Gonnus

Gonnus or Gonnos or Gonni was a town and polis of the Perrhaebi in ancient Thessaly, which derived its name, according to the later Greek critics, from Gonneus [1]. Its position made it one of the most important places in the north of Thessaly [1]. It stood on the northern side of the Peneius, near the entrance of the only two passes by which an enemy can penetrate into Thessaly from the north [1]. The celebrated vale of Tempe begins to narrow at Gonnus; and the pass across Mount Olympus a little to the west of Tempe leads into Thessaly at Gonnus [1]. It was by the latter route that the army of Xerxes I entered Thessaly [1]. After the Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BCE), Philip V of Macedon fled in haste to Tempe, but halted a day at Gonnus, to receive such of his troops as might have survived the battle [1]. Gonnus does not occur in history after the wars of the Romans in Greece, but it is mentioned by Strabo and Ptolemy [1]. The editors of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World locate Gonnus at the modern town of Gonnoi [1].