ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN A SACRED LANDSCAPE: THE THESSALIAN PELORIA

Abstract

The sparsely attested Thessalian Peloria, a classic festival of inversion akin to the Roman Saturnalia, honored Zeus Pelorios and commemorated the draining of the Thessalian plain through the Tempe; Baton of Sinope, our principal source, described it as “still even now” (ca. 250-150 BCE) the most important festival of the Thessalians. The festival is distinctive for the ways in which the mythic time of foundation and the historical time of performance can be seen to mirror one another. The Peneios River regularly flooded in antiquity and periodic, devastating inundations persist into the contemporary era. Similarly, there are strong lines of continuity between the principal actors in mythical and historical time. The Thessalian king in the foundation narrative of the Peloria, to whom the wondrous knowledge of the drainage of the plain is reported, is Pelasgos, who is tied directly into mythic narratives of Thessalian descent. Such points of continuity contrast, however, with intriguing evidence of social and economic change. Theophrastos describes a program of marsh drainage in the territory of Larisa that made additional land accessible for cereal cultivation or pasture, but at a cost: a colder, less humid climate in which olives no longer grew and grapevines could freeze. Baton’s emphatic testimony about the festival’s continuing significance must be read against the backdrop of larger social developments in Thessaly ca. 250-150 BCE that herald a wider challenge to and realignment of critical status boundaries, particularly those that otherwise appear affirmed through the foundation narrative of the Peloria.