minoan and Mycenaeancivilizations – the palatial periods of palaces and massivefortifications during the last part of that age (Morkot pp22-29;

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see also Hansen, Vermeule, and Wace and Thompson on Neolithic andBronze Age Thessaly, also William Leake’s travels 1805 to 1810).

It is this “prehistory,” before 3000years ago, which is the focus of thispaper, specifically the late Bronze Age,1650 to 1050BC, the palatial period knownas the Heroic Age of ancient Greece. Itis an age of athlete-heroes like Hercules,traveler-heroes like Jason and Odysseus,and warrior-heroes like Achilles.

Included is the greatest healer of that period, Asclepius, whosesanctuaries (health spas) doted the Aegean region and beyond. Itwas a period of great influence of the Mycenaeans, whom Homercalled Achaians, also Danaans, and Argives. Agamemnon, king ofMycenae, ruled during the 13th century. Concurrently otherempires ruled the eastern Mediterranean from King Hattusili IIIof the Hittites of central and eastern Asia Minor (Anatolia) toPharaoh Rameses II of Egypt. King Priam ruled at Ilium, Troy.This period also coincided with the Jewish Exodus out of Egypt.It was an age of historical events that continues to influenceand capture the imagination of scholars and students of history.

Within this epic period, 1250BC, is the setting of what hasbecome the greatest war story ever told – the Trojan War –

documented in the ILIAD.Authored by Homer, a blindpoet

from Chios around 800BC,this epic poem comprises15,693 lines in 24 books

and involves over 500 characters the main ones being Achilles,Agamemnon, Hector, Menelaus, Patroclus, Ulysseus, Ajax, Helen,Paris, and Priam. The ILIAD covers 51 days in the ninth year ofa 10-year war. It is the first literature of Europe and thefirst of the western world (Denby pp29-35). As was typical atthat time, it was handed down from generation to generation, sungby professional bards to the rhythm of a musical instrument likea lyre. Twenty-nine Greek kingdoms (kings and commanders) came

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to fight with as many as 100,000 warriors. “There were noble Greeksand noble Trojans all showing an array of emotions – anger, love, slaughter, honor,glory – battles raging, warriors dying, enemies speaking the same language andrevering the same gods – all eloquently woven together by Homer’s entrancing poeticstyle.” (Brianas1PartI)

To the ancient Greeks the Trojan War was never a myth but areal event that occurred in their early history. It was requiredreading for school children in classical Greece. Stories,historical documents, and plays and poems abounded at that timeabout events before the war, during the war, and the returningGreek kings and commanders after the war. Many of these survivedbut most have unfortunately been lost or have come down to usthrough commentaries (scholia) from those who had seen them, andfragments of writings, fragments which sometimes have been foundas stuffing for mummies of ancient Egypt. (See “Achilles in lostplays” in Wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles: ref. the lost plays“Achilles” and “Myrmidons” by Aeschylus and another, “The Loversof Achilles,” by Sophocles.)

Pausanias at Delphi nearly 2000 years ago saw an enormouspainting of thefall of Troy andthe Greekssailing away.It was in alargebuilding,“theDelphians call it the

CLUB-HOUSE (Lesche) because this is where they used to meet in ancient times both forold tales and for serious conversations.” (p469). After 20 pages ofdescriptions he says, “That is the scale and extraordinary beauty of thepainting by a man from Thasos (Polygnotos).” (p488).

The Persian king, Xerxes, sacrificed at Troy in 480BCon his way to conquer Greece. Alexander the Great passing fromGreece into Asia in 334BC danced at Troy around the tomb ofAchilles, his ancestor from his mother Olympia who was a princessfrom Epirus descended from the family of Achilles. Romanemperors paid homage at Troy believing this to also be the site

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of their heritage including Roman Emperor Caracalla in 214AD andByzantine Emperor Justinian in 354AD. And for easternaristocracy in Constantinople the Iliad and Odyssey were part oftheir core educational curriculum (StudiaTroica Sage B10 2000).But with increasing Christian influence and the ravages of warand invasions and finally Ottoman incursions, pagan and othersites were gradually abandoned and where history flourishedgrasslands and farmlands took hold or new buildings covered oldones and many ancient sites disappeared. After hundreds of yearshistory evolved into mythology and reality was lost. There wasno known surviving written evidence, no eyewitnesses, nothing tosubstantiate the events. (For an interesting guide book tomodern Troy, see Troy, by Mustafa Askin, 1999.)

Troy Discovered in 1871

As a young boy in Germany, Heinrich Schliemann was raisedwith stories and legends of old including “the great deeds of the

Homeric heroes and the events of the Trojan War” suchthat he agreed with his father “that I shouldone day excavate Troy.” (Schliemann p3). At the ageof 49, after years as a very successfulbusinessman and by then an Americancitizen, his dream arrived. On 11 October1871 until 24 November when winter

arrived, he with some 80 laborers began excavations at Hissarlik,northwestern Asia Minor, present day Turkey, which followingHomer he believed to be the site of ancient Troy. “During thatinterval we had been able to make a large trench on the face of the steep northernslope, and dig down to a depth of 33 ft. below the surface of the hill. – We first foundthere the remains of the later Aeolic Ilium, which on the average, reached to a depth of6 ½ ft. – Below these Hellenic ruins, and to a depth of about 13 ft., the debris containeda few stones – At a depth of 30 ft. and 33 ft. we discovered fragments of house-walls oflarge stones, -- appeared as if they were separated from another by a violentearthquake.” (Sch p22). Schliemann had found Troy, what he called

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“Sacred Ilios”.

Mythology became history and the mystery ofTroy was solved – or so we thought. In 1881 with his colleagueshe would write a fascinating book about these excavations and thefinds. In the preface written by a colleague, is stated “Irecognize the duty of bearing my testimony against the host of doubters, (that) – TheBurnt City would still have lain to this day hidden in the earth, had not imaginationguided the spade.” (Sch pix). (Above photos used by permission, Arno Press.)

Evidence from Troy revealed that the city was first occupiedaround 3000BC. Some 500 years later it was leveled by a greatfire as it was again some 300 years later. A newer city wasconstantly being built upon an older city such that by Troy VInewer people who settled the region around 1900BC “built a very muchlarger and more beautiful fortress – destined to endure for about 600 years (until1300BC or so). The most interesting fact about these invaders is their cultural affinity tothe peoples who at that period were entering the mainland of Greece – Greeks andTrojans, are linked especially by the common use of anunparalleled technique in ceramics, the peculiar art ofmaking Gray Minyan Ware (named after the Minyans inOrchomenos, Greece, where it was first found), and theintroduction of the horse, unknown at Troy before thefounding of the Sixth Settlement. Troy VI was a fortressof great strength and elegance, the castle of a king,accommodating only the royal family and its retainers,a few hundred persons all told.” Further evidence from this newer cityshows that another catastrophe likely an earthquake “reducing it to a

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heap of stones and brick and timber” which occurred around 1275BC, aperiod just prior to King Priams’ Troy (Sch p26).

During an interval of 1874 to 1878, Schliemann excavated atMycenae uncovering the palace site of King Agamemnon, leader ofthe Greeks at Troy (See Mycenae by Schliemann, 1878.) AlthoughSchliemann passed away in 1890 his excavations at Troy, with thehelp of German archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld, lasted until 1894.Since then two other major projects occurred at Troy withProfessor Carl Blegen, University of Cinninnati, from 1930 to1938 and German Professor Manfred Korfmann from1988 to 2002continuing until 2008 with Professor Ernst Pernika, both from theUniversity of Tubingen, with a large team including German,American, and Turkish archaeologists and scholars. Blegen alsoconducted research at Pylos in southwest Peloponnese and throughexcavations in 1939 found the palace of King Nestor, oldest ofthe Greeks kings, with ruins dated to the thirteenth or twelfthcentury BC. Of great importance also was the discovery of 600clay tablets whose writing was Linear B like ones previouslyfound at Knossos,Crete in 1935 by Arthur Evans who had beenexcavating in Crete since early 1900. It was not until 1952 thatMichael Ventris, a British architect, deciphered the tabletsshowing them to be written in Greek – “a difficult and archaic Greek,seeing that it is 500 years older than Homer and written in abbreviated form, but Greeknevertheless.” (Latacz pp156-159). Another step was achieved in thesolving the mystery of Bronze Age Greece.

Also in a Greek newspaper, , headlines on aSunday in May 2002 read:“The palace site of King Menelaus and his wife Helen,the apparent cause of the Trojan War, was located near Sparta.Plus, during the summer of 2010, a professor with the Universityof Ioannina in Greece announced the founding of Odysseus’ palacesite on the island of Ithaca. AND WHERE IS ACHILLES? Themystery of the location of his capital city Phthia we unravel inthis paper. But his tomb still exists outside the walls of Troyby the Aegean Sea next to the ancient city of Achilleionpopulated after the war. A magoula/tumulus 30 ft. high,

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excavations were begun in 1998 by Dr.Korfmann, director of the 3rd team atTroy. The tumulus is known as Besik-Sivritepe. “Professsor Korfmann’s discoveries inthe nearby settlement (including a Mycenaeancemetery) fit well with the ancient descriptions of thesite of Achilleion, which was built next to the tomb. – itwas publicized as the tomb of Achilles by the fourth

century BC.” (Rose pp65-66).

Troy and Homer

Michael Wood’s, In Search of the Trojan War, providesinteresting details and dynamics of the war and that period. TheEgyptians ruled in the southeastern Mediterranean, theBabylonians and Assyrians further east, the Hittites in Anatolia(central and eastern Asia Minor), and the Mycenaeans in Achaia(Greece). There was communication and visits among the royalhouseholds of these kingdoms. Egyptian inscriptions of 1450BCshow evidence that they “sent ambassadors to many of the ‘barbarian’countries on the fringe of his (the Egyptian king’s) world, among them the ‘foreigners intheir islands across the Great Green (i.e. Greece).’” (Wood pp175-181). There wasalso communication, written records, between Mycenaean Greece andthe Hittite kingdom clearly showing in the historical recordmounting evidence for Mycenaean warfare in the Aegean and thereality of the Trojan War.

