Listed 70 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "MAKEDONIA CENTRAL Region GREECE" .
AFYTIS (Ancient city) KASSANDRA
The area of Athytos has been uninterruptedly settled for at least
5000 years. Around the middle of the 8th century B.C. settlers from Euboea
arrived. Aphytis, one of the most significant cities in Pallini
(the ancient name of Cassandra), is mentioned by the ancient writers Herodotus,
Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristotle, Pausanias, and Strabo among others.
The city became well known for its Temple of Dionysus, which appears
to have been built in the second half of the 8th century B.C. In the same area
stood the Temple of Ammon Zeus, whose few remaining ruins date to the 4th century
B.C. structure.
The Temple of Dionysus, which dates to the Euboean settlement, and
the growth of Aphytis are mentioned for the first time by Xenophon in his "Hellenica".
In 381 B.C. Agesipolis, king of the Lacedaemonians, besieged Torone.
During the siege he suffered serious burns, and asked to be taken to the "shady
lodgings and sparkling waters" of the Temple of Dionysus, where, according
to Xenophon, Agesipolis died a week later. He was placed in a storage jar full
of honey and taken to his homeland for the official burial.
During archaic and classical times Aphytis was a prosperous city,
minting its own coins, which depicted the head of its patron, Ammon Zeus, the
city's economy appears to have been mainly based on farming and vine-culture.
Aristotle mentions the "agricultural law" of the Aphytians, a special,
singular and interesting chapter in the history of ancient Greek public finances.
Shipping must have played an important role in the economy of Aphytis
if one is to judge by the size of its port, now silted up, which lies in the area
of the small pine forest along the beach.
According to Herodotus, during the Persian Wars (5th cent. B.C.) Aphytis
was forced to support Xerxes sending soldiers and ships, as did other cities in
Chalkidiki. However, it revolted
against the Persians after the Battle of Plataea
(479 B.C.) and joined the Athenian Confederacy. As a member of the Confederacy,
Aphytis paid three talents annually to the Temple of Delos, a substantial sum
for that time.
An Athenian "resolution" found in Athytos gives a picture
of the relations between Aphytis and Athens.
This resolution, dated 423 B.C. gave directions concerning the minting of cons
and currency relations in general.
As a result of joining the Athenian Confederacy, Aphytis was besieged
during the Peloponnesian War by the Lacedaemonian general Lysander. According
to Pausanias, the patron of Aphytis, Ammon Zeus, appeared in a dream to Lysander
and urged him to raise the siege, which he did.
It is likely that Aphytis was destroyed by Philip of Macedon in 348
B.C., as were the rest of the cities in Chalkidiki. However, the construction
of the Temple of Ammon Zeus during the second half of the 4th cent. B.C. implies
that the city was prosperous. It has also been suggested that the Macedonian kings
contributed to the construction of the temple. During Hellenistic and Roman times
the city minted coins again; an event possibly related to the fame of the Temple
of Ammon Zeus. Strabo mentions Aphytis among the five cities, which existed in
Pallini in the first century
B.C. (Cassandrea, Aphytis,
Mendi, Scioni
and Sani).
(text: Gerakina N. Mylona)
This text (extract) is cited November 2003 from the Community
of Athytos tourist pamphlet (1994).
AFYTOS (Village) HALKIDIKI
Strabo mentions Aphytis among the five cities, which existed in Pallini
in the first century B.C. (Cassandrea,
Aphytis, Mendi, Scioni
and Sani).
A long interim period followed for which we have on records of Aphytis.
Traces of the Mediefal wall in the citadel. The present "Koutsomylos",
as well as the continuous use of the same name prove that there was uninterrupted
life in Aphytos also during the Middle Ages. The first written information about
Aphytos comes from Mount Athos
documents of the 14th century in which it is mentioned as "Aphetos".
In 1307-1309, it appears that the village was destroyed by the Catalans,
and for a while its people settled in their farms.
The chapel of the Archangels, frescoed in 1647 (demolished in 1954)
indicated that Athytos was flourishing financially at that time.
Athytos participated in the Revolution of 1821, sending men and suffering
casualties. However, it also met the same fate as the rest of Cassandra:
it was burnt. After the destruction, its people scattered to various parts of
the country, mainly Skopelos,
Skiathos and Atalanti.
Around the year 1827 the refugees started returning, and Aphytos,
mainly due to its position, was a long time the principal village of Cassandra.
In Aphytos settled Captain Anastasis, who ruled the peninsula up to 1834.
(text: Gerakina N. Mylona)
This text (extract) is cited November 2003 from the Community
of Athytos tourist pamphlet (1994).
MONI EIKOSSIFONISSIS (Monastery) SERRES
The Holy Monastery of the Virgin Icosifinissa is built 753m above
sea level and lies in the thick north forest of Mount
Pangeo, on the road from Serres
to Kavala, just after the
village Kormista. It is one
of the 2 Holy areas in Eastern
Macedonia which continue to attract many believers, who came here to worship
the "Icon of Our Lady which is not made by hands" and to rest in the
serene surroundings.
The origin of the Monastery’s name, according to one of the
three versions, is due to the miraculous intervention of the Virgin, which resulted
in making the icon splendidly dark red colored.
During the period of Turkish rule, the Monastery was a shelter for
Orthodoxy and a center of the preservation and revitalization of Greek Nationalism
in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace,
resulting in the fury of the Turks, which was to be succeeded by the fury of the
Bulgarians. The Monastery has repeatedly faced destructive attacks and produced
numerous martyrs.
According to some sources, the Bisthop of Filippi, "Sozon",
who took part at the 4th Ecumenical Synod (Chalkidona,
451), built a temple and a monastic settlement at a place called "Vigla",
50 m east from the existing Monastery and were the extant ruins of a tower provide
evidence of the former presence of an ancient fortress. The temple and the monastic
settlement were abandoned afterwards with the arrival of the first proprietor
of the Monastery, St. Germanos (518 A.C.), who while very young started to lead
an ascetic life at the Monastery of St. John, near the River Jordan in the Holy
Land. Since then and for many centuries, the history of the Monastery of Virgin
Mary Idosifinissa has been completely unknown. Archaeological findings lead to
the conclusion that during the 11th century the main church (katholikon) was rebuilt.
During the same period, the Monastery became STAVROPIGIAKI, that means responsible
to the Ecumenical Patriarch.
In 1472 the Ecumenical Patriarch St. Dionysios resigned from his throne
and came to the Monastery. The presence of this second proprietor lent great prestige
to the Holy Monastery. During his long stay at the Monastery he erected many new
buildings and repaired the old ones, giving the Monastery a new glamour. According
to written evidence of the 16th century, in 1507 24 holly monks lived in the Monastery.
These monks were traveling in Eastern
Macedonia and Thrace reinforcing the faith of Christians and dissuading islamizations.
These actions enraged the Turks, who on 25.08.1507 massacred all the 172 monks.
They did not destroy the church and the buildings, but the Monastery remained
desert and uninhabited for 13 years.
After the tragic occurrence of the slaughter, the Ecumenical Patriarchate
managed in 1510 (or in 1520 according to other sources) to obtain the permission
of the Sultan to reorganize the Monastery. Thus, with the help of ten monks from
the Holy Mount, just ten
years afterwards, 50 monks joined the Monastery but also deacons and holy monks
that undertook the leadership of the Monastery.
