Tharrhypas

Tharyps (Greek Θάρυψ, also: Tharypas Θαρύπας or Tharybas; † 385 BC) is the first documented in historical sources the Molossian king, who were at home in the landscape Epirus. Tharyps came from the family of Aiakiden. From his father, Admetus, only the name is known.

Nominally was Tharyps around 430 BC in childhood king. However, he had to flee shortly before an oligarchic conspiracy of Epirus. The conspirators made ​​a pact with Sparta and led the Molosser on its side in the Peloponnesian War. The young Tharyps held in Athens recording. There he received training and became familiar with classical Greek culture. The Athenians awarded Tharyps the civil rights and when he had come to rule the Molosser, he remained connected to the city of his youth.

Some of what Tharyps had met in exile, he introduced into his kingdom. He worked as a founder of cities, put together by dirt villages to larger, walled offices ( Synoikismus ). He led the literacy in the management and minted its own coins. In addition Tharyps is credited with the development of a formal constitution for his country.

The Molosser occupied at times Tharyps ' the oracle at Dodona. The important sanctuary in Epirus had before that part of the territory of the Thesprotians.

Swell

• Thucydides II, 80-81
• Plutarch, Pyrrhus 1, 3
• Justin 17, 3, 9-13