Further evidence on the reality or mythology of Troy andHomer is to be found in a 2004 book of the same name, anobjective, well written, and documented volume by Joachim Latacz.A colleague of Professor Korfmann and follower of the 20-yearexcavation project at Troy, he sites British Hellenist Denys Pagewho in 1959 stated “The Achaeans did fight the Trojans, and Agamemnon was thename of Mycenae’s king. Achilles is certainly not less historical.” (pp 169/170 and 305).He also cites Edward Visser in his 1997 book, Catalogue of Ships,who wrote, “Nowhere in Homer can real errors – be established.” (p223). Whilethe accumulation of information and details amassed by Homer 2800years ago appears in our day amazing, the geographical list andlocations of the cities and areas identified by him were real.

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My onsite research and that of many others can clearly attest tothat. And, as this writing is attesting to, those cities thathave not yet been “discovered” does not imply they do not exist.They were never lost. They remain under the earth waiting forthe spade and shovel.

In 1905 an archive of 10,000 clay tablets was found at theHittite capital of Hattusa (modern Bogazkoy), 150 kilometers eastof Ankara. These tablets, many written in Akadian the languageof diplomacy of that period, were well preserved (p59). To thisday they continue to be studied and along with Egyptian texts arevital to documenting and understanding historical events of theperiod in the eastern Mediterranean. (Note: In the 1840’s over25,000 clay tablets were discovered in Nineveh, Babylon – modernIraq – dated to 2300BC describing in poetic song “Gilgamesh” ahero who lived 400 years earlier. A version has been found inthe Hittite tablets. See N.K. Sandars. The Epic of Gilgamesh.London: Penguin Books, 1972.)

Referencing the Hittites, Latacz states, “In the Hittite documents,Ahhijawa (now usually written ‘Achijawa’) occurred at an early date as the name of acountry (first mentioned in the Hittite texts in 1400BC). – this name bear(s) an obviousphonetic resemblance to the ‘Achaioi’ found in the ILIAD. – this word also, consideredgeographically and politically, seems to point to the people we know as ‘Greeks.’”(p121). Latacz further shows evidence from Professor Frank Starkeof Tubingen which states, “– we are finding out substantially more detail aboutAhhijawa. Since ‘for decades to come in the reign of (the Hittite king) Hattusili III (1265-1240BC), he (Ahhijawa) repeatedly stirred up unrest on the entire western coast of AsiaMinor, from Lukka to Wilusa (southwestern Asia Minor north to Troy).’ -- The HittiteGreat King consistently addresses the king of Ahhijawa formally, using the style ‘mybrother.’ The significance of this is that the king of Ahhijawa is shown here as beingplaced on the same level as the king of Egypt and the Hittite king himself. For the Hittitecrown, therefore, -- Ahhijawa was a political and military force to be reckoned with.”(p123). For the first time now, scholars and historians havewritten evidence of events occurring during the periodsurrounding the Trojan War. And more tablets have yet to betranslated (see also Wood pp181-209).

The significance of these and other finds were highlightedin 1998 by an international symposium on Troy in Germany.

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Niemeier’s 1999 article, though, underscores the diversity ofopinions from analyses of these tablets by different scholars.This includes the location of the center of the Ahhijawas(Homeric Greeks) which has been placed at Mycenae. Analternative possibility is Boeotian Thebes, a large kingdom,since in historical times the name Achaia has been connected withcentral Greece not the Peloponnese (Niemeier p144, Wood p181).What remains key is the association of Ahhijawa with Greece whichestablishes the earliest known written sources of Greek history(the 13th century BC). At a press conference during August 2003in Troy, Professor Starke presented details of the first letterto be sent from the Greeks to the Hittites. “The sender of this letter(which has been known since 1928 but completely misunderstood) was a king ofAhhijawa, and the recipient was the Great King of the Hittites. Paleographic evidencedates the letter in the thirteenth century – (likely) addressed to Hattusili III (1265-1240BC) --. Linguistic features of the text confirm the writer spoke Greek, rather thanHittite as his mother tongue.” Citing a previous letter to the Greekking sent by the Hittite king, King Ahhijawa claims that theislands belonged to him (most likely the northern Aegean islandsof Lemnos, Imbros, and Samothrace). These letters mirrorterritorial claims which continue to this day (Latacz p243).

Sensational discoveries such as these deciphered letters,the founding of Troy itself by Schliemann, the palaces thus farfound of the Greek kings in Achaia (ancient Greece), andcontinuing scholarly and archaeological research and dialogue onTroy and Homer, it clearly becomes even more evident: The TrojanWar was real and Homer’ ILIAD describes real historical events asover 2000 years ago the Greeks themselves attested to. As Lataczstated, “For the moment it is sufficient to state one fact: at the very core of the taleof Homer has shed the mantle of fiction commonly attributed to it. Ilios or Wilios (Troy)is not the product of the Greek imagination, but a real historical site. This site is locatedat the very place in which Homer shows it.” (p90). Latacz concludes his bookwith the statement, “The abundance of evidence pointing precisely in thisdirection is already overwhelming. And it grows with every month in which new shaftsare driven into the mystery by archaeologists (and) scholars – and many otherrepresentatives of divergent disciplines, all working with strict objectivity – It would notbe surprising if, in the near future, the outcome states: Homer is to be taken seriously.”(p287).

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THE FAMILY ACHILLES/AIACIDES

Noting the overwhelming historical and archaeologicalevidence which I have briefly presented and which continues togrow, our attention now turns specifically to Achilles and hisfamily – the Aiacides. Here is the family tree from legend andhistorical documents:

Zeus and Aegina

Aiacos Grandfather of Achilles

Aiacos and Endeis (Psamathe) Aiacos wedded to Endeis

then Psamathe

Menoetius Telamon Peleus PhocusPeleus, father of Achilles

(Antigone) Peleus and Thetis Peleus wedded to Antigone

then Thetis

Achilles Achilles

Achilles and DeidameiaAchilles weds Deidameia

Neoptolemos Son of Achilles

(Hermoine) Neoptolemos and Andromache (Helenus/Deidameia)

Molossos Pielus PergamusGrandsons of Achilles

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Achilles Playing a board game with his cousinAjax As a healer

AIACOS – Grandfather of Achilles

According to Apollodorus’ Library (of Greek Mythology), Zeuscarried off and married Aegina bringing her to the island ofOinone, southeast of Athens, which Zeus renamed Aegina. Theiroffspring was Aiacos. After a plague, with no other humans onAegina, Zeus turned the ants (myrmidons) into humans. Aiacos andEndeis bore Peleus and Telamon. Aiacos also married Psamathe whobore him Phocus. Because Phocus excelled in sports, Peleus andTelamon killed him. The father, Aiacos, discovered this andexiled the brothers, Telamon going to (the nearby island of)Salamis and Peleus to Phthia (further north) (pp126-127).

Hesoid’s Catalogue also mentions Aiacos as identifiedthrough scholia which stated: “About the Myrmidons Hesoid says thefollowing: She became pregnant and bore Aiacos who delighted in battle-chariot. Healso states “One should know that ancient history records that Patroclus was alsoa relative of Achilles, since it states that Hesoid says that Patroclus’ father Menoetiuswas Peleus’ brother, so that accordingly they were each other’s first cousin.” (pp213-214).

In 450BC Herodotus, the first real historian, recorded therecent Persian invasions of Greece of a generation before. AtSalamis a great naval engagement was to begin at which thePersian fleet was eventually decimated. Before the battle,according to Herodotus, “an earthquake occurred on land and sea, at whichpoint they (the Hellenes) decided to pray to the gods and invoke Aiacos and hisdescendents as their allies – they prayed to all the gods and then, after invoking the aidof Ajax and (his father) Telamon, they sent a ship to fetch Aiacos (his spirit) and the restof his descendants.” (p625). Such were the religious traditions andcultural dynamics of the ancient Greeks towards their ancestorswhom they strongly believed were real mortals.

PELEUS – Father of Achilles

In the Argonautica by Apollonius, librarian at the greatlibrary of Alexandria, Egypt, we read the story of Jason and theGolden Fleece. It also includes interesting insights of Peleus,father of Achilles, and his brother Telamon. Peleus is described

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as an adventurous hero from whose trials and tribulations andathletic abilities we begin to understand the warrior mentalityand strength of character of his Myrmidon son, Achilles (asfurther bolstered by passages in the Library below). Apolloniusidentifies the linage and heroes of those who accompany Jason onhis quest for the golden fleece, a six month journey. He tellsof the two sons of Aiacos, Telamon and Peleus, both who wereexiled for killing their bother Phocus (p5). Peleus speaksthroughout much of the text.

Of Pindar’s victory odes, composed by him to honor victoriousathletes at the Olympian games at Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, andIsthmia, the predominant city/region he celebrated most was theisland of Aegina. Of the four-five victory odes that havesurvived eleven deal with Aegina. “Set plumb in the middle of the SaronicGulf, within sight of her persistent maritime rival Athens, Aegina was a great tradingcenter and dispatched her vessels to every part of the Aegean. – At Salamis her navalcontingent was inferior in size only to that of Athens and when the war was over shewas judged to be superior in valor.– (although Pindar was himself from Thebes) whatmust have drawn (him) to Aegina was her wealth of heroic saga, richer that thelegendary Thebes.” (Carne-Ross pp66-67).

One could write a book about the feats of Peleus. Hisadventures are more diverse than those of his son Achilles andclearly define the adventurer-warrior-hero foundation of theAiacide family of which only glimpses are found in ancient texts.After Peleus was exiled by his father, the King of Phthia,Eurytion, presented him with one-third of his kingdom and hisdaughter Antigone who bore him Polydora, half sister of Achilles.At the Calydonian Boar Hunt Peleus threw a javelin at the boarand accidently killed the king, his wife’s father. He was thenexiled once again, this time to the court of Acastos, king atIolcus (present day Volos). The king purified him of the slayingbut Peleus was subsequently accused of attempting to seduce KingAcastos’ wife, Astydameia. Due to this accusation, attributed tothe king’s wife to whom Peleus refused her advances, Peleus ispersuaded to go hunting on Mount Pelion with the king who intendsto leave him to be killed by wild animals. But Chiron (thecentaur) comes to his aid. The Library of Apollodorus recountsthis story and also the wedding of Peleus and Thetis (pp 40-41,

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127-130). In revenge, Peleus later returned with support fromfellow Argonauts and sacked Iolcus bringing the wealth of thecity to Phthia. Scholia on the Catalogue shows Hesoid “whorecounts the story of Peleus and Acastos’ wife at great length.” (p215).