During the following years the Monastery became the cultural and national
center of Eastern Macedonia and
Thrace. It was in this Monastery that Emmanouil Papas put his men under oath
and declared the Revolution.
In former days the Monastery hosted a famous Hellenic School and the
library of the Monastery was a significant one. Before being looted by the Bulgarians
in 1917, the library housed some 1,300 printed books and priceless manuscripts.
During those centuries of growth many of the buildings of the Monastery were repaired
and new ones were built. During the second half of the 19th century the Monastery
faced significant difficulties: in 1845 a conflagration burned to ashes the west
wing and a part of the north one while in 1864 a cholera epidemic decimated the
monks. The Monastery was rebuilt thanks to the glorious Metropolitan Bishop of
Drama, Chrysostomos (1902-1910). The attacks of the Turks were succeeded by those
of the Bulgarians, who in 1917 despoiled the priceless treasures of the Monastery.
During the Second World War the Bulgarians, again completed the devastation, burning
the buildings of the Monastery in 1943. The rebuilding of the Monastery started
in 1965 and in a fifteen-year period achieved its present appearance. Today (1997)
the Monastery houses 25 Nuns. The feast days of the Monastery are on 15 August
to commemorate the Rood and on 21 November to commemorate the Presentation of
the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple.
This text (extract) is cited September 2003 from the Prefecture
of Serres tourist pamphlet.
PIERIA (Prefecture) GREECE
The historic process of Pieria during our period is permanently and
closely linked to that of Thessaloniki.
a. Cultural life. The first on European ground Christian
communities were founded by Apostle Paul in Macedonia (Phillipus,
Thessaloniki, Veria).
From there, Apostle Paul traveled to Athens
via the Pierian coasts, the present port of Methoni,
where a temple to the honor of Apostle Paul is located.
Dioceses are commemorated during the Christian-Byzantine period in
the entire province of Pieria, namely in Dion,
Pydna, Kitro, Kolindros,
Petra, Platamon. The existence
of so many Dioceses in Pieria shows that the area here was very sacred. Dion
was the epicentre and the sacred city of the Macedonians, of Phillip-Alexander
the Great.
These Dioceses during the Byzantine years and later on until 1924
A.D. pertain to the jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Thessaloniki. Since the
11th century and afterwards the bishop of Kitros held the first throne (Πρωτόθρονος),
namely he was the first in rank after the bishop of Thessaloniki.
Many dependencies of monasteries of Thessaloniki and Mount
Athos were on the Pierian land. Some of those continue to operate until today.
Present remnants of the cultural life of the Christian-Byzantine Pieria are the
churches and the sacred corpses. Some of these are the two Early Christian Basilicas
in ancient Dion, the Byzantine
churches in Kountouriotissa, Petra,
Platamon, Aeginion,
Kolindros, Litochoro
and elsewhere in Pieria. Martyrdom of the bishop of Pydna Alexander, a symbolic
synonym of Alexander the Great is a typical characteristic of the ideological
conflict between Christianity and idololatry in Pieria in the beginning of the
4th century A.D. His skull is donated by the Byzantine Emperor Nikiforos Fokas
to the Monastery of Lavra to Mount
Athos.
b. Political - Administrative Life. In its political-administrative
life, Pieria constitutes a permanent division of the Province of the Macedonia
Prima.
The strategic role of Pieria in relation to Thessaloniki
is increased since the beginning of the 9th century A.D. and afterwards.
The castle-cities of Pieria in Kolindros,
Kitros-Pydna, Petra and Platamon
strategically reinforced the thematic administrative essence of Thessaloniki.
In this way, the linkage of Pieria with the co-regent emperor of Byzantine Empire,
Vassilios the Macedonian, visits the region in 1003 A.D. At that time, the castle
of Kolindros is surrendered
to Bulgarian invader and district governor Dimitrios Teichonas.
The importance of the Byzantine Castles of Pieria increases during
the 13th and 14th century. The Franc King of Thessaloniki Vonifatios Momferatikos
cedes the castle of Kitros as feud to Lombard Wierich von Daun and the castle
of Platamon to Rolando Piscia.
These two castles are reoccupied by the King of Epirus,
Theodore A Komninos Duke. The latter liberates the city from the Francs and he
is crowned King (1218-1224) of Thessaloniki.
In the beginning of the century, in 1308 A.D., Catalans and Ottomans
invade Pieria and loot it. However, its castles, especially that of Platamon,
constitute mainly the exile destinations of those defeated in Thessaloniki.
The civil war between Palaiologoi and Kantakouzinoi (1341-1346) and the 1345 zealot
movement in the city provoked the wave of exiles to the castles of Pieria.
The allies of the conflicted parties benefit primarily form these
dynasty disputes, such as the Ottomans of Omar, Aidinio
and the Serbs of Stephan Dusan. The Ottomans especially are the ones to take advantage
of the situation, who by then control Pieria and the inner region of Thessaloniki.
This text (extract) is cited October 2003 from the Prefecture
of Pieria tourist pamphlet.
STAVROS (Small town) THESSALONIKI
The sunny area of Stavros is known from the ancient times. According
to ancient writers and historians, it was a "mygdonic" residence, that it, a township
known as "Vormiskos" according to Stephanos Vizantios of "Vromiskos"
according to Thucydides, which was built near the river Richios. It is said that
Euripides, the great Greek ancient poet, was killed here by the wild dogs of King
Archelaos during a hunt.
On the one hand, this "mygdonic" residence was important
since it entered the great Athenian and Delian alliance.
On the other hand, it was an access road used by the Lacedemonian
troops of General Vrassidas and of Xerxes’ army. During the Byzantine period
it was an important strategic junction since it was near "Egnatia road"
and on the way to Agio Oros.
Stavros, however, was settled by the refugees from Asia
Minor. It was in 1922 when the Greek people who were living in the coast of
Asia Minor and specifically
refugees from Katirli of Vithinia
and Agia Paraskevi came here in Stavros along with refugees from Proussa
and Madytos. Those capable
people managed to build a brand new community through difficulties and hardships.
They suffered great pain but they loved this place just because it reminded them
of their homeland. They were mainly woodcutters and fishermen who worked hard
to create a new home.
This text (extract) is cited November 2003 from the Municipality
of Rentina tourist pamphlet.
KILKIS (Town) MAKEDONIA CENTRAL
The Greek army defeated the Bulgarians at the Kilkis battle (20-22 June 1913), which took place during the Balkan wars (1912-13).
SERRES (Town) MAKEDONIA CENTRAL
The famed city of Serrhai was destroyed when the Bulgarians set it
on fire as they began their retreat in 1913. Its Byzantine monuments were consumed
by the flames, with the sole exception of the three-aisled 11th century basilica
of Ayioi Theodoroi, now reconstructed, which hints at the former wealth and culture
of the second most important city of Macedonia after Thessalonike.
The sturdy, solid walls of the acropolis still bear witness to the
size of medieval Serrhai. The town has a significant place in the history of the
12th and later centuries. It attained its greatest importance in the 14th century
during the conflict between Byzantium and the Serbian state; in 1345 Serrhai was
captured by the Serb ruler Stefan Dusan.
In 1371 the then ruler of the city, the Serb John Ugliesa, was defeated
in the battle of Maritsa (Evros
River) in his attempt to uphold the rights of the entire Orthodox world against
the Turks.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains images.
