LAMIA

city of central Greece in the Sperkhis River valley at the foot of the thris Mountains, near the Gulf of Euboea. It is the capital of the Fthitis noms (department) and the seat of a bishop of the Greek Orthodox church. Lama commands the strategic Forka Pass leading northwestward into Thessaly (Thessala). The original Lama was founded in the 5th century BC as the centre of the tribes of Malis, a semi-indigenous Dorian people who contributed to the construction of a temple at Delphi. Upon the decline of Sparta and Thebes in the second half of the 4th century BC, Lama passed under the influence of Macedonia and Thessaly. It was besieged by the Second Athenian Confederation during the Lamian War (323322) in that confederation's futile attempt to throw off Macedonian hegemony. In the 3rd century Lama came under the influence of the expanded Aetolian League, which invited the Seleucid king Antiochus III to Lama (192); this imprudent gesture provoked the Romans, who destroyed Lama. In the Middle Ages Lama was renamed Gipton and turned into a stronghold of the Frankish dukes of Athens. The succeeding Catalans named it El Cito, and to the Turks it was known as Zituni or Zeytun. The acropolis dominating the modern city has ruins that range from classical wall foundations to Roman, Catalan, and Turkish battlements. Lama's industries include soap, cotton textiles, and tobacco processing, and there is trade in wheat, olives, and citrus from the Sperkhis valley. It is linked to Vlos and Larissa by the Athens-Thessalonki (Salonika) superhighway, and a spur from the Athens-Thessalonki railway runs to Lama and its port, Stils. The area has both iron and manganese deposits. Pop. (1981) 41,846. in classical mythology, a female daemon who devoured children. According to late myths she was a queen of Libya who was beloved by Zeus. When Hera robbed her of her children from this union, Lamia killed every child she could get into her power. She was also known as a fiend who, in the form of a beautiful woman, seduced young men in order to devour them.