Phalanna
PHALANNA (Φάλαννα: Eth. Φαλανναῖος), a town of the Perrhaebi in Thessaly, situated on the left bank of the Peneius, SW. of Gonnus. Strabo says (9. p. 440) that the Homeric Orthe became the acropolis of Phalanna; but in the lists of Pliny (Plin. Nat. 4.9. s. 16) Orthe and Phalanna occur as two distinct towns. Phalanna was said to have derived its name from a daughter of Tyro. (Steph. B. s. v.) It was written Phalannus in Ephorus, and was called Hippia by Hecataeus. (Steph. B.) Phalanna is mentioned in the war between the Romans and Perseus, B.C. 171. (Liv. 42.54, 65.) Phalanna probably stood at Karadjóli, where are the remains of an ancient city upon a hill above the village. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 3. p. 379, vol. 4. p. 298,)
(Φάλαννα). A town of the Perrhaebi, in the Thessalian district of Hestiaeotis (Livy , xlii. 54).
The chief city of the Perrhaibians in the region. Phalanna flourished in the 5th and 4th c., replacing Olosson in importance by 400 B.C.; although later outstripped by Gonnos, it was still useful to Perseus as a camp site in 171 B.C. Inscriptions indicate that the city records were kept in the Temple of Athena Polias, although the city decrees were dated by the tenures of the priests of Asklepios. There was also a theater and a Sanctuary of Hades and Persephone. The site, misleadingly described by Strabo as near Tempe, has not been certainly identified, but lay between Orthe and Gonnos in a position to control the roads from the N and the rich fields to the S. Although Karatsoli and Gritzova have been proposed, Phalanna was probably on the flat hill called Kastri 3 km E of modern Tyrnavos; there are building blocks scattered in the area, but no city walls.
BIBLIOGRAPHYLivy 42.54. 6, 65.1; F. Stählin, Das hellenische Thessalien (1924) 31fM; B. Lenk in RE 172(1937) 2495f.
M. H. MCALLISThR