THESSALONIKI (Town) MAKEDONIA CENTRAL
OLYNTHOS (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
When this year had elapsed, at Athens Theophilus was archon, and at Rome Gaius Sulpicius and Gaius Quintius were elected as consuls, and the one hundred eighth celebration of the Olympian games was held at which Polycles of Cyrene won the stadion race. During their term of office Philip, whose aim was to subdue the cities on the Hellespont, acquired without a battle Mecyberna and Torone by treasonable surrender, and then, having taken the field with a large army against the most important of the cities in this region, Olynthus, he first defeated the Olynthians in two battles and confined them to the defence of their walls; then in the continuous assaults that he made he lost many of his men in encounters at the walls, but finally bribed the chief officials of the Olynthians, Euthycrates and Lasthenes, and captured Olynthus through their treachery. After plundering it and enslaving the inhabitants he sold both men and property as booty. By so doing he procured large sums for prosecuting the war and intimidated the other cities that were opposed to him. Having rewarded with appropriate gifts such soldiers as had behaved gallantly in the battle and distributed a sum of money to men of influence in the cities, he gained many tools ready to betray their countries. Indeed he was wont to declare that it was far more by the use of gold than of arms that he had enlarged his kingdom.
This extract is from: Diodorus Siculus, Library (ed. C. H. Oldfather, 1989). Cited Apr 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Artabazus laid siege to Potidaea, and suspecting that Olynthus too was plotting revolt from the king, he laid siege to it also. This town was held by Bottiaeans who had been driven from the Thermaic gulf by the Macedonians. Having besieged and taken Olynthus, he brought these men to a lake and there cut their throats and delivered their city over to the charge of Critobulus of Torone and the Chalcidian people. It was in this way that the Chalcidians gained possession of Olynthus.
This extract is from: Herodotus. The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley, 1920), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Apr 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
AKANTHOS (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
Acanthus, a city situated on the isthmus of Athos; it was founded by the Andrii, and from it many call the gulf the Acanthian Gulf.
MENDI (Ancient city) KASSANDRA
Mende a town in Pallene and a colony of the Eretrians
POTIDEA (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
The Potidaeans, who inhabit the isthmus of Pallene, being a Corinthian colony
Son of Antipater, other of Plistarchus, husband of Thessalonice, daughter of Philip, at war with Athens, invades Attica, captures Salamis, makes Demetrius tyrant of Athens, murders Olympias, poisons sons of Alexander, restores Potidaeans, restores Thebes, attacks Pyrrhus, joins in war against Antigonus, besieges Elatea, instigates Lachares to make himself tyrant of Athens, brings Greece low, his miserable end, his sons, his family extirpated by deity.
AKANTHOS (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
Such were the words of Brasidas. The Acanthians, after much had been said on both sides of the question, gave their votes in secret, and the majority, influenced by the seductive arguments of Brasidas and by fear for their fruit, decided to revolt from Athens; not however admitting the army until they had taken his personal security for the oaths sworn by his government before they sent him out, assuring the independence of the allies whom he might bring over.
...The cities referred to are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus. These cities shall be neutral, allies neither of the Lacedaemonians nor of the Athenians; but if the cities consent, it shall be lawful for the Athenians to make them their allies, provided always that the cities wish it.
THESSALONIKI (Town) MAKEDONIA CENTRAL
The Macedonian Press Agency asks all on-line users throughout the world to provide any information they may have on the whereabouts of Alois Brunner. He is the German former SS officer who not only is the perpetrator of the destruction of Thessaloniki's Jewish community -having organized 19, in all, missions to the crematoriums- but he also led 24,000 Jews in France's Drancy concentration camp during World War II.
Starting with one house at the beginning of Ayiou Dimitriou street,
the fire destroyed, with the help of the Vardaris (a strong north wind), 250 acres
of building area, 9,500 houses and most of the city's churches, banks, schools,
printing presses, hotels and shops. It left 72,000 people homeless, two thirds
of whom were Jews. The fire wiped out the traditional, cosmopolitan appearance
of the city but it opened the way for the town-planning miracle of the Hebrard
Plan.
From "Pages from an autobiography" by the poet Yiorgos Vafopoulos
"On the next day, August 6, the feast of Our Saviour, Thessaloniki
made history, yet again. There where once the labyrinthine alleys of the Jewish
district had spread out, were now only stones and smouldering ashes. In the other
quarter, where the grand shops and hotels tower, tragic ruins reminded one of
their former glory. And all these sad remains of a rich big city were swathed
in heavy clouds of smoke. Deep in their basements the embers glowed for several
months after the fire and, as we discovered later, so great was the force of the
fire that all the glassware melted and amidst the debris of the pastry shops one
could make out the jars of sweets transformed into a mass of burnt sugar and glass.
The tremendous expanse covered by this catastrophe took the name of the Kammena
(burnt areas). The whole district had been transmuted into a new Pompeii, where
by day teams of excavators labored and by night the bums, criminals and lovers
found refuge".
The Hebrard Plan (1917-1921)
Drafted by an international committee headed by the architect-archaeologist
Ernest Hebrard and composed of such architects as Aristotelis
Zachos and Konstantinos
Kitsikis, the plan swept aside the memories of the Orient in favor of a European
layout with neo-Byzantine elements.
At the same time, it created a topography adapted to the social, economic
and town-planning demands of an industrial city with wide avenues and regular
city blocks. Its implementation was referred to round the world as "the greatest
achievement of 20th century European urban planning," and it made for a lovely,
Greek Thessaloniki which unprincipled post-war reconstruction would eliminate.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains images.
THESSALONIKI (Ancient city) MAKEDONIA CENTRAL
POLITICAL AND MILITARY HISTORY. Thessalonica was a place of some importance,
even while it bore its earlier name of Therma. Three passages of chief interest
may be mentioned in this period of its history. Xerxes rested here on his march,
his land-forces being encamped on the plain between Therma and the Axius, and
his ships cruising about the Thermaic gulf; and it was the view from hence of
Olympus and Ossa which tempted him to explore the course of the Peneius. (Herod.
vii. 128, seqq.) A short time (B.C. 421) before the breaking out of the Peloponnesian
War, Therma was occupied by the Athenians (Thucyd. i. 61); but two years later
it was given up to Perdiccas (Id. ii. 29.) The third mention of Therma is in Aeschines
(de Fals. Leg. p. 31, ed. Bekk.), where it is spoken of as one of the places taken
by Pausanias.
The true history of Thessalonica begins, as we have implied above,
with the decay of Greek nationality. The earliest author who mentions it under
its new name is Polybius. It seems probable that it was rebuilt in the same year
(B.C. 315) with Cassandreia, immediately after tile fall of Pydna and the death
of Olympias. We are told by Strabo that Cassander incorporated in his new city
the population, not only of Therma, but likewise of three smaller towns, viz.
Aeneia and Cissus (which are supposed to have been on the eastern side of the
gulf), and Chalastra which is said by Strabo (vii. Epit. 9) to have been on the
further side of the Axius, whence Tafel (p. xxii.) by some mistake infers that
it lay between the Axius and Therma. It does not appear that these earlier cities
were absolutely destroyed; nor indeed is it certain that Therma lost its separate
existence. Pliny seems to imply that a place bearing this name was near Thessalonica;
but the text is probably corrupt.
