Hypata

HY´PATA(ἡ Ὑπάτη, τὰ Ὕπατα: Eth. Ὑπαταῖος, Hypataeus, Liv.; also Ὑπατεύς, Steph. B. s. v.), the chief town of the Aenianes, in the valley of the Spercheius, and at the foot of Mt. Oeta. In the Roman wars in Greece it belonged to the Aetolian league. (Plb. 20.9, 11, 21.2, 3; Liv. 36.14, 26.) The women of Hypata, as of many other Thessalian towns, were noted for their skill in magic; and it was here that Lucius, in the story of Lucian, was metamorphosed into an ass. (Lucian, Asin. 1, seq.;. comp. Apul. Metam. 1. p. 104; Theophr. H. Plant. 9.2.) The town is mentioned by Hierocles in the 6th century. (Hierocl. p. 642, ed. Wess.; comp. Ptol. 3.13.45.) It occupied the site of the modern Neópatra, where inscriptions have been discovered containing the name of Hypata. The town appears to have been called Neae Patrae in the middle ages, and is mentioned in the 12th century as a strongly fortified place. (Niceph. Gregor. 4.9. p. 112, ed. Bonn.) There are still considerable remains of the ancient town. Leake observed many large quadrangular blocks of stones and foundations of ancient walls on the heights of Neópatra, as well as in the buildings of the town. In the metropolitan church he noticed a handsome shaft of white marble, and on the outside of the wall an inscription in small characters of the best times. He also discovered an inscription on a broken block of white marble, lying under a plane-tree near a fountain in the Jewish burying-ground. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 2. p. 14, seq.)