Other scholia from verse fragments on a Corinthian Orationabout the Isthmian games, identify the athletic prowess ofPeleus, his brother Telamon, and other Argonauts. The victorswere: “in the wrestling Peleus, with the discuss Telamon. – There was also a boat race,and the Argo won it. And after that it sailed no more. Jason dedicated it there toPoseidon.” (Greek Epic Fragments – GEF - p24).

In scholia on the Iliad by the author of Cypria, the weddingof Peleus and Thetis show the gods bringing gifts to allassembled on Mount Pelion above the city of Iolcus. Chiron (wholater taught the youthful Achilles) gave a fine ash spear. “Withthis spear Peleus was supreme in battle, and afterwards Achilles.” (GEF p85).Poseidon gave Peleus two horses, Xanthus and Balius, steeds whichlater drove the chariot of Achilles (Apollodorus p129).

ACHILLES – Youth and Warrior

References to Achilles and his son Neoptolemos are numerous.Their exploits, particularly of Achilles as a young but ferociouswarrior, have clearly been documented in Homer’s Iliad. Othertexts include that of Hesoid, the Little Iliad by Lesches ofMytilene, plus fragments of other writings from the Trojan Cycle:Cypria, Aethiopis, The Sack of Ilion and Returns all found inGreek Epic Fragments (in Greek and English) by Harvard UniversityPress. Others include Pindar, Pherekides, Euripides, Apollonius,Apollodorus, Strabo, Pausanias, and other Greek writers plus theAchilleid from the Latin by Statius raised nearly 2000 years agoin the Greek community in Naples. The Achilleid is the onlywriting that has survived describing Achilles as a child andyouth prior to his exploits at Troy. Statius’ book begins:“Goddess, tell of great-hearted Aiacides (Achilles) and offspring feared of the Thunderer(Zeus) and forbidden to succeed to his father’s heaven (Mt. Olympus).” (Zeus hadfeared that if he married the sea nymph Thetis that her offspringwould be greater that Zeus himself.) Under the watchful shadowof his mother Thetis, Achilles as a child and youth traversesthroughout eastern Thessaly (ancient Haemonia) from the Pelion

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mountains farthest east to the Ossa mountains at Tempe to thenorth, through Pharsalia, then the Othrys mountain range, formerhome of the Titans, down to the Sperchios River the southernmostpart of Thessaly (now part of northern Sterea Ellada). Achillesfinally hides on the island of Skyros where he wedded Deidameia,King Lycomedes’ daughter, who bore him Neoptolemos, also known asPyrrhus (pp313-397).

In the Iliad, Homer provides several characteristics of themain character of this paper, the Greek hero at Troy, the mightyAchilles. Through “Content Analysis” using Fagles’ Englishtranslation, I have identified 208 “Descriptive Characteristics”of this god-fearing man.

110 Adjectives - “Brilliant” “Swift/Matchless runner” “Princely” “Great” “God-like” 43 Personal attributes - “Blazing” “Esteemed by gods” “Raging” “Terrifying” “Selfish” 21 Leadership characteristics – “Self-confident,” “Greatest commander” “Generous” 13 Personal values – “Honorable” “Proud” “Obeys the gods” “Deep thinker” “Emotional” 12 Physical appearances – “Fiery hair” “Magnificent build” “Fierce eyes” “Burly hands” 9 References to women – “My fiery spirit” “Please my heart” “Plenty in Hellas - Phthia”

At the Greek campsite on the Aegean shore of Troy, Achilles’rage at Agamemnon’s war for the shameful Helen burns his ragingheart as this great and brilliant man, this greatest yet generous

commander, selfishly refuses to fight.He would rather depart for Phthia wherethere are plenty of women to please hisheart and tame his fiery spirit.

This proud man with his fiery hair andmagnificent build, esteemed by the gods,yet now deeply emotional and blazing withanger at the death of his cousin

Patroclus, honorably avenges his death, terrifying the Trojans

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and with his fierce eyes and burly hands destroys Hector, theirprince. This is the god-like Achilles.

NEOPTOLEMOS – son – and Grandchildren of Achilles

During the Trojan War, subsequent to the death of Achillesat the hands of Paris’ arrow to Achilles’ heel, Neoptolemos wasbrought by Odysseus from Skyros to the battle field of Troy.There the youthful man, to whom the torch ofhis mighty father has now fallen to, carriedon the ferocious warrior-hero spirit of theAiacideses, from grandfather Peleus, tofather Achilles, and now son Neoptolemos.One of the warriors in the “Trojan Horse,”Neoptolemos kills the king of Troy, Priam,and with Andromache, Hector’s wife as spoils of war, he returnsto Achaia (Greece). The Returns and other fragments describe hisoverland return to Phthia after the Trojan War and hisrelationship with Andromache to whom she bore Molossos who becameking of Epirus, a region west of Thessaly.

“Trojan Horse” attoday’s Troy Epirus retains a strong tradition with the family ofAchilles, the Pyrrhidae dynasty. Legend also mentions anotherson of Andromache from Neoptolemos who was Pergamus. He ruled atPergamon, the city in Asia Minor that eventually rivaledAlexandria with its literary fervor (see Kosmetatou 2003 p59).Also documented is the murder of Neoptolemos at Delphi arrangedby Orestes, son of King Agamemnon, in response to Neoptolemos’apparent abduction of Hermoine, daughter of King Menelaus andHelen of Sparta. Pausanias saw the tomb of Neoptolemos at Delphiand identified its specific location (Pausanias 1 p467-468).

Elizabeth Kosmetatou provides another interesting article,“The Legend of the Hero Pergamus,” whom she says “was the youngest ofthe three sons of Andromache and Neoptolemos, and a grandson of Achilles.” Shefurther states, “After the murder of Neoptolemos, Andromache fled to Epirus,married Helenus, her husband’s brother, and together they founded the city of Chaonia.– the second son, Pielus, founded and ruled the neighboring Pialeia. The third sonPergamus left Greece – slew Teuthrania’s king Areius (a Mysian kingdom), took over histhrone, and then renamed the capital after himself.” (pp133-134). (Note: In

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the Library, Apollodorus states that “Neoptolemos gave him (Helenus) hismother, Deidameia, as a wife. When Peleus was expelled from Phthia by the sons ofAcastos (son of Pelias of Iolcos), and died, Neoptolemos recovered his father’skingdom.” (p160 and Pausanias 1 p35).

Religious Cults, Festivals, and Dedications to the Aiacides

Pausanias’ travels in the Peloponnese describe many sitesdedicated to Achilles. At Braisiai, a town along the Laconiancoast at the port of Plaka, he says, “They have sanctuaries of Asklepiosand Achilles and they hold annual festivals for Achilles.” (2 pp89-90). ThroughoutLaconia there was a widespread religious cult for Achilles,probably associated with being an apparent lover of Helen. Northof Sparta towards Arcadia is another sanctuary of Achilles.Grown boys would sacrifice there before fighting in Olympicgames. “The Spartans say Prax built them this sanctuary; he was the grandson ofPergamus the son of Neoptolemos.” (2 p75). And at the largest trainingground near Olympia there is an altar to Achilles. At openingceremonies of the games, “on a special day as the sun declines to its settingEleian women perform ceremonies in honor of Achilles, and observe the rites oflamentation to him.” (2 p356).

Troy and Achilles’ tomb became sacred sites for the ancientGreeks as consciousness rose as to their legendary heritage (Rosep66). From Thessaly emissaries were annually sent to sacrificeat his tomb and Pharsalians dedicated a statue of Achilles atDelphi (Westlake pp43 & 187). Theagenes, a reknown boxer andfighter at all the major sports stadiums, Olympian, Pythian,Nemean, and Isthmian games, participated at Phthia in Thessaly“to become a distinguished Greek runner, and he won the long-distance running. Ithink it was ambitious envy of Achilles, to win a race in the native town of the fastestrunner among all the heroes.” (Pausanias2 p316). And there were religiouscults for Achilles at the Danube on the Black Sea, at Skyrosbirthplace of Neoptolemos, and hero-cult worship at the allegedtomb of Peleus in Ikos, modern island of Alonissos, where he wasvenerated as king of the Myrmidons as stated in a poem(Callimachus’ lost “Aitia”). In Epirus the line of Achilles isstrong – the Pyrrihdae – as it is today in modern Thessaly andthe Phthiotis region of northern Sterea Ellada where many townsvie for the title of “Homeland of Achilles.”

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Such in general, in both myth and historic reality, is thefamily Achilles, known as Aiacides (from the linage of Aiacos).As remote yet interesting to many as these writings above may be,the head of the Aiacides family may be even more remote, i.e. thegrandfather Aiacos. Pausanias describes a site on the island ofAegina in the city center dedicated to him. He says, “in the mostconspicuous spot in the city is what they call the AIAKEION, a square enclosure walledwith white stone. The Greek embassy to Aiacos (beseeching him to go to Delphi where apriestess may stop a devastating drought) is carved at the entrance.” He furtherstates that, “By the Aiakeion is the grave of Phocus, a tumulus surrounded by acircular base and crowned with a rugged stone.” (Pausanias 1 pp199-200).

Geographically, the family’s roots extend from the island ofAegina, more powerful than Athens in the Classical period, toancient Thessaly, the mythical heartland of Greece and region

where Greece received its name, Hellas,to the Pindus Mountain range of Epirus,where was King Pyrrhus, second cousin ofAlexander the Great, who in 279BC almostsacked Rome (see Plutarch), then acrossthe Aegean Sea to Asia Minor and thecity of Pergamon, which rivaled ancientAlexandria during the Hellenistic

period. An amazing odyssey for an amazing family. While noother writing has attempted to describe the dynamics of thefamily Aiacides, it is hoped that this brief analysis will fosterexcitement to purse it further, refine the line between myth andreality, and add to the “Mystique of the hero Achilles.”