As we approach the Roman period, Thessalonica begins to be more and
more mentioned. From Livy (xliv. 10) this city would appear to have been the great
Macedonian naval station. It surrendered to the Romans after the battle of Pydna
(Ib. xliv. 45), and was made the capital of the second of the four divisions of
Macedonia (Ib. xlv. 29). Afterwards, when the whole of Macedonia was reduced to
one province (Flor. ii. 14), Thessalonica was its most important city, and virtually
its metropolis, though not so called till a later period. Cicero, during his exile,
found a refuge here in the quaestor's house (pro Planc. 41); and on his journeys
to and from his province of Cilicia he passed this way, and wrote here several
of his extant letters. During the first Civil War Thessalonica was the head-quarters
of the Pompeian party and the senate. (Dion Cass. xli. 20.) During the second
it took the side of Octavius and Antonius (Plunt. Brut. 46; Appian, B.C. iv. 118),
and reaped the advantage of this course by being made a free city. It is possible
that the word eleutherias, with the head of Octavia, on some of the coins of Thessalonica,
has reference to this circumstance (see Eckhel, ii. p. 79); and some writers see
in the Vardar gate, mentioned below, a monument of the victory over Brutus and
Cassius.
Even before the close of the Republic Thessalonica was a city of great
importance, in consequence of its position on the line of communication between
Rome and the East. Cicero speaks of it as posita in gremio imperii nostri. It
increased in size and rose in importance with the consolidation of the Empire.
Strabo in the first century, and Lucian in the second, speak in strong language
of the amount of its population. The supreme magistrates (apparently six in number)
who ruled in Thessalonica as a free city of the Empire were entitled politarchai,
as we learn from the remarkable coincidence of St. Luke's language (Act. Ap. xvii.
6) with an inscription on the Vardar gate. (Bockh, 1967. Belley mentions another
inscription containing the same term.) In Act. Ap. xvii. 5, the demos is mentioned
which formed part of the constitution of the city. Tafel thinks that it had a
boule also.
During the first three centuries of the Christian era, Thessalonica
was the capital of the whole country between the Adriatic and the Black Sea; and
even after the founding of Constantinople it remained practically the metropolis
of Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum. In the middle of the third century, as we
learn from coins, it was made a Roman colonia; perhaps with the view of strengthening
this position against the barbarian invasions, which now became threatening. Thessalonica
was the great safeguard of the Empire during the first shock of the Gothic inroads.
Constantine passed some time here after his victory over the Sarmatians; and perhaps
the second arch, which is mentioned below, was a commemoration of this victory:
he is said also by Zosimus (ii. p. 86, ed. Bonn) to have constructed the port,
by which we are, no doubt, to understand that he repaired and improved it after
a time of comparative neglect. Passing by the dreadful massacre by Theodosius
(Gibbon's Rome, ch. xxvii.), we come to the Sclavonic wars, of which the Gothic
wars were only the prelude, and the brunt of which was successfully borne by Thessalonica
from the middle of the sixth century to the latter part of the eighth. The history
of these six Sclavonic wars, and their relation to Thessalonica, has been elaborated
with great care by Tafel.
In the course of the Middle Ages Thessalonica was three times taken;
and its history during this period is thus conveniently divided into three stages.
On Sunday, July 29th, 904, the Saracen fleet appeared before the city, which was
stormed after a few days' fighting. The slaughter of the citizens was dreadful,
and vast numbers were sold in the various slave-markets of the Levant. The story
of these events is told by Jo. Cameniata, who was crozierbearer to the archbishop
of Thessalonica. From his narrative it has been inferred that the population of
the city at this time must have been 220,000. (De Excidio Thessalonicensi, in
the volume entitled Theophanes Continnatus of the Bonn ed. of the Byz. writers,
1838.) The next great catastrophe of Thessalonica was caused by a different enemy,
the Normans of Sicily. The fleet of Tancred sailed round the Morea to the Thermaic
gulf, while an army marched by the Via Egnatia from Dyrrhachium. Thessalonica
was taken on Aug. 15th, 1185, and the Greeks were barbarously treated by the Latins.
Their cruelties are described by Nicetas Choniates (de Andron. Comneno, p. 388,
ed. Bonn, 1835). The celebrated Eustathius was archbishop of Thessalonica at this
time; and he wrote an account of this capture of the city, which was first published
by Tafel (Tubingen, 1832), and is now printed in the Bonn ed. of the Byz. writers.
(De Thessalonica a Latinis capta, in the same vol. with Leo Grammaticus, 1842.)
Soon after this period follows the curious history of western feudalism in Thessalonica
under Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, and his successors, during the first half
of the 13th century. The city was again under Latin dominion (having been sold
by the Greek emperor to the Venetians) when it was finally taken by the Turks
under Amurath II., in 1430. This event also is described by a writer in the Bonn
Byzantine series (Joannes Anagnostes, de Thessalonicensi Excidio Narratio, in
the same volume with Phranzes and Cananus, 1838).
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. The annals of Thessalonica are so closely connected
with religion, that it is desirable to review them in this aspect. After Alexander's
death the Jews spread rapidly in all the large cities of the provinces which had
formed his empire. Hence there is no doubt that in the first century of the Christian
era they were settled in considerable numbers at Thessalonica: indeed this circumstance
contributed to the first establishment of Christianity there by St. Paul (Act.
Ap. xvii. 1). It seems probable that a large community of Jews has been found
in this city ever since. They are mentioned in the seventh century during the
Sclavonic wars; and again in the twelfth by Eustathius and Benjamin of Tudela.
The events of the fifteenth century had the effect of bringing a large number
of Spanish Jews to Thessalonica. Paul Lucas says that in his day there were 30,000
of this nation here, with 22 synagogues. More recent authorities vary between
10,000 and 20,000. The present Jewish quarter is in the south-east part of the
town.
Christianity, once established in Thessalonica, spread from it in
various directions, in consequence of the mercantile relations of the city. (1
Thess. i. 8.) During the succeeding centuries this city was the bulwark, not simply
of the Byzantine Empire, but of Oriental Christendom, - and was largely instrumental
in the conversion of the Sclavonians and Bulgarians. Thus it received the designation
of The Orthodox City. It is true that the legends of Demetrius, its patron saint
(a martyr of the early part of the fourth century), disfigure the Christian history
of Thessalonica; in every siege success or failure seems to have been attributed
to the granting or withholding of his favour: but still this see has.a distinguished
place in the annals of the Church. Theodosius was baptized by its bishop; even
his massacre, in consequence of the stern severity of Ambrose, is chiefly connected
in our minds with ecclesiastical associations. The see of Thessalonica became
almost a patriarchate after this time; and the withdrawal of the provinces subject
to its jurisdiction from connection with the see of Rome, in the reign of Leo
Isauricus, became one of the principal causes of the separation of East and West.
Cameniata, the native historian of the calamity of 904, was, as we have seen,
an ecclesiastic. Eustathius, who was archbishop in 1185, was, beyond dispute,
the most learned man of his age, and the author of an invaluable commentary on
the Iliad and Odyssey, and of theological works, which have been recently published
by Tafel. A list of the Latin archbishops of Thessalonica from 1205 to 1418, when
a Roman hierarchy was established along with Western feudalism, is given by Le
Quien (Oriens Christianus, iii. 1089). Even to the last we find this city connected
with questions of religious interest. Symeon of Thessalonica, who is a chief authority
in the modern Greek Church on ritual subjects, died a few months before the fatal
siege of 1430; and Theodore Gaza, who went to Italy soon after this siege, and,
as a Latin ecclesiastic, became the translator of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and
Hippocrates, was a native of the city of Demetrius and Eustathius.
This extract is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
VERIA (Town) IMATHIA
The famous city of Beroia, with a history uninterrupted from antiquity
to modern times, acquired particular importance as the frontiers of the medieval
Greek state continued to shrink. In 1001 the emperor Basil II Bulgaroktonos (the
Bulgar-Slayer) brought a brief Bulgarian occupation of the city to an end. Beroia
faced further disturbance from foreign conquerors (Franks, Bulgars, Serbs) in
the 13th and 14th centuries. In 1433 it was taken by the Turks.
The importance of Beroia in the closing years of Byzantium is evident
in the place it occupied in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Patriarchate of
Constantinople: an archiepiscopal see at the end of the 13th century, it became
a metropolis in the early 14th. Forty-eight historic churches still survive in
Beroia, of which 39 possess wall--paintings dating from the very beginning of
the 13th to the 18th century.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains image.
PIERIA (Prefecture) GREECE
The main characteristic during the Macedonian struggle was the people’s
resistance.
Sotirios Papageorgiou under the pseudonym "Parohtios" was
responsible for the preparation of the struggle. At times he would sent the captain
Mihalis Anagnostakos (Matapas) to Pieria as well as the lieutenants Nikolaos Rokas
(Kolios) and Georgios Fragakos (Maleas).
After the arrival of the inspired bishop of Kitros Parthenios Vardakas
on 25th of March 1904, things start looking better. The bishop, while being constantly
in touch with Mihalis Anagnostakos creates National Committees in Katerini,
Litohoro, Kolindros
and the rest of the villages. These committees secure the secret crossing of the
frontiers for several guerrilla groups coming from abroad, and the hide of weapons.
Fifteen Bulgarians, who were pretending being coal-workers were killed at that
time in the area of Pieria.
After the victorious advance of the Greek Army through the Sarantaporos
straits the 7th military Division under the orders of the General Kleomenis Kleomenous
liberates Katerini on October
1912. At the entrance of the town the colonel Demetrios Svoronos is killed by
a Turk soldier.
Two fishermen from Litohoro
Mihalis Kofos and Nikolaos Vlahopoulos while being in the small port of Eleftherohori
with their boats in order to help in the unloading of weapons, confirm the captain
Nikolaos Votsis that they can lead the Greek torpedo-boat secretly and safely
into the port of Thessaloniki
to sink the Turkish battleship.
The mission was completed on the night of 17th of October 1912.
The captain Nikolaos Votsis sent a telegram to Athens announcing the
success.
During the Greco-Italian war in 1940 the soldiers from Pieria participate
in many fronts. Germans occupy Pieria. Olympus
and Pieria Mountain once
again become the hiding place for guerrilla forces. These groups under difficult
conditions add new page of heroic deeds in the history of the Greek Resistance:
A train’s destruction at Tempi,
a battle in Tahnista (24-4-1942). Germans in revenge bomb and destroy the monastery
of Saint Dionysios in Olympus.
An event of great importance was that in August 2nd, 1913. Hristos
Kakalos, a mountain climber, leads the Swiss climbers Frederic Boissonas and Daniel
Bood-Bovy to Mytikas the highest peak of Olympus
(2.917 m). This was the first time for someone to climb up the highest point of
the famous mountain. The event gains worldwide publicity. In the next years, well-known
artists and intellectuals, such as the painter Vassilios Ithakisios, chose Olympus
to become their residence and place for inspiration.
The surrounding are little by little becomes financially and culturally
prosperous.
Remarkable excavations and the artistic event of the Olympus Festival
add importance to Pieria, which continues to develop as the modern poet said:
"O Pieria prosperous
You, the chosen one by the Gods".
This text (extract) is cited October 2003 from the Prefecture
of Pieria tourist pamphlet.
AGIOS GEORGIOS (Village) GIANNITSA
It's unspecified when the village was founded and what was its Greek
name. Turks called it "Dort Armout", that means Four Pear Trees, probably
because of the four very high trees that there were in the village. Its old position
was at the area known as "Voudolivado". On the road there was a well
known inn belonging to a Palmer from Kastoria,
where all the travelers were welcomed. Its ruins were saved until 1954, when they
were pulled down because of the land distribution. At the current position of
the church of Agios Dimitrios, used to be the lodging of the Albanian Bey and
around of it was built the village by residents of the neighboring settlements.
Because of the bey’s power, which excelled even the Turkish police, in the village
found shelter chased away Christians. Later on, thieves and hoodlums came and
they worked to bey's fields in return to their protection.
An English (1876) as well as a German traveler report the existence
of the village with the inn and the cemetery, which was the only one in the area.
The destruction of the cemetery in 1989 brought into sight a tombstone with the
date "1800" and Greek names. Old people also mention the existence of
three hills of 3 meters height, in 200 meter's distance one from the other. It
is believed that during the Byzantine Empire they were used for the transmission
of information with fire. Two of them are saved until today, of which the one
is destroyed.
200 meters from the village, there was the church of Agios Georgios,
surrounded by towering trees. During the Russian - Turkish war, Turkish reservists
of the neighboring towns, on their way to Andrianoupolis,
stayed in the village. Among the plunder they committed on their way, is also
the destruction of the church in 1877. At that time only a few families lived
in the village, because cholera had decimated the population. Founder of the village
is regarded to be Mr. Papantoniou from the village Notia
of Almopia, who in order to evade islamization went to Valtolivado together with
other Christians from Aridea
and later settled in Agios Georgios.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
AMFIPOLIS (Ancient city) SERRES
The Prehistoric period
The area of the estuary of the Strymon
River, with its natural wealth, offered favourable conditions of life and
establishment since prehistoric times. Findings from the settlement of the hill
133, form the cemetery of the settlement on the neighbouring Hill of Kasta and
other nearby sites, evidence the strong presence of man from the Middle Neolithic
period to the Early Iron Age (5000 BC-750 BC).
The Early historical times
From the middle of the 7th century BC, with the establishment of the
Greek cities by the estuary of the Stymon
River, begins the progressive penetration of the Greeks in Thrace,
as evidenced by the Attic and Corinthian vases found in tombs of the Archaic period.
The first signs of colonization in the area of Amphipolis (= Nine Roads) date
back to the first half of the 5th century BC.
The Classical and Hellenistic periods
The foundation of Amphipolis in 437 BC, under Pericles Age, represented
a great success for the Athenians who were trying for years, to gain a lodgement
in the wealthy inland. However, a few years later (422 BC), the city gains its
independence and it preserves it until it is integrated by Philip II 357 BC) in
the Kingdom of Macedonia.
Within the Macedonian Kingdom, Amphipolis continues its important trade and cultural
activities. Special importance was also granted to the sanctuaries. Its economy
was based on its agricultural population which cultivated the "fertile valley
of the Strymon". Among the inhabitants of the city, many were merchants,
artisans and slaves. The active commercial life of the city reflects in the rich
collection of coins as well as in the establishment of a royal mint during the
Macedonian period. The prosperity of the city is supported by the production of
local pottery, sculptures and small artifacts which echo the daily life of the
city. Very important inscriptions, including an "ephebic law" on a stele,
date from that period and furnishes precious information on the "education
of the youth".
The Roman period
After the conquest of Macedonia
by the Romans (168 BC), Amphipolis was made capital of the first administrative-economic
unit (merida) of Macedonia. The Roman period is for Amphipolis a period of prosperity
under Roman sovereignty. As a stop along the Via Engatia route and enjoying the
support of roman emperors, such as Augustus and Hadrian, the city prospers economically
as evidenced by the monuments with mosaic floors, the sculpture works, the pottery
and other findings brought to light by the excavations.
The Early Christian period
By the end of the Ancient age (4th century AD), the city expanse is
reduced. However, the transfer of the capital of the Roman state to Constantinople
and the consecration of Christianity as official religion, favours the dynamic
course of life of Amphipolis during the Early Christian centuries, as evidenced
by the Early Christian basilicas, the artistic mosaic and the remarkable architectural
adornment. The plague of the 6th century AD and the movements of Slav populations
afterwards, lead to a new shrinkage of Amphipolis which disintegrates as urban
centre.
The Byzantine period
After the 9th century AD, building activity shifts to the estuary
of the Strymon river where an important city-harbour develops, known as Chrysoupolis.
A small settlement, Marmarion, develops over the ruins of Amphipolis, on the north-west
fringes of the hills, to serve the needs of the travelers crossing the Strymon
River at "Marmario Ford".
The Post Byzantine period
The last reference to Marmario is made in 1547 AD by the traveler
P. Belon. Since the 18th century, a new village, the village of Neohorion is mentioned
to be located on the site of Marmario. In the beginning of the Ottoman period,
Chrysoupolis remained the basic urban and commercial centre of the area, later
on followed by the smaller in size ottoman fortress of Orfanio, 6 km to the east
and 3 km from the coast. The commercial and industrial activity continued in the
delta and the mouth of the Strymon
River throughout the Tourkokratia (Turkish dominion).
This text (extract) is cited August 2003 from the Prefecture
of Serres tourist pamphlet.
ARNEA (Town) HALKIDIKI
The only source we have got is that Arnea of the ancient times is
mentioned by Thucydides. He mentions that the general Vrassidas departed from
the town "Arne" leading his
troops from Akanthos to Amfipolis.
Based on mythology, "Ami" was the name of the daughter of Aeolus and mother of
Boetos, According to what Pafsanias says (IX, 40, 5), two towns took their name
from her; one in Thessaly and
the other in Boeotia, In
autumn 424 BC Vrassidas, the general of Sparta,
was activated in the area of today's Chalkidiki, trying to go into partnership
with the towns of the peninsula. Before the grape-harvest time Akanthos was besieged.
By using fine words and under the threat of damaging the grapes Vrassidas managed
to convince the people of Akanthos to give up their partnership with the Athenians
and go with the Spartans. A few days later, Stagiros,
which was situated not far from today's Olimbiada,
also went into partnership with them. In relation to that, Thucydides's narration
continues with detailed descriptions of other war-like events, which took place
in the area of Boeotia. We
do not know what Vrassidas has done in the meantime but Thucydides refers to him
again by saying:
This is the only historical reference to the town of Arnea."Departing from Arni of Chalkidiki, Vrassidas walked with his troops against this town (meaning Amfipolis). In the afternoon, when they reached Aviona and Vormisko (a place not far from Stavros), where the lake Volvi flows into the sea, they had dinner and immediately continued with their route during the night. Because the weather was bad and it was sleeting, they were in a hurry. Vrassidas wanted not all the people of Amfipolis but those who had come in agreement with him to understand that he was coming".
Dimitrios Kyrou, loakeim Papagelou, ed.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from the Municipality of Arnea URL below.
DROSSERO (Village) GIANNITSA
The village of Drosero was founded in the early 19th century under
the name "Ashar Bey" that means "The gallows of the Bey".
It owes, this unusual name, at the Bey that had his seat in the village and as
bloodthirsty he was, he had turned hangings and executions over into an everyday
routine. His lodging was at the eastern side of the village nearby the old church
of Agios Athanasios. Until 1913, when Macedonia was liberated, many Turkish families
lived in the village. At the point where the Primary School is built, used to
be a Turkish cemetery.
In 1922 sheltered permanently in the village refugees from the villages
Taifiri of Eastern Thrace and Iraklio of Nikomidia
in Asia Minor, while
in 1925 Vlachs came. It is said that the name "Drosero" (cool) was given
to the village when some passing by people who sat at the square of the village
to rest, extolled the fresh air blowing at the moment. The village used to be
the headquarters of the area in the early of the 20th century. Since 1912 have
been operating in Drosero, Police Station, Community Clinic and Primary School.
In 1940 came to the village the German occupation troops. After their
withdrawal in 1944, the civil war broke out, affecting dramatically Drosero's
fortune. In February 1946 the residents left the village and settled down in the
neighboring villages and Giannitsa.
In 3-7-1947 almost the whole village got burnt, except of about ten houses and
the church. The residents returned in 1950 and rebuilt the village from the beginning.
This text is cited June 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
GALATADES (Small town) GIANNITSA
The village of Galatades is one of the oldest in the area. This is
based on the old church of Agios Athanasios where there is an icon of Virgin's
Annunciation with the year 1806 written on it. The village is built in higher
elevation than the surrounding areas and it was protected from the water of the
bog which there was in its south side. That way, in 1979 when the area was flooded
by the water of the Moglenitsas river, the village of Galatades was like an island
in a lake.
The old name of Galatades was Kadinovo. This name comes from the Turkish
adjudicator (kadis in Turkish) who had his residence in the village. Kadinovo
became a community on 28-6-1918 with the headquarters in Kariotissa
and concluded the villages Mparinovo (Liparo),
Prisna (Krya Vrysi), Plougar (does not exist any more), Kariotissa and Losanovo
(Palefito). According
to the census of the year 1920 Kadinovo had 320 residents, who dealt with the
agriculture and stockbreeding.
During the Macedonian Struggle, the village fighters of the families
Stogiannidis and Harisiadis used to meet at Narisidis' house and under the leadership
of the chieftain Gonos Giotas, they planned their activities against Turks and
Bulgarians. Gonos Giotas' father came from Galatades and he had a hovel-base of
operations in the bog, at the point Prisna. During the liberation of the village
on 18-10-1918 Turks killed two Greek mounted soldiers. The residents buried them
in the village and set a hero's tomb for them.
In 1924 refugees came from the village Examili of the Kallipoli
peninsula of Eastern Thrace. The name of the village changed into Galatades (Milkmen)
because of the great milk production of that time. The vastly area of the bog
was ideal for the breeding of the 9.000 cows and even more sheep and goats that
the residents had. Galatades became a separate community on 25-8-1933 and it has
a steady increase of population. In 1928 it had 846 residents, in 1940 it had
1286, in 1961 it had 1684 and in 1991 it had 2039 residents. Today, it is the
biggest village of the municipality with about 2300 residents. In Galatades has
been functioned a school since the close of the 19th century. The residents report
that the first teacher was Christ Doumis. A clinic functioned in the village as
well, by the doctor Mr. Tselios from Thessaloniki.
After the exsiccation of the Giannitsa lake, in the mid '30s, the residents of
the Plougar village moved in Galatades and Krya Vrysi equally.
The history of Galatades changed dramatically the last 35 years. The
year 1970 is a milestone in village's evolution, because that year Philopimin
Gratsios brought to Galatades the cultivation of asparagus. The successful cultivation
and the higher quality of the local asparagus, made Galatades the "capital"
of the production and trade of the Greek asparagus. Finally, an other point of
report for Galatades, is the year 1998, when it was appointed to be the headquarters
of the newly established Municipality of Alexander the Great.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
GYPSOCHORI (Settlement) PELLA
The church of Agios Athanasios (1851) bears witness to the age of
Gypsohori. Unfortunately, there are no written records about its history. Nobody
knows precisely how Gypsohori named after. According to a version, this name is
ascribed to Bey’s daughter, Yupsan, who lived in the village. The whole settlement
was assigned by this name. Later, the village was named Yupsovo. At the point,
where the town square is situated nowadays, there was the Bey's lodgings. It was
a big, two-storey building that was pulled down in the mid years of 20th century.
It's said that there was a second lodging at the entrance of the village.
During the Macedonian Struggle, the residents had intensively participated
in the attempt for freedom of the area from Turkish and Bulgarian rule. In the
exceptional historical novel "In the secrets of the bog" by Penelope
Delta, many names of fighters from Gypsohori are reported. In 1928 refugees from
the Black Sea area moved to the village. The community of Gypsohori was constituted
in 1951 and it included the settlement of Trifili.
However, in 1977 the authorities were transported to Trifili and the new community
of Trifili was constituted, including the village of Gypsohori as a settlement.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
KARIOTISSA (Small town) GIANNITSA
The Old Kariotissa was situated at the shore of the lake of Giannitsa
5km southern from present place of the village. Kariotissa was the head of Kadinovo
community since 28-6-1918. There were 50 families at the village with the population
of 293 residents according to the census of 1920. The self-sufficiency was the
main characteristic of their lives. They were dealing with agriculture and stockbreeding.
There was plenty of hunting and timber in the bog, which were covering their needs.
Very impressive were three hills of 20m height in the village, which were used
by the Turkish people as observation posts and four "koules" (mansions)
which only one of them is still standing.
In July of 1924 they moved to the new location of the present village,
refugees from Neohori of Zerkos province in Eastern Thrace, according to the treaty
of Lausanne (1923) about the exchange of the populations between Greece and Turkey.
Their life in Neohori and the adventure of the refugees is described beautifully
in the book "1924-1999, 75 years of the community of New Kariotissa"
which was published by the Cultural Association of the village. The situations
the about 850 refugees faced in this boggy place were tragical. The release of
the place from malaria achieved by the drying of the lake in 1935, raised the
births and gave the opportunity to the people of the village to have new wealthy
land. After the German occupation, the modernization of Kariotissa was continues
and with 1798 residents in 1961, Kariotissa became the headquarters of the area,
with a Police Station, a Post Office and a Medical Centre.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below, which contains image
KILKIS (Prefecture) GREECE
The Kilkis Prefecture is located in central Makedonia, between the
Prefectures of Pella,
Thessaloniki and Serres.
A large part of Kilkis lies around the verdant valley of the Axios
river, the ancient Amfaxitida.
Its western and northern regions include the sublime and forested mountains of
Paiko and Belles,
while Kroussia on its
north eastern side, and the Doirani
lake in the north and west, constitute a natural border as well as a splendid
aquatic habitat with rare bird and plant species. The region throughout appears
to have been an area of human activity since the Copper and Iron Ages. Prehistoric
settlements and interspersed tombs have provided significant findings dating back
to the second millennium BC.
A significant area of the Prefecture is the ancient Crestonia
, located east of the Axios river, near the spring of todays Gallikos
river, the ancient Ehedoros, i.e. the river that brought giftsgold through
its sources.
On the west lies Peonia,
a site Homer referred to by naming Axios the earths widest and most beautiful
river.
At the end of the archaic era, the region of the Kilkis prefecture
came into the hands of the Macedonian state into the boundaries of the present
Hellenic state.
The regions development during those years passed through the great
Macedonian prosperity which hosted in its royal courts of the era renowned philosophers,
poets and artists. However, Kilkis region had the same fate of the remaining Macedonian
and in 148 BC it succumbed to roman sovereignty. After over 250 years of the so-called
Pax Romana, the region, along with all of Central Macedonian, was pillaged by
the Goths, Huns, Avars and Slavs, who settled in the Balkan region in the 6th,
7th centuries and beyond.
The French rule period constituted the continuation of the Byzantine
Empire, a part of which was the region of Kilkis.
In spite of the civil conflict, the rulers of Paleologos dynasty provided
the wider region with significant projects and a great degree of development.
With the conquest of Thessaloniki in 1430 AD by the Turks, the region throughout
falls under the Turkish yoke. As a matter of fact, from1699 and on, the Turkish
yoke. As a matter of fact, from 1699 and on, the Turks attempt to replace the
region's Greek residents with Turkish men and women.
Following the revolution of 1821, the region of Kilkis remained captive.
The Macedonian Struggle began later, followed by the two Balkan wars.
During the 1st Balkan War (1912-1913) vast regions of Macedonia are
freed from the Turkish rule, among them Thessaloniki
. The Second Balkan War that followed, included significant battles, which took
place in large part in the region of Kilkis and Lahanas. The war involved the
former allies Greeks and Serbs on one side, and the Bulgarians impassioned by
the Panslavic idea on the other.
This battle of Kilkis determined the consummation of the overall liberation
of today's Macedonia and Thrace.
The fury of Word War I (1914 -1918) followed. The wider region of
Kilkis became a scene of intense allies activity and battle as well. The victories
of the Greeks and their allies in Skra and Doirani have remained among the most
significant ones. The catastrophe of Asia
Minor which marked the history of Greece and the Lausanne Convention (1922),
which uprooted Hellenism from its homes Minor Asia, bore a definitive impact on
the population composition in the region of Kilkis.
The war of 1940 also determined the further course of Greece, a course
followed by Kilkis as well. Some of the Greek army's most significant battles
were fought in the region of Kilkis.
Today, the region is restructured economically and culturally, and
gladly embraces its visitor in its splendid areas, marked with natural beauty.
This text is cited January 2004 from the Prefecture of Kilkis URL below
LIPARO (Village) GIANNITSA
There is based information for the existence of the settlement of
Liparo in 1357 from the recording that took place in the years of the Byzantine
Empire by the name Liparino and 210 houses. The settlement was in the area "Beker",
where there is a tomb of the Macedonian years. In 1840 the near river Moglenitsas
overflowed causing great disaster and the drowning of babies. So, the settlement
was translocated in the present position of 10 metres elevation. At that time,
in the village there were 15 Greek and 500 Turkish families.
The name "Beker" is the Turkish name of the name Dimitrios.
The local tradition reports that Dimitrios was a Greek christian, servant of the
Turkish Bey. He was proposed to change his religion because he was said to perform
miracles and there was a fear for revolution of the christians. Dimitrios refused
and the Turkish killed him. They burried him in that area and untill today it
is believed that the soil of his grave helps people with dermatological diseases
etc.
