settlement where the Pagasitic Gulf is today. This settlement had the most important town of the area, Iolcos, which had an important port. Southwest of there, was another maritime town, Alos, close to the present-day town of Almyros.
Pelion was often mentioned by ancient writers for its mythology. Note that Jason and the Argonauts started their legendary journey from Pelion.
At the beginning of the historical period, Iolcos started to decline. The port of Alos, important during the Persian wars, also lost its importance in the 4th century BC.
After Philip V of Macedonia, the port of Pyrasus became the commercial centre.
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was just an unimportant provincial town of the Roman Empire, when the Romans took it from the Macedonians in 194 BC.
During the Byzantine period, no big town developed in Pelion and they aren’t any important political or cultural events recorded. The whole Thessaly was constantly invaded by foreign nations such as the Goths (in AD 396) and the Huns (in AD 539-540) who attacked Demetriada. To protect the area, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, fortified the towns of Thessaly. At the same time, the Byzantine kastro of Golos was built on the ruins of the ancient town of Iolcos.
After the occupation of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 the leader of the victors took the region of Thessaly. In 1222, the despot Epirus, Theodorus, took the kingdom from the Latins.
In 1393, Thessaly went under of the Turkish occupation.
In 1655, the Venetian admiral Francesco Morosini occupied the Byzantine kastro of Golos.
During the years of the Greek Revolution, the famous clergyman and scholar Anthimos Gazis the Peliot tried to raise the national spirit of Pelion and lead it to independence.
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Pelion manage to win its independence on the 2nd of November 1881, with the
intervention of the British, a revolutionary movement organized by free Greece and the support of communities from abroad.
During the Second World War, Germans brought fear, major catastrophes and death in the towns of Zagora (January 1943), Portaria and Millies (October 1943) and Drakia (September 1943).
Because of that, many inhabitants of people were forced to move in other parts of Greece and abroad.
It is only when the tourists discovered the incredible beauty of the place that people return and the development of the area begun. |
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