THE HOMELAND AND CAPITAL CITY OF ACHILLES

Now to describe the evidence from research for the homelandas well as capital city of the kingdom of Achilles and his fatherPeleus, Phthia. A most ancient site, its location has broughtmany diverse opinions as well as confusion from ancient times tothe present. In my first article, “In Search of Homer’s Achilles: HisKingdom, His People, His Palace,” I emphasize the importance of metricsparticularly where archaeological evidence does not exist. Istate, “Despite little or no evidence, intelligent reasoning can lead to reasonableconclusions. Measures or metrics are vital to this process.” Hence, I developed

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the following criteria in my research to locate Phthia:(1)Homer’s writings, (2)Other writings/notes/evidence, (3)Oraltradition, (4)Secondary evidence/artifacts, (5)Physical terrain,(6)Defensible fortress, (7)Proximity to harbors (for shipmoorings), and (8)Hospitality (such as espoused by Achilles)(Brianas In Search Part I)

Ancient Writings on Phthia

I start at the beginning with the poem by Homer (800BC), theIliad, which continues to electrify scholars and students ofhistory. It is an epic story which were it not for Homer and thesurvival of the poem over the centuries would have placed a hugevoid in the literature and the literary challenges taken on bythe scientific and literary communities. The poem begins:

“Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles (andcontinues) – Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,Agamemnon lord of men and the brilliant Achilles.” (Homer/Faglesp77).

“” (Homer/p63).

My research takes me to the words of Homer and hisreferences to the homeland of Achilles, Phthia, and specificallythe words of Achilles and his mentor King Phoenix. (My source isthe excellent English translation by Robert Fagles – although thebest source is the original Greek.) I go in the beginning toBook 1 and the fiery exchange between Agamemnon and Achilles whenAchilles told Agamemnon to return treasure and a prized princesshe abducted: “Agamemnon, furious, his dark heart filled to the brim, blazing withanger now, his eyes like searing fire” as he spoke to the prophet Calchisfirst and then to Achilles: “Not so quickly, brave as you are, god-like Achilles– trying to cheat me. Oh no, you won’t get past me, take me that way!” ThenAchilles counters: “Shameless—always shrewd with greed! – The Trojans neverdid me damage, not in the least, they never stole my cattle or my horses, never inPhthia where the rich soil breeds strong men did they lay waste my crops.” (pp81-82).

The key words of Achilles to highlight are: mycattle, my horses, Phthia where the rich soil, and my crops.

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Then in Book 9, covering the embassy to Achilles comprisedof Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix, Achilles priding the harshconditions of his ravaging the land of the Trojan allies, says inthe presence of Patroclus, “since I have no desire to battle glorious Hector,tomorrow at daybreak, once I have sacrificed to Zeus and all the gods – my squadronssail – the third day out we raise the dark rich soil of Phthia. There lies my wealth,hoards of it – and still more hoards from here.” (p263).

The key words here are the dark rich soil of Phthia.

Again in Book 9, Phoenix, who originally lived in Hellas,land of his father Amyntor and grandfather Ormenus, but afterhaving a feud with his father, he related to Achilles, “away I fledthrough the whole expanse of Hellas, and gaining the good dark soil of Phthia, motherof flocks, I reached the king, and Peleus gave me a royal welcome.” (p267).

The key words here are good dark soil of Phthia and motherof flocks.

In Book 19, Kings Nestor, Odysseus, and Phoenix attempt tocomfort Achilles grieving for the death of Patroclus. Achillessays, “here I am in a distant land, fighting Trojans, and all for that blood-chillinghorror, Helen! – Till now I’d hoped, hope with all my heart that I alone would die farfrom the stallion land of Argos, here in Troy, but you Patroclus would journey back toPhthia and then you’d ferry Neoptolemos home from Skyros (p499).

The key words here are the stallion land of Argos.

Summarizing these citations by Homer we have the followingrelating to Phthia:

The Land: (1) Phthia where the rich soil, (2) the dark rich soilof Phthia, (3) the good dark soil of Phthia.

The Fields: (1) my crops.

The Animals: (1) my cattle, (2) my horses, (3) mother of flocks,(4) the stallion land of Argos.

Phthia, then, according to Homer,is a land which is rich for farming,for growing crops, a land which notonly must be flat, a plain, a wide

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valley, but with dark soil, a rich black color. Furthermore, itis a land where horses roam, where cattle are breed and wherethey graze, and a land with hills for the flocks to feed and aplain which shelters them in the winter. While some scholarsbelieve Phthia to be a city, this evidence from Homer maydescribe a larger area. Other evidence to come from ancientwritings shows it to be a rather large region.

Analysis? There were eight kingdoms from ancient Thessaly thatfought at Troy. The greatest number of ships, fifty, came withAchilles. The kingdom of Achilles and his father Peleus comprisedthe largest part of Thessaly, the entire southeastern part. Itincluded Phthia and Hellas and what later became Phthiotis andAchaia Phthiotida.

Several towns and mountain sites vie for the title of“Homeland and capital city of Achilles.” Mountainess Pelasgia(Larisa Cremaste), in the very southeastern section of hiskingdom, is an excellent location for a castle fortresswhich it has in ruins, with a palace site overlookingthe sea. It is only one of four

George at Pelasgia Rugged Trachis Achillesmonument at St. George

cities which minted coins with the head of Achilles, the othersbeing Epirus, Larisa in northern Thessaly, plus Achilleion nearTroy. But for the capital city Pelasgia does not fit thecitations of Homer. Was it part of the district of Phthia? Itmay have been. Cities to the east and north of Pelasgia belongedto the kingdom of Protesilaus (whom Homer identified as part ofPhthia). Any locations west of Pelasgia along the Malian Gulfand around towards Thermopylae belong to the cities of Alope andTrachis and possibly to Alos east of Lamia, although a site near

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Almiros is also identified as Alos (cities with the same name arecommon though confusing). That leaves the Sperchios RiverValley, the very southern part of Achilles’ kingdom, from Lamiawest to St. George. It is a prime location and one which I wouldhave theorized, geographically, to be the center of his kingdom.It now has a rich valley some 35 miles long (55 kilometers),great for farming, ending in a V at its westernmost edge, theconfluence of the valley, surrounded by hills and mountains, someapparent evidence of horses, plus proximity to the sea forharbors. A major problem is the valley floor itself. At thetime of Achilles, the valley was part of a wider river reachingthe mountain slopes like at Thermopylae during the Persian wars,great for seamanship but fair for farming, cattle, and horses.This is based on the assumption of a higher sea level at thattime. points to this:

“” (p359). The sea, he states, washigher at the time of the Trojan War reaching Trachis and Alopeand subsequently receded 8.5 kilometers - over fivemiles.(Note: During the Ice Age of 10,000 to 14,000 years agothere was a gradual melting which caused a sea-level rise aroundthe world of about 20 meters – 62 feet (geotimes.org/02).

.

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Lamia at the mouth of the Sperchios River Museum on the castle site at Lamia The Sperchios River Valley today

Unless future archaeological evidence provesotherwise, the Sperchios area does not fit Homer’s citationseither. Like at the Thermopylae pass, and throughout the Aegeanand Mediterranean, the seas subsided and the land silted up. Thesame occurred at Troy, at Ephesus further south in Asia Minor,the Alexandrian port in Egypt, at Athens where the port ofPiraeus was once an island, plus at the port of Rome. With alower sea level and also continuous silting from mountain run-

offs over thecenturies, theSperchios became anarrow riversurrounded byflatland, liketoday, cradledwithin mountain

ranges. And at the southern mouth of the Sperchios, Trachis hasbeen mentioned as the capital city of Peleus’ kingdom (Allenp110). The plateau above Lamia at Domoko (below left) and Melitea(below right) are next, again part of the kingdom and possibly inancient Phthia. The locations are excellent but farming andraising of horses or cattle were not prime activities.

(See on the history of Domoko and Melitea.) This leavesthe northern part of Achilles’ and Peleus’ kingdom with ancientsites like Narthakion at the Kalethia mountain top and the

mountain site at Pharsala with the wide open plain to itsnorth and west, a plain with very rich soil, known as thebreadbasket of Greece. Also it is an area known for itsfame in horsemanship from Larisa, Pherae, and Pharsala westacross the Thessalian plain to Trikala (ancient Trikka).

From this we can conclude that Pharsala more clearly fits thecitations of Homer. Surely its mountain top, the fortress, wasthe palace site of a mighty king. Its huge cyclopean walls, itssouthern cliffs, and magnificent views of the Thessalian plainattest to this.

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Pharsala: City’s mountain fortress and plain Cyclopean northernwall Southern cliffs

My only concern has been its proximity to the sea which whenexamining the sites of the other Homeric mainland kings many notbe a concern at all. With the sea higher at that time, accesswas closer (than to the Sperchios River) to a western extensionof the Pagastikos Gulf which is likely within the borders of KingProtesilaus who Homer identifies as a Phthian along with KingPhilocteles further east past Volos.

Continuing on the trail of Phthia are fragments and scholiafrom other writings comprising the “Trojan Cycle,” specificallythe Little Iliad, attributed to Lesches of Mytilene (800BC?).The Loeb Classical Library of Harvard University is an excellentsource. The Library quotes the writings of John Tzetzes 12th century Byzantine scholar (1110-1180AD) andhis Book of Histories in which he quotes over 400 authors, manyfrom lost works. From Tzetzes’ commentary (scholia) onLycophron, a war poem, he says: “Lesches, the author of the Little Iliad, saysthat Andromache and Aeneas were captured and given to Achilles’ son Neoptolemos,and taken away with him to Pharsalia, Achilles’ homeland.” (p139). Clearly this iswritten evidence for Pharsala.

Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam, edited in Greek and Latinby Gulielmus Dindorfius in an 1855 text states in Greek, likelyfrom 6th century AD Stephanos Byzantinos:

“” “Myrmidon’s former city] Homer indeed says that Phthia, is the newer Pharsala.” A footnote in Latin states: “That which seems a true thing.” The Latin goes on to explain there may be three versions of the name: Pharsalias, Pharsaliou, and Pharsalou (p171). (Note: Other scholia include Photios

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I, 810-893AD, 9th century Patriarch of Constantinople, the 10th century Suda, and Eustathius, 1110-1198AD, 12th century Archbishop of Thessalonika .)

From Hesoid’s Catalogue of Women, Harvard’s Libraryidentifies a “Scholium on Pindar’s Pythians” (victory odes fromthe Pythian games at Delphi). It states: “Pindar (500BC) took the storyof Hesiod’s Ehoiai (Catalogue of Women, 750BC); this is the beginning: ‘Or like her: inPhthia, possessing beauty from the Graces, beside the water of Peneus dwelt beautifulKyrene.’” (p243). While not identifying the city of Phthia it doespoint to a region called Phthia, which includes the heart of theplain of Thessaly around the Peneius (Peneus or Peneios) River.

