The
Vale of Tempe (modern
Greek: Témpi), celebrated by Greek
poets as a favorite haunt of Apollo and the
Muses, is the ancient name of a gorge in
northern Thessaly, Greece
, located
between Olympus
to the north
and Ossa
to the south. The valley is 10
kilometers long and as narrow as 25 meters in places, with cliffs
nearly 500 meters high, and through it flows the Pineios
River
on its way to the Aegean Sea
. On the right bank of the Pineios sat a
temple to Apollo, near which the laurels used to crown the
victorious in the
Pythian Games were
gathered. The Vale of Tempe also was home for a time to
Aristaeus, son of Apollo and
Cyrene, and it was here that he chased
Eurydice, wife of
Orpheus, who, in her flight, was bitten by a serpent
and died. In the thirteenth century AD a church dedicated to Aghia
(Saint)
Paraskevi was erected in the
valley.
The Tempe
Pass is a strategic pass in Greece since it is the main route from
Larisa
through the mountains to the coast. Because
of this it has been the scene of numerous battles throughout
history. However, it can be bypassed from the Sarantoporo Pass with
which does take longer. In 480 BC 10,000 Athenians and Spartans
tried to stop
Xerxes's invasion,
but the Persians bypassed the Greek force by marching through
Sarantoporo.
During the Third Macedonian War in 164 BC the
Romans broke through Perseus of Macedon's defence's and later
defeated him in the Battle of Pydna
. During the revolution of Andriskos in 148
BC the valley was the site of another conflict. There were other
battles fought there during the barbarian raids that mark the end
of the Roman era in Greece and in
Byzantine and
Ottoman times.
Today to most Greeks, Tempe is also notorious for the very bad
condition of the road that passes through the area and the horrible
accidents that have happened there, such as the one in 2003 in
which an entire 11th grade class of 21 students from the village of
Makrochori
(Prefecture of
Imathia
) perished when their coach collided with a truck
carrying timber. Although the driver was able to reduce the
truck's velocity in just a few seconds, forward
momentum was conserved by the timber which detached
from the back of the vehicle and smashed into the left side of the
coach, instantly killing many of the victims.
The cities of Tempe, Arizona
, USA
and Tempe, New
South Wales
, Australia are named for
it, as is a farm in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, with nearby farms named Olympus
and Ossa. The
Vale
of Tempe Road tracing a small valley in Penang, Malaysia, is
also named for it.
Literature
John Keats refers to Tempe in
Ode on a Grecian
Urn.
Percy Shelley refers to Tempe in
Hymn Of Pan.
Horace refers to Tempe in
Ode I.7
Gallery
Image:Tempe3.jpg|Gorge seen from the
river.Image:Tempe4.jpg|Suspension bridge to the monastery.
External links
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