Lamia

Sister cities

• Chioggia
• Rzeszów
• Paphos

History

Archaeological excavations have shown the site of Lamia to have been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC). In antiquity, the city played an important role due to its strategic location, controlling the narrow coastal plain above Thermopylae that connected southern Greece with Thessaly and the rest of the Balkans. In its ancient phase, Lamia was located closer to the sea, which explains the existence of the nearby temple dedicated to Poseidon. With the flow of the Spercheios river, the terrain changed and the sealine was dragged to the interior of the Malian Gulf -this geological phenomenon altered the straights of Thermopylae, too. Lamia constituted a polis (city-state). The city was therefore fortified in the 5th century BC, and was contested by the Macedonians, Thessalians and Aetolians until the Roman conquest in the early 2nd century BC. After Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC, the Athenians and other Greeks rebelled against Macedonian overlordship. Antipatros, the regent of Macedon, took refuge behind the substantial walls of the city (Lamian War, 323–322 BC). The war ended with the death of the Athenian general Leosthenes, and the arrival of a 20,000-strong Macedonian army. Lamia prospered afterwards, especially in the 3rd century BC under Aetolian hegemony, which came to an end when Manius Acilius Glabrio sacked the city in 190 BC. Little is known of the city's history for a number of centuries after that. In Late Antiquity, the city was the seat of a bishop (attested since 431), suffragan of Larissa, but had declined to obscurity: for instance, it is not shown on the 5th-century Tabula Peutingeriana. Some archaeological remains from the period have been found in the Castle (the city's ancient acropolis), including a basilica,…

Most-observed species

• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  235
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  215
• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  212
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  202
• Common Buzzard

  Buteo buteo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  193
• Yellow-legged Gull

  Larus michahellis J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  163
• Eurasian Kestrel

  Falco tinnunculus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  157
• Little Egret/Western Reef-Heron

  Egretta garzetta (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  152