In “Andromache,” a play written by Euripides around 430BC,further evidence is presented for Pharsalia. Euripides hasAndromache, former wife of Hector, speaking: “Phthia is my home now,these fields surrounding the city of Pharsalia. Sea-born Thetis lived here with Peleus –The people of Thessaly call it the Altar of Thetis for that reason. That roof you seebelongs to Achilles’ son, by whose permission Peleus rules Pharsalia. -- Within thathouse I’ve given birth to a boy, bred to that same Achilles’ son, my master.” (Eurip Ip75). Assuming these writings are historically based, moreevidence for Pharsala. (See also in Greek, Ofthe play write Euripides, it is writtenthat he takes great pains in presenting reality not myth(Euripides I pv, Eurip III p71).

Another play of Euripides, “Hecuba” written around 425BC,laments the current state of the former wife of King Priam ofTroy, killed by Neoptolemos. Euripides has the chorus saying ofHecuba, “O wind of ocean – where are you blowing me? Where shall I be slave?Where is there home for me? There in distant Doris, in Phthia far away where men sayApidanos runs, father of waters, river whose lovely flowing fattens the fields.” (III p29).The Apidanos River originates at Pharsala and in antiquity wasone of the great rivers of Thessaly. More evidence for Pharsala.Today the river no longer flows. Its waters dried last centuryfrom farm irrigation. For an excellent archaeologicaldescription of present day Pharsala and its ancient fortress see“” by

Apparently from Hesoid or Pindar, Apollonius says in theArgonautica (250BC), “Among men of an earlier age, it is said, a girl called Kyrene

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grazed her flocks beside the marshes of Peneius. – Apollo snatched her up and,carrying her far from Haimonia – in Libya. There she bore a son, Aristaios, whom theinhabitants of Haimonia, rich in grain, call Argreus and Nomios. Muses – made himkeeper of their flocks which grazed the Athamantian plain of Phthia, around sheerOthrys and the sacred stream of the river Apidanos.” (pp47-48). More evidence forPhthia as a region in the plain of Thessaly bordering the Othrysmountains.

Further references include that of Callimachus (300BC). Inhis Hymn IV to Delos he wanders throughout Thessalia identifyingLarisa, Kheiron, Pelion, Ossa, Pindus, etc. and says of the riverPeneus, “Phthiotian Peneus, why dost thou now vie with the winds? Clearreference to the plain of Thessaly.

And now to Strabo, born of a wealthy family in Amaseia,Pontus in northern Asia Minor. A prolific historian andgeographer he lived from 64BC to 24AD traveling extensivelythroughout the Roman Empire and beyond, including Egypt andEthiopia, weaving into the Roman fabric among other things thegrandeur of his Greek heritage. Only a fragment of his Historyexists but his 17-volume Geography has largely survived in whichhe describes people and places from different regions. Asupporter of Homer, in Book VII of his Geography, he covers “thelargest and most ancient composite part of the Greeks (which) is that of the Thessalians– omitting such things as are very old and mythical and for the most part not agreedupon --. The land of Thessaly, as a whole is a plain, except Pelion and Ossa. – thePeneius, which flows through the middle of it and receives many rivers, often overflows;and in olden times the plain formed a lake. – But when a cleft was made byearthquakes at Tempe – the Peneius poured out through it towards the sea and drainedthe country in question.” (pp393-397).

Thessaly today, with its extensive farming, continues to bedrained of water. Dams storing water from the melting wintersnows high in the Pindus Mountains such as southwest of Karditsa

and around Smokovo, lands of theancient Dolopians, provide neededirrigation during the dry,typically rainless, summermonths. The Peneius itself isalso fed from the Pindus range of

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Epirus west of Thessaly and during the summer runs very low asdoes the Achelous running south from the Pindus. We notedearlier how the sacred Apidanos is a now a dry river bed as istrue for many ancient river sites. The rivers that still flowfrom the Pindus and Othrys mountains through the great plain,separated by low lying ridges south of Larisa, often run veryshallow raising serious questions of water availability in thefuture. But such is Thessaly, that ancient land which inantiquity also included the plateau of Domoko down to theSperchios River Valley and approaching the pass at Thermopylae –a land in which Homeric Phthia is located and which this writingstrives to identify. (See map of Strabo’s central and northern Greece tothe left.)

I am dwelling on Strabo due to the importance I place on hismostly eyewitness accounts of geography and history, as I do forHerodotus and later Pausanias as they impact on the “AchillesQuestion.” Strabo continues, “Now the first people (in Thessaly) he (Homer)names in the ‘Catalogue’ are those under Achilles (p399) – concerning the places subjectto Achilles are themselves under controversy. Some take the Pelasgian Argos as aThessalian city once situated in the neighbourhood of Larisa but now no longerexistent; but others take it, not as a city, but as the plain of the Thessalians, which isreferred to by this name because Abas, who brought a colony there from Argos, sonamed it. As for Phthia, some say that it is the same as Hellas and Achaea, and thatthese constitute the other, the southern, of the two parts into which Thessaly as a wholeis divided; but others distinguish between Hellas and Achaea.” (p403). Strabo goeson to discuss opposing viewpoints of Hellas in which thePharsalians say it is near their city whereas the Meliteans sayit near theirs. The Meliteans further say that “the tomb of Hellen,son of Deucalian and Pyrrha, (is) situated in their market-place. For it is related thatDeucalian ruled over Phthia, and, in a word, over Thessaly.” (p405). Strabocontinues, “’Phthians’ is the name given to those who were subject to Achilles andProtesilaus and Philoctetes. And the poet is witness to this, for after mentioning in the‘Catalogue’ those that were subject to Achilles and those who held Phthia.’” (p405).Continuing to quote Homer, he says, “’in front of the Phthians was Medon,and also Podarces (sons of Protesilaus) steadfast in war. These in their armour, in frontof the great-hearted Phthians, were fighting along with the Boeotians in defence of theships.’” And Strabo further theorized, “Perhaps the men with Eurypylus alsowere called Phthians, since their country indeed bordered on Phthia.” (p407).

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The controversies covered by Strabo continue to this day –hence the effort by this writer, and other writers, to shed lighton controversial issues over Phthia and the kingdom of Achillesand his father Peleus. I believe we are approaching the timewhen soon this puzzle, this mystery of the homeland of Achillesand his capital city, will be solved – and eventuallycorroborated by archaeological excavations which are vital – andlong overdue.

Herodotus (450BC) has his insight of the Pelasgians, a veryancient people, who originally lived in Phthia. He says, “WhenDeucalian was king, these Helenes (Pelasgians) inhabited the land of Phthia, but underDoros son of Hellen, they dwelled in the land beneath Ossa and Olympus, which iscalled Histiaiotis. – they were expelled -- and settled in Pindus. – they finally came tothe Peloponnese, where they were called Dorians.” (p32). The Pelasgiansdescribed above by Herodotus a generation after the Persian Warsshow them occupying at different periods of time virtually all ofancient Thessaly and west to the Pindus Mountains at Epirus.Their trials and tribulations and perseverance as Hellenes ofold, which no doubt bolstered by the influx of Peleus and hisMyrmidons to Phthia from Aegina, fortified their character as apeople. This would support the suburb military prowess of theMyrmidons and later the Spartans. Herodotus also states that theAthenians were originally Pelasgians but never left Attica.Vermeule says that “the Pelasgians have been the hottest subject in linguisticdetective work for one hundred years. – (and) the oldest cult center in Greece specificallylinked to the Pelasgians (was) Dodona Epirus (p19). Homer has Achilles prayingto Zeus at Dodona. Filling his wine cup his mother Thetis placedin “the princely inlaid chest” in his ship, he prayed to “Pelasgian Zeus, lordof Dodona’s holy shrine” that his comrade, Patroclus, would repel theTrojans near the Greek ships and return safely (pp419-420). Andas previously mentioned, Achilles speaks of his “stallion land ofArgos.” (Homer/Fagles p 499).

In viewing the geography of the region, it may seem naturalto (1) place the Pelasgian Argos at the Sperchios Valley, similarto the Argos in the Peloponnese. Thereby (2) the district ofPhthia would be further north along the southeastern Thessalianplain through Volos, (3) the Hellas district would be west ofPhthia (northeast of Dolopia) at Ktouri and east of Sophades

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(Kierion) or possibly (4) Hellas located at the region ofMelitea. All districts have their assigned geographicalterritories and we apparently have not violated Homer – too much.In identifying those troops led by Achilles, did Homer mean (1)to imply by stating Pelasgian Argos first then Alos, Alope, andTrachis that the Argos is at the Sperchios and Malian Gulf or (2)is this a district encompassing virtually all of the kingdom ofAchilles (and extending deep into Thessaly) then enumerating thethree cities above and adding Phthia and Hellas? Evidence pointsto the later. Piecing the historic puzzle together, ancientwriters citing the Pelasgian Argos place it further north at theThessalian plain. Research does not support the SperchiosValley.

Another question arises from Homer identifying the warriorsof Achilles as, “all the fighters called Achaeans, Hellenes, and Myrmidons,”(p121). “Achaeans” identifies all the Greeks who fought at Troyand “Achaea” a collective name for Greece. But it is also alocality in Achilles’ homeland. Logically then, in accountingfor the Achaeans and others identified by Homer, we can: (1)place the Achaeans at the Sperchios and southern Othrys, (2)place the Hellenes from Hellas in the central Othrys and westernplateau of Melitea, and (3) the Myrmidons at the northern Othrysand Narthakion range adjacent to the plain of southeast Thessaly,the western district of Phthia. (4) The fourth group of people,those called Phthians, were led by Protesilaus and Philocteles.Their kingdoms were to the east of Achilles and Peleus; i.e. theeastern district of Phthia. (5) As apposed to (1) and (2) above,for the Hellenes from Hellas, place them at Ktouri near Pharsalaand the Achaeans at a larger region from the Sperchios north tothe plateau including the Othrys. We may likely only agree to(3) and (4) above. (Note: Achaea later became a region innorthern Peloponnese.) But let us continue with our ancientmystery.

Latin writers add some insight to the location of Achilles’homeland, Phthia. In Pharsalia, a lengthy poem of the RomanCivil War (10 Books), Lucanius (60AD) traces the exploits ofCaesar throughout much of Europe. After Caesar crosses fromItaly into Greece in far northern Epirus and skirmishes with his

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rival Pompey, he retreats towards Thessaly passing throughAeginium (Kalambaka) and after plundering Gomphi continues east.Lucanius continues, “then on the shore seaborn Achilles’ home Pharsalus rose.”(BkVI Line410). This was the location of the decisive battle inwhich Caesar, general of the west, in 48BC defeated the largerforce of Pompey, general of the east, elevating Caesar to emperorof the Roman Empire.

