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GEOGKAPHICAL VIEW OF GREECE. 17of Ossa and of Olympus rose above them on the east alongthe coasts of the .ZEgean Sea. Thessaly can with justice becalled the land of the Peneus ; which, descending fromPindus, flowed throughit from west to east. A multitudeof tributary streams poured from the north and the south1into this river. The traditions of the ancients related, thatit had stagnated for centuries, till an earthquake dividedOlympus and Ossa, 2 and opened for it a passage to theJEgean Sea through the delicious vale of Tempe. 8 Thusthe plainof Thessaly arose from the floods, possessed of asoil which they had long been fertilizing.No other districthad so extensive an internal navigation j which, with a littleassistance from art, might have been carried to all its parts.Its fruitful soil was fitted alike for pasturing and the cultivation of corn its ; coasts, especially the bay of Pagasa, 4afforded the best harbours for shipping; nature seemedhardly to have left a wish ungratified.It was in Thessaly,that the tribe of the Hellenes, according to the tradition,first applied themselves to agriculture ; and thence its several branches spread over the more southern lands. Almost all the names of its towns, as Pelasgiotis and Thessaliotis,recall some association connected with the primitivehistory and heroic age of the nation. The Doric tribe foundin Estiaeotis its oldest dwelling-places and who has ever;heard the name of Phthiotis, without remembering the heroof the Iliad, the great Pelides ?Thessaly was always wellinhabited and rich in cities.In the interior the most celebrated were Larissa, situated in the midst of the noble plain,and Pherae ; lolcos, whence the Argonauts embarked, andMagnesia, were on the sea-coast. But it was perhaps thevery fertility of the soil, which ruined the Thessalians.They rioted in sensual enjoyments ; they were celebratedfor banquets, and not for works of genius; and although1Herod, viii. 6. Strab. ix. p, 296.aTo commemorate the event, a festival was Instituted in Thessaly, calledthe Peloria, which festival seems to have been continued in a Christian one.Bartholdy, p. 187.8 "Tempo forms, as it were, a triple valley, which is "broad at the entranceThese are the words of Barand at the end, but very narrow in me middle."tholdy, who, of all modern travellers, has given us the most accurate acoojttbtof Tempe, from his own observation. Bruchstiicke, etc., p, 112, etc.4Pagasa itself, (afterwards called Demetrias,) lolcos, and Magnesia,