38°47′45″N 22°30′37″E / 38.795895°N 22.510319°EAnthela or Anthele (Ancient Greek: Ἀνθήλη) was a town and polis (city-state) of Malis in Ancient Thessaly. Herodotus places the town between the small river Phoenix and Thermopylae which was a celebrated pass between Thessaly and Phocis. He also mentions that the Thessalian Asopus river passed through its surroundings and that there was a sanctuary of Demeter, a place where the Amphictyonic League celebrated its meetings and a temple of Amphictyon. According to legend, the league was founded, in part, to protect the temple of Demeter at Anthela. Anthela is in the immediate vicinity of the pass of Thermopylae, celebrated for the temples of Amphictyon and of the Amphictyonic Demeter, containing seats for the members of the Amphicytonic council, who held here their autumnal meetings. At Anthela, Mount Oeta recedes a little from the sea, leaving a plain a little more than half a mile in breadth, but again contracts near Alpeni, the first town of the Locrians, where the space is again only sufficient for a single carriage. Modern scholars identify its location with the modern village of Anthili in the municipality of Lamia.
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👉 Anthele in the context of Malis (region)
The Malians (Ancient Greek: Μαλιεῖς, Malieis) were a Greek tribe that resided at the mouth of the river Spercheios in Greece. The Malian Gulf is named after them. In the western valley of the Spercheios, their land was adjacent to the Aenianes. Their main town was Trachis. In the town of Anthele, the Malians had an important temple of Demeter; an early centre of the Delphinian Amphictiony. According to Herodotus, the Malian Ephialtes of Trachis betrayed the Spartans and their allies in the Battle of Thermopylae, helping the Persians surround the Greek army. In 426 BCE, the Malians asked Sparta for help in their war against the Oetaeans. The Spartans then founded the town Heraclea Trachis in place of Trachis.
In the following decades, the Malians were under the hegemony of Sparta, until they revolted against it in the Corinthian War. In this war, they lost their land south of the Spercheios, Herakleia Trachis was given to the Oitaians, and Lamia became the new capital of the Malians.
Anthele in the context of Temple of Demeter Amphictyonis
The Temple of Demeter Amphictyonis was an extra-urban sanctuary in ancient Anthele in Thermopylae, dedicated to Demeter. It was an important Panhellenic shrine of Demeter and one of her main cult centers in Greece. It was also known as a center of the Amphictyonic League.
The sanctuary is mentioned by Herodotus in the 5th century BC: