Pelinna

{{Short description|Ancient Greek polis (city-state) of Ancient Thessaly}}

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ΠΕΛΙNNA_ION

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Pelinna ({{langx|el|Πέλιννα}}){{Cite Stephanus|s.v.}}{{Cite Pliny|4.8.15}} or Pelinnaeum{{Cite Livy|36.10.}} ({{langx|el|Πελινναῖονso in Scylax and Pindar, P. 10.4.{{Cite Strabo|ix. p.437}}Arrian, Anabasis, 1.7. or Πεληναῖον[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0064%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DP%3Aentry+group%3D5%3Aentry%3Dpelinna-geo Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), Pelinna]}}) was an ancient Greek polis (city-state){{cite book|author= Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen |title= An inventory of archaic and classical poleis|year= 2004|publisher= Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn= 0-19-814099-1|chapter= Thessaly and Adjacent Regions|pages= 700–701}} of Ancient Thessaly, in the district Histiaeotis, a little above the left bank of the Peneius.

The city had a celebrated temple of Zeus Pelinnaeus. Pelinna was situated between Tricca and Pharcadon, near modern Palaiogardiki (Trikala regional unit). The city gained particular prominence in the fourth century BCE through its alliance with Philip II of Macedon.S. Miller, Two Groups of Thessalian Gold Page 25 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979) Among other archaeological evidence of the religious significance of Pelinna are two Orphic gold tablets (lamellae) found in 1985 on the site of Petroporos,Instructions for the netherworld: the Orphic gold tablets By Alberto Bernabé, Alberto Bernabé Pajares, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal Page 61 {{ISBN|90-04-16371-9}} dating to the late fourth century BCE.For the Greek text of one of the lamellae, see PHI Greek Inscriptions [http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/oi?ikey=296911&bookid=172®ion=3&subregion=9&area=Hestiaiotis&site=Pelinna?%20(Petroporos-Palaiogardiki)SEG 37:497A]

It seems to have been a place of some importance even in the time of Pindar. Alexander the Great passed through the town in his rapid march from Illyria to Boeotia. It did not revolt from the Macedonians together with the other Thessalians after the death of Alexander the Great.{{Cite Diodorus|18.11.}} In the war between Antiochus III the Great and the Romans, 191 BCE, Pelinna was occupied by the Athamanians, but was soon afterwards recovered by the Romans.{{Cite Livy|36.10, 14.}} The location of Pelinna is at Palaiogardíki (Petroporos),{{Cite Barrington|55}}{{Cite DARE|22805}} where there are considerable remains of the ancient town. William Martin Leake, describing the situation in the 19th century, stated that "the city occupied the face of a rocky height, together with a large quadrangular space at the foot of it on the south. The southern wall is more than half a mile in length, and the whole circumference near three miles."Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 288. Joseph Hilarius Eckhel writes that the coins of this town bore the inscription Πεληναῖον.Eckhel, Doctrina numorum veterum, vol. ii. p. 146. The nearby modern town of Pelinnaioi reflects the ancient name.