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Meliboea (Histiaeotis)

town in ancient Thessaly

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ60790400 ↗
Source-derived summary

Meliboea or Meliboia (Ancient Greek: Μελίβοια) was a town of Histiaeotis in ancient Thessaly. It was located near Aeginium and Tricca.

William Martin Leake conjectured that its site was at the present town of Vasiliki, and modern scholarship still leaves the site as unknown.

Abraham John Valpy suggested to read Livy as meaning the city known by Strabo as Melitoea and by Ptolemy as Melitara (now Militra) near Phthiotidis and Thessaliotidis, since Valpy was aware of Meliboea in Magnesia.

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Meliboea". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Meliboea (Histiaeotis)” is town in ancient Thessaly. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Meliboea, Histiaeotis and town, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1854, 1857—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Meliboea, Histiaeotis and town is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “town in ancient Thessaly” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q60790400. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1854 and 1857.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Meliboea (Histiaeotis)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Meliboea (Histiaeotis) primary sources, Meliboea (Histiaeotis) archive and Meliboea research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Meliboea (Histiaeotis)”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Meliboea (Histiaeotis)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.