Another Latin reference to Pharsala appeared In CathCatharda: The Civil War of the Romans (100AD). Chapter 19 ofthis very lengthy text with author unknown, is titled: “TheDescription of Thessaly.” It goes on to say “A land – fit to have theGreat Battle fought in it. There are many cities in that same land, the city of Pharsalus,wherein was Achilles son of Peleus, and the city Phylace in which the Argo was built.”(Part 20).

Within the entire body of ancient writings researched andcited above - mostly Greek and a few Latin – no other city orregion arises for the location of Phthia than Pharsala. If therewas any dispute to this by the ancient Greeks, in any way,nowhere was it shown. This evidence clearly points to Pharsala asthe capital city of Homer’s Phthia.

Modern Writings on Phthia

Discussing Achilles would not be complete without thewritings of Friedrich Stahlin. His 1924 Book, Ancient Thessalytranslated from the German into Greek in 2002, states in thepreface: “One romantic youthful love towards Achilles (which) guided me in 1904 –‘til then little investigation on Phthiotida, the homeland of that hero, we wanted tomake creditable the knowledge we derived from our teacher Dorpfeld. At that time wewent by boat –“ and visited Thessaly. (p25). He and his friendRutgers van der Loeff traveled throughout the ancient domain ofThessaly investigating, analyzing, and sketching the elevationssurrounding the fortresses/castles of the region andphotographing the sites. In his detailed book published 20 yearslater, he began by discussing the northern and eastern regions ofPerrhaebia and Magnesia, then the four tetrads of Pelasgiotis atLarisa, Hestiotis at Trikala, Thessaliotis at Karditsa, andPhthiotis at Pharsala all comprising the nation/state ofThessaly. He distinguishes between Phthiotis and Achaea

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Phthiotis, the later which he locates south of Pharsala coveringthe Othrys Mountains and the Domoko plateau down close to theSperchios River Valley, the latter region which he labeled Malianand Ainis; i.e. at Lamia, Trachis and the Sperchios River.

With respect to Phthia he states, “Pharsalus, consistent withtradition, had a predecessor, Phthia, the Myrmidon city, which later became part of theThessalian tetrad. These two places are known in the Little Iliad.” (p244). In theGreek publication it reads:“” (p244). Strongevidence for Pharsala as Phthia.

This evidence is mirrored by Westlake who in 1935 after twovisits to Thessaly wrote, “By far the most impressive of the Thessalian cities isPharsalus, which is probably identified with Phthia the home of Achilles, and inhistorical times dominated the tetrad Phthiotis.” (pp11-12). In his book ,titled Thessaly in the Fourth Century B.C., he further states,“The Thessalian hero par ex excellence was Achilles, and an embassy was annually sentto sacrifice to his tomb at Troy.” (p43). Continuing, he says, “Pharsalusdedicated at Delphi an equestrian figure of Achilles.” (Pausanias I p439 -describes it as Achilles on a horse with Patroclus running besidehim.) This was probably done, he felt, due to the defeat ofHalus at the coastal plain by a Macedonian and Pharsalian army.The town was then handed over to Pharsalus. “The dedicatory inscriptionis further evidence of Pharsalian progress, for from it the city is known to have suppliedthree of the four polemarchs of the Thessalian League (to Delphi).” (pp186-187).

Westlake prefaces his discussion of the 4th century witha brief historic review of Thessaly. After the Trojan War, therewere disturbances in Greece from northern people and finally theDorian invasion (or migration). While the Dorians continuedsouthward from Thessaly (down to the Peloponnese), the Thessalifrom Threspotia in the Pindus range settled in the Thessalianplain giving that region its name. “The conquerors were a hardy race –they adopted the language of the conquered – while the former Pelasgian and Achaeaninhabitants suffered a varied fate. – the majority were compelled to remain as‘Penestae’ in serfdom to their conquerors. At a later date all sections of the populationcontributed to the Aeolic migration (to the northeastern Aegean islands and northwestAsia Minor), while a northerly movement of the Thessali was responsible for the

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foundation of the Macedonian kingdom.” (pp21-22). The new aristocracy hadample supply of laborers to cultivate the lands “so that from the DarkAges Thessaly emerges as a formidable power – which must, in view of its achievements,have enjoyed a measure of national unity. – Finally, towards the close of the seventhcentury the ambitious project was conceived – of uniting the whole country into a singlenational state -- (and) an organization for common defence against an invader – Thusthe Thessalian or national state – (which) was primarily a military organization –(with) a national commander (a . The aristocratic familiesestablished a constitution for their national state such that bythe 6th century “their national state so united the Thessalians that they formed thestrongest military power in Greece – (such that) it welded almost the whole of northernGreece into a Thessalian empire.” (pp 21-29). With a constitution of itsown and as a nation-state Thessaly indeed was a wealthyaristocratic region with immense agricultural resourcesthroughout the plains – a very formidable power evolving from theDark Ages of Greece. Such then is the picture of a Thessaly manypeople are unaware of.

The Mycenaean Greeks were for 500 years supreme on mainlandGreece and most of the Aegean islands. Unified militarily as onepeople they fought and defeated the Trojans. The Hittite empire,extremely powerful, having held the Egyptian forces under RamsesII to a stalemate at the Battle of Kadesh in 1275BC on the nowSyrian coastline and holding the Ahhijawan (Achaean) incursionsinto Asia Minor largely at bay, were themselves erased as anempire by 1200BC probably from civil war and northern incursions.

Disturbances rattled theentire easternMediterranean. Yes, theTrojan War was won by theGreeks, but its aftermath ismirrored in the futuretragedies of Pyrrhus, kingof Epirus, whose victoryagainst the Romans near Romein 279BC eventually ended indefeat; i.e. a “PyrrhicVictory,” pulling defeat out

of the jaws of victory (again, see Plutarch’s Lives). The 10-year Trojan War extracted a great price from the Greeks.

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“Victorious” they returned to their home country bereft withturmoil and tragedy. Within 100 years major migrations began, theDorians from the north, eventually many Greeks to Asia Minor andelsewhere in the Aegean and Mediterranean and Black Seas plus theimpact of the “Sea Peoples,” the later attested to in Egyptianwriting and art (see Runnels pp126-127, Wood pp25-26, andSandars). Yet out of this the foundation was laid for a Greeknation whose eventual culture and military might beginning 350years later (about 750BC) was to become the pride of the world.Philosophy, astronomy, history, art, architecture, mathematics,literature, theatre, Olympic sports, land/naval warfare, freedom,democracy, etc. and a technology which to this day is not fullyunderstood or appreciated - all became part of its historicallegacy.

Today we are still fighting the Trojan War, this time inthe trenches of research, archaeology, symposiums, andconferences. For Achilles we are rapidly approaching the timewhere action by a determined people will yield the excavation ofthe richness of his homeland and the fulfillment of his owndesire as he stated in the Odyssey in talking to Odysseus fromthe kingdom of the dead and asking about his father, “Tell me ofnoble Peleus, any word you’ve heard, still holding pride of place among the Myrmidonhordes, or do they despise the man in Hellas and Phthia because old age has lamed hisarms and legs? For I no longer stand in the light of day, the man I was – killing the bestfighters Troy could field in the wide world up there… Oh to arrive at father’s house, theman I was, for one brief day –.” (Homer/Fagles p265).

The excellent writing of three esteemed residents of modernPhthiotida (Lamian authors)hasten the daywhen Achilles will be brought home not only for one brief day butfor eternity - Their book,Research Tracing Homer’s Achilles to the Valley of theSperchiou),provides the rationale for the location of thehomeland of Achilles, Phthia, at the Sperchios River Valley.They place the site about 35 kilometers west of Lamia. They alsoinclude south of this site across the river ancient Hellas atpresent day (Phteri).

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Their case is well documented and includes citations many ofwhich I have covered above and more. Their key premise, though,is that there is more than one Phthia. They state:“

” (pp130-131). They in other wordsidentify different Phthias – the one ofHomer and another which they call”” (p131). Whilerecognizing that ancient writings haveplaced Phthia at Pharsala, which theydiscuss at length almost protesting toomuch, they disregard it as that of

Homer’s. They state that the Phthia of Pharsala is the one afterTroy, not Homer’s, and it was founded by Neoptolemos, son ofAchilles, after he was chased out of the Sperchios by theancestors of Acastos, maybe by a dislodged/displaced population(p227-228).“(p228) asstated in their book. They believed that the ancient writers,Pherekidis (philosopher 525BC) and Euripides (play write 450BCdiscussed above) unwilling treated (Phthia and Pharsala) bymistakenly relying exclusively on popular tradition and locallist of names and they did not research the year of the foundingof the Phthias (p227). This is speculation. As they stated inGreek:“”

Other modern writers have interpreted the writings ofEuripides differently. Richard Lattimore states that of the 19plays that survive from the 88 written by Euripides around themiddle to early 5th century BC, “Euripides was basically a realist – The onlymaterials available for his tragedies were the old heroic sagas. He used them as if theytold the story – of everyday people .– His faults are obvious. Equally obvious is hisgenius.” (Eurip I ppv-vii). In Euripides III, Lattimore also quotesGreenwood as saying that Euripides, “is fond of presenting the arguments

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for or against this or that proposition – he presents these arguments so impartially, andrefrains so completely from pronouncing judgment --.” (p71).

Hope Simpson and Lazenby in a four page article in 1959,“The Kingdom of Peleus and Achilles,” also identify Sperchioswith Achilles, saying, “That the Kingdom of Peleus was centered on theSpercheios Valley is sufficiently indicated by the dedication of his son Achilles’ hair to theriver (Iliad, XXXIII, 140 ff.), and by the genealogy of Menesthios (Iliad XVI, 173 ff.). Atthe end they state, “The district was apparently as fertile in Homeric times as itis today, and a potential strength of fifty ships (and 2500 men? – Iliad XVI, 168-70)seems not impossible.” (pp102-105). Their reasoning, though, isbasically speculative with such words as “sufficiently indicated”and later “was apparently as fertile.” Furthermore, withresearch on the sea levels at the time of Homer, Hope Simpson andLazenby would have known that the current sea level is well below(possibly 20 to 25 feet below) what it was at the time of theTrojan War which would greatly discredit their thesis on thefertility of the land referred to by Homer.

