Tymphe

TYMPHE (Τυμφή), a mountain on the confines of Macedonia, Epeirus, and Thessaly, a part of the range of Pindus, which gave its name to the district TYMPHAEA(Τυμφαία), and to the people, the TYMPHAEIΤυμφαῖοι, Steph. B. s. v.). As it is stated that the river Arachthus rose in Mt. Tymphe, and that Aeginium was a town of the Tymphaei (Strab. vii. pp. 325, 327), Mt. Tymphe may be identified with the summits near Métzovo, and the Tymphaei may be regarded as the inhabitants of the whole of the upper valley of the Peneius from Métzovo or Kalabáka. The name is written in some editions of Strabo, Stymphe and Stymphaei, and the form Stymphaea also occurs in Arrian (1.7); but the orthography without the s is perhaps to be preferred. The question whether Stymphalis or Stymphalia is the same district as Tymphaea has been discussed elsewhere. [STYMPHALIS] Pliny in one passage calls the Tymphaei an Aetolian people (4.2. s. 3), and in another a Macedonian (4.10. s. 17), while Stephanus B. describes the mountain as Thesprotian, and Strabo (l. c.) the people as an Epirotic race.

Stephanus B. mentions a town Tymphaea, which is probably the same place called Trampya (τραμπύα) by others, where Polysperchon, who was a native of this district, murdered Hercules, the son of Alexander the Great. (Lycophr. 795; Diod. 20.28, with Wesseling's note; Steph. B. s. v. Τραμπύα.) (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 1. p. 422, vol. ii. pp. 275, 276.)