Hypata

• a small town of Thessaly, near the Penēus, now Neópatra, Liv. 36, 16, 4.
• —Hence, Hypătaei, ōrum, m., its inhabitants, Liv. 36, 14; cf. exsules, id. 41, 25, 3.

HY´PATA (ἡ Ὑπάτη, τὰ Ὕπατα: Eth. Ὑπαταῖος, Hypataeus, Liv.; also Ὑπατεύς, Steph. B. s. v.), the chief town of the Aenianes, in the valley of the Spercheius, and at the foot of Mt. Oeta. In the Roman wars in Greece it belonged to the Aetolian league. (Plb. 20.9, 11, 21.2, 3; Liv. 36.14, 26.) The women of Hypata, as of many other Thessalian towns, were noted for their skill in magic; and it was here that Lucius, in the story of Lucian, was metamorphosed into an ass. (Lucian, Asin. 1, seq.;. comp. Apul. Metam. 1. p. 104; Theophr. H. Plant. 9.2.) The town is mentioned by Hierocles in the 6th century. (Hierocl. p. 642, ed. Wess.; comp. Ptol. 3.13.45.) It occupied the site of the modern Neópatra, where inscriptions have been discovered containing the name of Hypata. The town appears to have been called Neae Patrae in the middle ages, and is mentioned in the 12th century as a strongly fortified place. (Niceph. Gregor. 4.9. p. 112, ed. Bonn.) There are still considerable remains of the ancient town. Leake observed many large quadrangular blocks of stones and foundations of ancient walls on the heights of Neópatra, as well as in the buildings of the town. In the metropolitan church he noticed a handsome shaft of white marble, and on the outside of the wall an inscription in small characters of the best times. He also discovered an inscription on a broken block of white marble, lying under a plane-tree near a fountain in the Jewish burying-ground. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 2. p. 14, seq.)

(τὰ Ὕπατα). A town of the Aenianes in Thessaly, south of the Spercheus, whose inhabitants were notorious for witchcraft. It is now Neopatra (Turk. Batrajik).

A city of Ainis, which first appears when it issued coinage of the Ainianes ca. 400-344 B.C.; from 302 B.C. it was in the Aitolian League. In 191 B.C. it was an Aitolian strong point and its territory laid waste by M' Acilius Glabrio. It remained with the Aitolians after 189 B.C., but after 168 B.C. was part of the free League of Ainis, which was finally joined to Thessaly by Augustus in 27 B.C. (Livy 28.5.15; 36.14.15, 16.4, 26.1, 27.4, 28.8, 29.5; Polyb. 20.9.6, 10.13, 11.5; Livy 37.6.2, 7.1; Polyb. 21.2.7, 3.7, 3.13). The city prospered in the Roman Imperial period (Apul., Met. 1.5) and was the site of a bishopric in Christian times. It came to be known as Neai Patrai, an important mediaeval city.

Hypata is located above the Spercheios valley, on the N slope of Oeta, on a hillside flanked on the W by the Xerias river and on the E by a ravine. The acropolis hill is a small, rocky peak (661 m) which falls away steeply on all sides. It is connected to the main mass of Oeta to the S by a narrow saddle. A road led S over Oeta to Kallipolis. On the acropolis are some remains of the ancient wall circuit, although these have largely disappeared under later Byzantine and Frankish walls. Stählin saw some of the ancient wall on the S side with a gate giving on the saddle which connects the hill to Oeta. The wall was ca. 4 m thick, of good 4th-3d c. B.C. masonry. Béquignon noted an ancient Hellenic wall inside the acropolis on the SE side at right angles to the circuit wall, perhaps the foundation of some building. modern Hypati is set on a terrace on the steep N face of the hillside, below the acropolis. It occupies the site of the ancient city. Stählin saw traces of the ancient city walls on the N and E sides of this terrace. Inscriptions and various ancient blocks have been built into the modern houses. Béquignon saw a marble head and a mutilated relief, and other pieces of sculpture have been seen. In 1921 a late Roman (?) mosaic was found near the church of Haghios Nikolaus in the town. Graves have been discovered in the vicinity, particularly outside the city to the W. At the beginning of the century Giannopoullos reported an ancient Greek naiskos at Rigoziano (Rogozinon) on the left bank of the Xerias opposite Hypata's acropolis; this has apparently not been checked since. Several inscriptions exist relative to Hypata's boundaries (see Stählin) which included a considerable amount of the river plain.

W. M. Leake, Nor. Gr. (1835) II 18f, 23; L. Stephani, Reise durch Einige Gegenden des Nordlichen Griechenland (1843) 52; IG IX 2.56: inscription concerning the building of a gymnasium in 131 B.C.; N. I. Giannopoullos, Ἁρμονία 1 (1900) 633-45; id., ArchEph (1914) 89-90I; BCH 45 (1921) 524; F. Stählin, RE (1914) s.v. Hypata; id., Das Hellenische Thessalien (1924) 220-22I; Y. Béquignon, La Vallée du Spercheios (1937) 307-12MPI.