The Lamian authors above reference this work on page 172.Also referenced is the work of Walter Leaf (p171) who in hisbook, Homer and History published in 1915, places Phthia southof the Othrys Mountains at the Sperchios. “The ClassicalWeekly” in 1931 highlights a review made in 1923 by ProfessorAllinson on some theses held by the late Walter Leaf. The theses“were hard to accept, and I referred to papers in which most of them had been carefullyexamined and rejected.” (p105) Wace and Stubbings in theirextraordinary 1962 book, A Companion to Homer, also take Leaf totask. They say, “Leaf set out to discredit the Thessalian sections of the‘Catalogue” by assuming Homeric Phthia belonged exclusively to Peleus and was co-extensive with the later Achaia Phthiotis which makes nonsense of most of theThessalian entries.” (p296).

Homer’s catalogue of the Greek commanders and their shipshas been subject to much discussion. Allen (1921) has his viewswhich to a large degree mirror that of the Lamian authors but hisapproach is highly self-assured and critical of ancient motivesas well as writers of the time. The Sperchios region, he states,“is the Pelasgic argos of Homer, the valley kingdom of the brief dynasty of Peleus. – Theessential connection with the Sperchiou is shown in the parentage of Menesthius, II 274,

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and by Achilles’ prayer.” (p113). He goes on to say, “The poet, therefore,conceives of Phthia the place as belonging to a tribe on the Sperchiou, Phthius thename as belonging to two peoples on opposite sides of the bay of Iolcus. – Underpolitical change the district was divided between three states in such a way that thenoun belonged to one, the adjective to another. Phthia the place shrank. -- such arelation between and cannot be called impossible or unlikely.” (p117).He further believes, that with the Dorian invasion these Phthianplace names were disturbed and “The Sperchiou valley became an abode ofMalian fisherman at its mouth – The new Phthiotis assumed the quality of the HomericPhthia – (and) the tetrarchy gave Phthia a wider sweep, and made it contain importantsites unknown to Homer.” And it was “when Greek historians came to reconstructHomeric Greece – the ambiguity of the name Phthia and the change in inhabited sitesand political power created much confusion in their interpretation.” (p118).

Homer has certainly provided the world with historical foodfor thought which as we see can be digested in sundry ways.While Allen assumes to understand Homer better than the ancientsdid his analysis of Homer provides greater confusion than itsolves. It may be that the Pelasgian Argos represents theSperchiou Valley as opposed to the huge valley and plain ofThessaly but this is speculation. He believes ancient writerswere derelict and that eastern Thessalian cities like Larisausurped Achilles away from Malian fisherman. His nouns andadjectives of place names of which he gave examples such asBretagne versus Grande Bretagne, British Empire versus Britisher,and Judea versus Jew is reading into Homer more that the poetwould have dreamed. The poet used “Phthia” so often that Allen’sinterpretation of it would have appeared in Homer’s writings insome way. That did not occur.

Another supporter of Sperchios is As aformer mayor of Pharsala and an attorney, while he believes thatPhthia was a large territory extending from Pharsala down to theSperchios and up to parts of Magnesia, his view of Phthia as acity agrees with the Lamian authors. He believes Homertheorized that the city of Phthia is found near the SperchiosRiver where there was a river god. In 1990 he wrote: “” (pp29-30). In a very animated telephone conversation withhim over a decade later one year before he passed away, he said

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the very same to me. While I differed with him based on myresearch and chided with his being a former mayor of Pharsala, hebelieved that Homer, while describing Phthia as a largeterritory, pointed in his writings that the city resides near theSperchios River.

In, “”states, “H” (p42). This author, PhanouriaDakoronia, also connects the Sperchiou with Achilles saying thatthe valley was part of the Mycenaean period and Homer as well aslater writings connect the area of that period with Achilles.Connect, yes. This was clearly part of his kingdom, but notnecessarily identified as the capital city, Phthia. Almost everywriter, and there are hundreds upon hundreds, has his or her owntheory or premise surrounding Phthia whether as a district, city,or both and their locations.

The problem I find with the Sperchios Valley as the heart ofthe kingdom of Achilles and his father Peleus is that there areno ancient citations to that effect – absolutely none.Historical research does not support this thesis. I find thevalley to be a very special part of their kingdom. My theory onthe Sperchios is that in his youth Achilles would spend much ofthe summer months their swimming, boating, and seafaring, likeyouths do today. As Statius has a youthful Achilles saying inthe Achilleid, “Where are Haemonia’s plain and rivers? Sperchios, do you missmy swims and promised tresses (his long lock ofhair)?” (p361). Most of the othermonths he would visit other partsof his father’s and his kingdomreaching Pharsala during the laterfall where he could enjoy hishorses when the heat of theThessalian plains subsides. And inhis early training with Chiron (shownbelow with a youthful Achilles), who here complains to Achilles’mother, Thetis, “Take him, best of mothers, -- His precocious force is brewingsomething big – Now Ossa does not contain him, nor huge Pelion, nor Pharsalian

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snows.” (p325). Surely the character and appetite for dangerous,frivolous, and adventurous deeds were swelling inside Achilles asa child. No doubt he weathered the winters in the high countryof Ossa and Pelion strengthening himself for his future destinybut also enjoyed the warmth of his palace at Pharsala, “my greathouse with the high vaulting roof” (p499) as Achilles stated in the Iliad inlamenting the death of Patroclus and hopes that Neoptolemos wouldhave been ferried to Phthia from Skyros by Patroclus. Andenjoying the flowering of Spring with his horses Xanthus andBalius in the Narthakion range and plain at Pharsala where therich, fertile soil of this former seabed would soon spring forththe first buds and fruits of his father’s crops, he would makehis way south across the Othrys hills and plateau throughMelitea, visiting his father’s copper mines, rest at his coolspring further along the way (still located at the highway’sedge), and head for the Sperchios of which Statius has youthfulAchilles commenting, “I remember when Sperchios was flowing his fastest, fed oncontinual rains and melted snow, carrying live trees and rocks.” (p397). Statiusends the Achilleid with Achilles saying, “I remember the training of myearly years and joy in the memory. My mother knows the rest.” (p397). Thisnarrative I provide is an interesting though speculative reviewof his youthful activities.

Athanasios Karatolias, a retired teacher at Larisa, is astaunch supporter of Pharsala as Homer’s Phthia. His book, covers Pharsalafrom ancient times to the present. As for the homeland ofAchilles, he states,“ “ (p11). Voicing where themother of Achilles, Thetis, dipped Achilles as a child into theriver Styx (as legend has it) making him invulnerable except athis heel, he states that tradition authentically places it at theApidanos which is at Pharsala (p25).

This “baptismal” tradition is very strong with the localPharsalians today as it was described it to me very proudly(Brianas1partII&3p21). Their streets are named as in the Iliad:Achilles, Patroclus, Thetis, etc. including Homer Street, and

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their football team is called the “Myrmidons.” But the streetnames I also can say for the city of Pelasgia where the citizensproudly believe in their city as that of Achilles. Such proudtraditions I have found from local citizens not only inPhthiotida, in present day northern Sterea Ellada, but throughoutThessaly today whether at the Achilleon Hotel at Trikala, theThetis Café at Pharsala, the Phthian Hotel at Lamia, the cityhall at Domoko, the local café at Melitea, at St. George at thewestern Sperchios, at Trachis (near Herculean) and other sites.After over 3000 years traditions remain strong. It is atestament to the strength of the human spirit of the Greekpeople. For it is the Greek people who today walk where theirancestors walked – the same hills, the same mountains, the samevalleys, the same rivers and the same seas their ancestorssailed, the very ground beneath their feet. Why should they notfeel their spirit, the voice of those who paved the way whetherthrough blood, songs, religion, literature, drama, or sports.These heroes of old walk in the hearts and minds of us today. Itis up to us to resurrect not only their memory but also thefoundations of their culture that remain today: Their homes,their palaces, their castles, their tombs, their theatres, theirstadiums, their art, etc., i.e. their legacy to us. It is ourresponsibility to the world community of scholars who continue tostudy and analyze the greatest war story ever told. But mostimportant as Greeks it is our duty to our ancestors. THE TIME ISNOW TO EXCAVATE THE HOMELAND AND CAPITAL CITY OF ACHILLES.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Archaeological excavations with reference to Achilles, hishomeland and capital city, have been nonexistent. That is, therehas been no sustained program or project specifically withinGreece dedicated to Achilles. But the evidence is clear: TheTrojan War was a real event, and Achilles was the hero of thatwar. It is not myth but a historic reality. While severalhundred artifacts, mostly painted ceramic vases (amphoras,hydrias, kraters, dinos, etc.) but also statues, frescos, andinscriptions have been found relating to the Trojan War its godsand heroes scattered throughout the museums of the world and inthe hands of private collectors (all which someday must be

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collectively identified), only a few artifacts have beendiscovered, that I am aware of, that point to the possiblelocation of Phthia. They include:

1. In a tholos tomb at Pharsala in 1952 an attic black-figurevase, a calyx krater, was discovered. About 15 inches highit shows in dramatic detail a Homeric battle taking placebetween Greeks and Trojans around a dead warrior, said to bePatroclus. Also included is a four-horse chariot. Paintedin the manner of Exekios it was produced about 530BC and isdisplayed at the National Archeological Museum in Athens. AMycenaean chamber tomb was found beneath the tholos tomb.

2. Another artifact of significance is the find at Ktouri atthe town of Elliniko just northwest of Pharsala. The

artifact is a shard, a broken sectionof a vase (fragment of a dinos)depicting a chariot race in the gamesfor Patroclus held after his death atTroy. “Sports fans” are shown on bothsides of the stands, the arena, withthe name “” appearing in the

upper right. It was made by Sophilos, 580-570BC, and isalso on display at the National Archaeological Museum inAthens.

3. The third artifact is a bronze hydria which shows aninscription for Protesilaus, the first to fall at Troy,whose tomb can still be found today near the mouth of theDardenelles on the European side. The hydria reads:“” The hydria, produced inthe first half of the 5th century, was very likely a prizein games held in honor of Protesilaus at Phylake where a

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sanctuary in his memory has been attested to (Pindar,Isthmian 84). The hydria is also on display at theNational Archaeological Museum in Athens. Photographs ofboth this artifact and the shard of Achilles can be found inGames and Sports in Ancient Thessaly,published 2004.

