Pyrassos modern site of Nea Anchialos was a harbor town of Thessalian Thebes on a small hill overlooking the Bay of Volo. Iliad: And they that held Phylace and flowery Pyrasus, the sanctuary of Demeter, and Iton, mother of flocks, and Antron, hard by the sea, and Pteleos, couched in grass, these again had as leader warlike Protesilaus, while yet he lived; howbeit ere now the black earth held him fast1.
Strabo , ..and Demetrium, are subject to him, all being situated to the east of the Othrys Mountain. Demetrium he speaks of as "sacred precinct of Demeter," and calls it "Pyrasus." Pyrasus was a city with a good harbor; at a distance of two stadia it had a sacred precinct and a holy temple, and was twenty stadia distant from Thebes. Thebes is situated above Pyrasus.2. Later known as Demetrion from the important Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore. Pyrassos ends in 217 BC when it was destroyed by Philip V of Macedon.
See:
- Homer, Iliad
- Strabo, Geography IX.5
- https://www.anchialos.com/ancient-pyrassos
- Olga Karagiorgou, Greece, eds. J. Albani, E. Chalkia, Athens 2013, pp. 156-167.
- Alexander Kazhdan and Anthony Cutler, “CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY IN BYZANTINE HISTORY.” Byzantion, Vol. 52 (1982), pp. 429-478
- Caraher, William R, Church, Society and the Sacred in Early Christian Greece, 2003. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=osu1057071172&disposition=inline
- M.H. McAllister, "PYRASOS (Nea Anchialos) Thessaly, Greece". The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites. Princeton University Press. 1976