Some Observations on Malaria and the Ecology of Central Macedonia in Antiquity

How different this seems from the desolate and malaria-ridden country widely portrayed by nineteenthand early twentieth-century visitors in the region, before the modern agricultural revolution changed the face of the landscape. At another time I hope to deal at length with the matter of cultivation in the Emathian plain in antiquity. At present, however, it may be useful to attempt to understand something of the physical condition of this plain, which was the heartland of the Macedonian kingdom. There are two immediate concerns: the incidence of malaria in the region in antiquity, and the topography of the plain itself.