These few artifacts found in and aroundPharsala, as well as near Phthiotic Thebeson the western side of the Pagastiko Gulf,point to the area of the northern OthrysMountains and eastern plain of Thessaly tothe Gulf as the possible site of Phthia, and the location ofits capital city. This evidence, while sparse, along withevidence on Phthia previously cited in this paper as well asPeleus’ and Achilles’ clear association with the region aroundPelion and Iolkos allows us to reach a reasonable conclusion:Phthia as a district is located in the southeastern plain ofThessaly extending to the vicinity east of Volos and includingthe Narthakion range and the Othrys Mountains. Its capitalcity is Pharsala as has been attested to. This is soundreasoning. It is part of the Pelasgian Argos which I believeto be the entire plain of Thessaly including the Larisaregion. Phthia itself probably reaches down to Domoko andMelitea and may extend southeast down to the region of Glifaand Pelasgia. The kingdom of Achilles and his father Peleusis itself large covering most of ancient southeastern Thessalyfrom Pharsala south engulfing the entire Sperchios RiverValley.

METHODOLOGIES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

First: High-tech Methods. The ruins of many of the castlesites , the cyclopean walls and fortresses, are visibletoday. As at Troy, Mycenae, and other sites, excavationsmust penetrate many feet into the earth to reach and identifythe location under study. Through the use of technologicaladvances, this can be facilitated. They include:

1. Space Imaging and Infrared Photography. Through the use ofsatellites, sensors from space can provide high resolution

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color images of the landscape texture from mountains tovalleys and cities. Through high-tech computer methods, 3Dmodeling can reconstruct archaeological sites throughvirtual reality. Infrared photographs from space canhighlight subsurface architectural features such as walls,foundations, roads, and canal sites and is extremely usefulin examining open areas like farmland where there are fewdistractions. These advances have lead to the introductionof “Satellite Archaeology.” (For example, see IKONOSsatellite operated by Space Imaging, Denver, Colorado or theU.S. military’s Lacrosse and Onyx programs.) Note: In Thessalyseveral sites are prime farmland candidates like Crannon, Scotussa, and Eretriain the east plus Kedros and Gomphi in the west.

2. Ground Penetrating Radar/Geo-Magnetic Imaging . GPR has beenwidely used by the military in locating, for example,tunnels underground. Without digging, probing, or drilling,GPR can produce a continuous profile or record of subsurfacefeatures, like x-ray photography, including the depth of theburied objects. By transmitting pulses of ultra highfrequency radio waves (electromagnetic energy) down into theground through an antenna the waves provide color bandswhich are then stored in a digital control unit. Pulled byhand or a vehicle, penetration can reach with highresolution frequencies down to 30 feet. Low resolution canreach as far as 100 feet. (For example, seeGeomodel.com/gpr or Geonic.com/html/em.) Note: The remainingmagoulas/tombs of Thessaly are prime candidates as are prospective undergroundtemple sites at Neo Monasteri and Thetidio (temple of Thetis).

Second: Smuggling and Illegal Trafficking of Artifacts. In mysecond and third articles on Achilles, I mention my disgustand deep concern with thievery that has occurred with ancientartifacts. In the second one, I state, “All of Greece is itself anarchaeological goldmine. Unfortunately, its treasures have been ravaged by time,countless foreign invaders, and often ruthless smugglers, who under the cover ofdarkness, excavate for ancient treasures.” (2006 p21). I elaborate furtherin the third, “During my onsite visits over the years, I have been personallydisturbed at the number of Greek citizens who unwittingly are lured by the prospectof financial gain into selling their heritage – coins, statues, vases, and other valuableartifacts. From what I have seen there is very little financial award and incentive to

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turn their finds to the local gendarmes or Ministry of Culture. Smugglers offermore.” (2007 p21).

The methods for continuing research on the “AchillesProject,” as initiated by this author, must assure thatillegal activities do not occur. Illicit trade in antiquitiesis 3rd only to military sales and drug trafficking. Collectorsand looters do great damage to history. Particularlyvulnerable are the poor who look for profit and view artifactsas a windfall to their meager lifestyle. If we removeartifacts from where they were found, we lose their contextand then we lose our history (See Grose, “Stealing History.”)

Third: Museums – Securing and Preserving Artifacts and Sites

A critical part of this project must be to establish localmuseums to house artifacts discovered. I have been aware ofseveral cases where artifacts found by archaeologists havebeen placed in storage often in basementsof a facility in a larger city out of viewto the public. Such a situation occurredat Gomphi, south of Trikala, nine yearsago, where no museum or secure facilitywere available for artifacts found in 3rd

century BC tombs including relics fromMacedonian generals buried with treasuresfrom Egypt. They were out of site underthe control of the local Ministry ofCulture far from where they were excavated.In my view, history is the property of thepeople as protected by their representative governmentofficials, the state. Local residents often lead thearchaeologists to prospective sites but the locals are given

no recognition. Suchis the case at Gomphiwhere Gianni waitspatiently (see photoright) for theexcavation of hisbeleaguered town

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destroyed by Caesar in 48BC when the town refused provisionsfor Caesar’s battle-hardened troops. He bemoans thatartifacts discovered are lost for viewing by local residentsor tourists who could benefit the local economy. Alternativesto museums are available. The bottom line is to providesecure facilities whether municipal buildings like at Kedros(southeast of Karditsa) or in a local school like at Pialia(southwest of Gomphi). Another case is at Pharsala, where inApril 2007, while excavating a highway bypass, city workersuncovered a cemetery, 10th century BC, (photos far left) with some21 cist and very small tholos tombs. Again, the jewelry,relics and other artifacts were placed at a distant locationaway from the public. This does not build trust! Or considerthe case at Trikala, where my relatives in 2007 showed me asite (photo above right) uncovered while digging the basement ofa planned apartment building. Ruins of ancient Trikka werediscovered. In 2008 on my return a five story building waserected over the site with the ruins completely covered.Aesclypius must have thundered from afar.

Fourth: The Council of Achilles. This group of citizensinterested and dedicated to research and excavation of thehomeland of Achilles was recently initiated in Phthiotida.This group, I believe, will be important to building, both nowand in the future, solid support and continuing progress inresurrecting Achilles throughout his kingdom – whether in theSperchios Valley, the Malian Gulf region, the OthrysMountains, or the hills and plains of Pharsala, or at ancientDolopia. There is strength in unity, there is trust in honestand open communication where everyone is allowed a voice; i.e.a visionary leadership model. My own “Achilles Foundation”was established in 2008 to help strategically plan for andmove the “Achilles Project” forward with archaeologicalsupport from the University of Florida.

CONCLUSION

There are five points I would like to conclude with in thispaper:

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First. Evidence, as it continues to grow with each passingyear, particularly from the many archaeological activitiesfrom Schliemann 140 years ago to the present, shows that theTrojan War was a real event and Achilles was its hero. It isreality not mythology. The whisperers and the detractors whospin their own negative web of opposition to Troy, Homer andAchilles, and who typically have not done any research oftheir own on the subject, try to snare and discredit the bodyof knowledge and surmounting evidence as we move forward.They should not detract us from our goal nor should those whosit on the sidelines and do nothing. Sound leadership isvital to navigate these cobwebs of opposition.

Second. The family Aiacides were real people living duringthe Late Bronze Age, the Heroic Age of Greece. They weredynamic and adventurous with heroic deeds, particularly asdocumented of the son Achilles, that continue to fascinate andstir the imagination of not only Greeks but people across thisworld. We have a sacred trust, a promise to our ancestors, tomake sure that their memory is eternal.

Third. The homeland of Achilles covers the entiresoutheastern portion of ancient Thessaly. It is in thisregion where archaeological activity must take place toexcavate not only his capital city of Phthia, which historicalresearch shows to be at Pharsala, but also all the othercastles in his kingdom. This is a major undertaking.His entire kingdom should be considered for archaeologicalresearch and excavations (and where possible as a historicdistrict as has been done at Troy) within the constraints ofmoney, time, and available people to plan for, obtain permits,and conduct the work. These are not problems but challengesto overcome. The “Council of Achilles” is an important partof this effort.

Fourth. Local museums or secure facilities are important tohouse, preserve, protect, and further analyze discoveredartifacts in cooperation with the Archaeology Service ofGreece. Smuggling and looting of antiquities must berecognized and protected against. Local citizens, though,

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should be given greater voice and authority (as well asrecognition) in the protection and appreciation of thediscoveries which have occurred in their town or region aswell as involved in supervised archaeological digs. This isof great importance today with the Greek ArchaeologicalService understaffed and with limited funds. Greater trustand honesty among the citizens, local elected officials, andthe local Ministry of Culture needs to be secure. Along withresearch and excavation activities the “Achilles Foundation”stands ready to facilitate preservation of the antiquities andfollow-up educational activities.

Fifth. The “Achilles Project” is vital not only todiscovering and unearthing a major part of the Late Bronze Ageof Greece, a history lost in the shadows and ravages of time,but also for economic development, to improve the economiccondition of those citizens surrounded by their historic past.These are the real preservationists of their culturalheritage. This is an effort not only by archaeologists andscholars, critical to planning and promoting the project, butto all interested in the resurrection of a lost part of theircultural heritage. The opportunity is here. The time is now.We must not let it pass us by.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS, 3250 YEARS IS LONG ENOUGH. ACHILLES ISWAITING FOR US!

“ACHILLES”Trademark of “The Achilles Foundation”

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Achilles-Thessaly.orgA nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.

Support and assistance for the “Achilles Project” is welcome.

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REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Thomas W. The Homeric Catalogue of Ships. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1921.

Apollodorus. The Library of Greek Mythology. Ed. and Trans. RobinHard. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Apollonius of Rhodes. Jason and the Golden Fleece. Ed. and Trans.Richard Hunter. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Askin, Mustafa. Troy. Rev. ed. Istanbul: Keskin ColorKartpostalclik, Ltd., 1999.

Brianas, James. “In Search of Homer’s Achilles: His Kingdom, HisPeople, His Palace.” The Hellenic Voice, Brookline/Boston: Part I (January19, 2005), Part II (January 26, 2005).

______. “Homer’s Achilles: Land of the Myrmidons in Thessaly.” TheAhepan, Washington, DC (Summer 2006): 18-21.

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______. “Update on Achilles Excavation of Homer’s Phthia: A Visionfor Historic and Economic Development.” The Ahepan, Washington, DC(Summer 2007): 20-21.

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