Echinus (Thessaly)

Echinus, also called Echinos, was a town and polis of Phthiotis or Malis in ancient Thessaly, situated on the Malian Gulf between Lamia and Larissa Cremaste in a fertile district, said to take its name from Echion, born from the teeth of a dragon. Demosthenes records that Philip II of Macedon took the town from the Thebans and granted it to the Malians in 342 BCE. It later belonged to the Aetolian League from around 235 BCE until 210 BCE, when Philip V of Macedon captured it after a lengthy siege; Rome took the city in 193 BCE and returned it to the Malians in 189 BCE. Strabo lists Echinus among the Greek cities destroyed by an earthquake.