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Farsala (), known in Antiquity as Pharsalos (, ), is a town in southern Thessaly, in Greece. Farsala is located in the southern part of Larissa regional unit, and is one of its largest settlements. Farsala is an economic and agricultural centre of the region. Cotton and livestock are the main agricultural products, and many inhabitants are employed in the production of textile. The area is mostly famous for being the birthplace of the mythical ancient Greek hero Achilles, and the site of a major battle between Roman generals Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in 48 BC.
The municipality Farsala has an area of 739.74 km2, the municipal unit Farsala has an area of 121.433 km2, and the community Farsala has an area of 57.928 km2.
There is a theory that claimed the existence of an earlier Pharsalos in the form of a locality identified as Palaepharsalus. This is supported by excavated remains of a fortified site called Xylades near Enipeus, which is located in the easternmost part of the Pharsalian territory. This ancient site was also associated by accounts of ancient writers with a holy place dedicated to Thetis called Thetidium. For instance, Euripides used this as a setting for Andromache.
In the early 4th century BC, the city was a part of the Thessalian Commons. Later, it joined the Macedon under Philip II. The area became a theatre of war where the Aetolian League and the Thessalians clashed with the Macedonians, especially during the Second and the Third Macedonian Wars.
The city during the classical period was influential as demonstrated in the influence wielded by the tetrarch Daochos, who ruled from Pharsalos. He was part of the Council of Amphictyonic League, administered the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and conducted the Pythian Games. Daochos built several monuments at Pharsalos dedicated to members of his family. Parts of the eight portraits that survived showed classical style, depicting subjects in their youthful vigor.
The whole area suffered great destruction during the Roman Civil War. The Battle of Pharsalus, where Julius Caesar defeated Pompey and changed the course of the Roman Republic forever, took place in 48 BC in the fields of the Pharsalian Plain.
The geographer Strabo speaks of two towns, Old Pharsalos, Παλαιοφάρσαλος (Palaeopharsalos) and Pharsalos, existing in historical times. His statement (9.5.6) that the Thetideion, the temple to Thetis south of Scotussa, was “near both the Pharsaloi, the Old and the New”, seems to imply that Palaeopharsalos was not itself close by Pharsalos. Although the battle of 48 BC is called after Pharsalos, four ancient writers – the author of the Bellum Alexandrinum (48.1), Frontinus ( Strategemata 2.3.22), Eutropius (20), and Orosius (6.15.27) – place it specifically at Palaeopharsalos. In 198 BC Philip V had sacked Palaeopharsalos (Livy 32.13.9). If that town had been close to Pharsalos he would have sacked both, and Livy would have written “Pharsalus” instead of “Palaeopharsalus”. The British scholar F. L. Lucas demonstrated ( Annual of the British School at Athens, No. XXIV, 1919–21) that the battle of 48 BC must have been fought north of the Enipeus, near modern-day Krini. It has been suggestedJohn D. Morgan in “Palae-pharsalus – the Battle and the Town”, The American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 87, No. 1, Jan. 1983 that Krini was built on the site of Palaeopharsalos, where the old road south from Larissa emerged from the hills on to the Pharsalian Plain.
In the time of Pliny the Elder, Pharsalus was a free state. It is also mentioned by Hierocles in the sixth century.
Following the Treaty of Berlin the city became part of the Hellenic Kingdom together with the rest of Thessaly in 1881. During the First Greco-Turkish War (1897), a took place in the vicinity of Farsala.
The contemporary town has no historical or medieval buildings left as a result of a World War II bombardment and a catastrophic earthquake that struck the area in 1954. Small scale urbanization processes attracted population from surrounding villages during the 80's and 90's creating an urban landscape typical of Greek cities with small apartment buildings in nearby plots of land.
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