Antiquity
Further information: Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Greece
Modern Volos is built on the area of the ancient cities of Demetrias, Pagasae and Iolcos. Demetrias was established by Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon. Iolkos, Iolcos or Iolcus, was the homeland of mythological hero Jason, who boarded the ship Argo accompanied by the Argonauts and sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece to Colchis. To the west of Volos lie the Neolithic settlements of Dimini, with a ruined acropolis, walls, and two beehive tombs dating to between 4000-1200 BC, Sesklo, with the remains of the oldest acropolis in Greece (6000 BC), and also the foundations of a palace and mansions, among its most characteristic examples of Neolithic civilisation.
Byzantine era
Further information: Byzantine Greece
According to a Byzantine historian of the 14th century, Volos was known as "Golos". The most widely accepted theory for the derivation of the city's name suggests that Volos is a corruption of the Mycenaean Iolkos, which had become distorted through the ages to become "Golkos", later "Golos", and subsequently "Volos". Others contend that the name originates with Folos, who according to myth was a wealthy landlord of the region. It was conquered by Stefan Dusan, was king of Serbia in 1348 and was managed for 25 years. Volos returned to Byzantine rule in 1373 but was conquered by Ottomans in 1393. Volos returned to Byzantine again in 1402 but Ottomans retook it in 1423.
Ottoman era
The city marked a Southern border of Vilayet-i Rumeli-i Şarki in the Ottoman Empire, known then as "Golos". Since the early stages of the Greek Revolution, the provisional government of Greece claimed Volos as part of Greek national territory, but the Treaty of Constantinople (1832), which established a Greek independent state, set its northern boundary between Arta and Volos
