Editing Phthia (section)

==In Literature==
It is frequently mentioned in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' as the home of  the [[Myrmidons]], the contingent led by [[Achilles]] in the [[Trojan War]]. It was founded by [[Aeacus]], grandfather of Achilles, and was the home of Achilles' father [[Peleus]], mother [[Thetis]] (a [[Nereids|sea nymph]]), and son [[Neoptolemus]] (who reigned as king after the [[Trojan War]]).

Phthia is referenced in [[Plato|Plato's]] ''[[Crito]]'', where [[Socrates]], in jail and awaiting his execution, relates a dream he has had (43d–44b):<ref name="Crito">{{cite book|title = Plato: Complete Works|editor-last = Cooper|editor-first = John M.|others = Associate editor, D. S. Hutchinson. Translation of Crito by [[G. M. A. Grube]]|year = 1997|publisher = Hackett|location = Indianapolis/Cambridge|isbn = 0-87220-349-2|page = [https://archive.org/details/completeworks00plat/page/39 39]|url-access = registration|url = https://archive.org/details/completeworks00plat/page/39}} [http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/crito.html Translated by Benjamin Jowett on the MIT website.]</ref> "I thought that a beautiful and comely woman dressed in white approached me. She called me and said: 'Socrates, may you arrive at fertile Phthia on the third day.{{'"}} The reference is to [[Homer|Homer's]] ''Iliad'' (ix.363), when [[Achilles]], upset at having his war-prize, [[Briseis]], taken by [[Agamemnon]], rejects Agamemnon's conciliatory presents and threatens to set sail in the morning; he says that with good weather he might arrive on the third day "in fertile Phthia"—his home.<ref name="Crito"/> 

Phthia is the setting of [[Euripides]]' play ''[[Andromache_(play)|Andromache]]'', a play set after the Trojan War, when Achilles' son Neoptolemus (in some translations named Pyrrhus) has taken [[Andromache]], the widow of the Trojan hero [[Hector]] as a slave.

Mackie (2002) notes the linguistic association of Phthia with the Greek word ''phthisis'' "consumption,  decline; wasting away" (in English, ''phthisis'' has been used as a synonym for [[tuberculosis]]) and the connection of the place name with a withering death.{{clarify|date=April 2023}} This suggests the possibility of a wordplay in Homer, associating  Achilles' home with such a withering death.<ref>Mackie, C. J., "Homeric Phthia", ''Colby Quarterly'', Volume 38, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 163–173. [http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3455&context=cq]</ref>