Elassona

Elassona (Greek: Ελασσόνα, romanized: Ellassóna; Katharevousa: Ἐλασσών, romanized: Elasson) is a town and a municipality in the Larissa regional unit of Greece. In antiquity, it was known as Oloosson (Ὀλοοσσών) and was a town of the Perrhaebi tribe. It is situated at the foot of Mount Olympus. Due to its location on the passes leading from the Thessalian plain to Macedonia, the site of Elassona was always of some strategic importance. Elassona was known as Oloosson (Ὀλοοσσών) in antiquity. In the Iliad it was mentioned in Homer's Catalogue of Ships, providing armed contingents that supported the Greek side in the Trojan War. In the early Byzantine period it was known as Lossonos, and was one of the sites refortified under Justinian I (r. 527–565). the modern name first appears in the writings of the 12th-century scholar and archbishop Eustathius of Thessalonica, who considered it "barbaric". At the turn of the 14th century, the Panagia Olympiotissa Monastery was founded on the hilltop citadel. In 1304, Guy II de la Roche, Duke of Athens, passed through during a campaign against the Despotate of Epirus.