The time of 1928-30 there were placed into the village refugees from
the Black Sea area and in 1935 Vlachs came from Aetomilitsa
of Epirus. Liparo, by the name Liparinovo or Barinovo and 154 residents formed
the community of Kadinovo in 28-6-1918, with the villages of Prisna, Plougar,
Kariotissa,
Losanovo and Kadinovo. Later, it consisted a community with the villages of Dafni
and Agios Georgios,
untill 1967, when it became an independent community.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
OLYMPIADA (Village) HALKIDIKI
Οlympiada was founded in 1924, after by the refugees that came here from Saint
Kiriaki in Asia Minor
after their exil in 1922. According to historians, this region is the most important
in Halkidiki because here ancient
Stagira once stood. Ancient Stagira is found East of Olympiada at a distance
of 700 metres, in an area called Liotopi. That is where, in 1990, the important
archaeological excavations took place. By King Kassandros command, Olympiada,
mother of Alexander the Great, was exiled from ancient Stagira and sent to the
island of Kapros (Boar)
which is found opposite current Olympiada. The island of Kapros is also reported
by the ancient geographer Stravona. He also mentioned that the harbour of the
city carried the same name. During the Turkish domination the harbour of Olympiada
was used for the pressuring of timber. In this area, there were certain huts,
in which the refugees took shelter after their arrival.
This text is cited March 2004 from the Municipality of Stagira-Akanthos URL below
ORMYLIA (Small town) HALKIDIKI
Written testimonies are: in 875 ad from the Archbishop of Thessalonica,
Vasilios as "Sermylia Komi" in "Bio", which he has written in the beginning of
the 10th century ad for his master, Eythimios the Young, and in 1047 ad during
the demarcation of the fields that belonged to the abbey "Xavounion", that is
today's Ploygiros. In the
last document one can read that: "... it touches the borders of the castle Ermylia".
Since the beginning of the 13th century, the monasteries from the Holy
Mt Athos have a very dynamic presence in the area by establishing dependencies
in the fertile lowland and thus restricting the habitants of Ormylia in the higher
and more barren areas or by employing them. The raise of the number of the monastery
dependencies was boosted more in the next century mainly because of the raids
from the Serbs and the Turks forcing the habitants to sell their estates. In the
beginning of the 14th century one of the 6 commanding precincts of Chalkidiki
was called "Kapetanakion of Ermylia".
Ormylia was finally occupied by the Turks somewhere between 1416 and
1424. During the occupation the Ottoman Empire granted the Christians various
privileges in exchange with heavy taxation. The villages next to the monasteries,
were under the protection of the Holy Mt Athos. This meant that most of them,
including Ormylia, were left somewhat free of occupation and they were able to
develop very important trading activities. Ormylia even managed to become in the
19th century the most important silk industry centres.
In 1818, a very big church was built in the name of St George, a fact
that proves how well established was the economy of the village. In 1821, Ormylia
enters the Greek Revolution together with the rest of Chalkidiki and under the
commandment of Emmanouil Pappa. Unfortunately this attempt failed and the Turks
burned the whole peninsula of Chalkidiki.
During the revolution of 1854, Tsamis Karatasos - leader of the revolution
in the area - settled in Metoxi
and he gave one of the most crucial battles in the area of Psakoudia
of Ormylia. When he left, Metoxi was burned to the ground. Ormylia was liberated
from the Turks in October 1912, having been for almost 500 years under occupation.
In 1923 immigrants from the Asia Minor arrived to settle in the area.
They established the village of Vatopedi which was subsumed by the Municipality
of Ormylia in 1971. When the immigrants arrived, began the expropriation and
distribution of the estates that belonged to the monasteries. Those were given
to the immigrants as well as to the local farmers.
In 1941 - 1944, during the German occupation, the habitants took active
part in the National opposition, organizing among other things a network to collect
British officers and soldiers and help them escape to the Middle East.
This text is cited Oct 2003 from the Municipality of Ormylia URL below.
PALEFYTO (Small town) GIANNITSA
At a short distance from the current position of the village there
was the Bey's lodgings and all around it there were the shacks of the Turkish,
who were in his hire. Until 1920 Lozanovo, such as Palefyto was named, belonged
to the community of Kadinovo and it had 202 residents, mostly shepherds. In 1922
refugees from Kydia of Prousa
(Asia Minor) came to the area, chased from the Turkish, after the disaster of
Smyrna.
Tradition wants the residents of Kydia and the other eight villages
that were beside the lake, to descend from captured families of Mani. The news
that they received in 1922 for the coming of the Turkish, lead them southwest,
to the ports of Smyrna. But, at their way, happend to meet a very beautiful woman
on a horse, who prevented them to continue and so they made for Panormos.
Some said that she was the daughter of pasha of the area, others said that she
was the Virgin Mary that saved them from certain slaughter. Recent researches
confirm the existence of the Sultana, who was christian because of her Serbian
lineage.
The exchange of the population between Greece and Turkey in 1924,
led to Palefito the residents of Petrohori, a village in the Chataltza area in
Eastern Thrace. In the beggining, the conditions were unbearable and the cohabitation
was difficult. However, their common aim for survival, set aside all the differences
and the devotion of all the residents to the cultivation of this fertile land,
improved Palefyto.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
PELLA (Ancient city) GIANNITSA
SERMYLI (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
Is the most ancient settlement in Chalkidiki,
having a uninterruptedly presence in the area since the Neolithic era. Its ancient
name was Sermyli, then it was changed to Ermyli during the dark ages, only to
become Ormylia which lasts till today.
The first findings are dated in the Neolithic age (4000-2000 bc) and
were found at Toumpa of Prophet Ilias, on the hill of St George during the 2nd
millennium bc, in the square Toumpa near the end of 2000 bc and at Kastri of Vatopedi
around 1000 bc.
During the classic age, the historical testimonies mention 2 cities
in the area, both of them being colonies of the Chalkideous (they came in the
area during the 13th - 12th century bc) and members of the Athenian alliance during
the Persian Wars. The first one with the name Sermyli,
according to the ancient historian Herodotus, was very big and very important.
It was located next to the sea and near the debouchment of the river. It was controlling
the primary and shortest road from Kalamaria
to Sithonia. The oldest
testimonies on the history of Ormylia, are given through the silver coins that
were cut in the 6th sentury bc. Herodotus is also mentioning the city as one of
those that gave army to the Persian King Xerxis.
When the Persian Wars were over, the city entered the Athenian Alliance
and from the contribution they were paying (3-5 talanta) we can easily assume
that it was the most important city of Chalkidean people besides Toroni.
During the Peloponnisian War, the city suffered a lot for the Spartans
(Thoukididis history, A' 66) A few bronze coins that were cut after 404 or 379
bc, testify that the city was self-governed in that period. In the 384 bc it was
destroyed by Filippos and its habitants were scattered in the greater area, establishing
small settlements that were hardly surviving.
In the old Christian period (4th - 7th century ad), two settlements
have been located. One was northwest from where Vatopedi is located today, in
area "Gveli" and the other one is the castle in Kallipoli, which must have been
built around the 5th century ad on a steep hill next to the river. This testifies
that the habitants of the area were in grave danger from the various barbarian
raids.
This text is cited Oct 2003 from the Municipality of Ormylia URL below.
TORONI (Municipality) HALKIDIKI
The municipality draws its name from mythology; Toroni was the wife
of Proteus, son of Poseidon God of the sea. Ancient Toroni was founded by the
Chalkidians who colonized it in the 8th century BC. By the fifth century BC Toroni
was one of the most important cities in Chalkidiki. It minted its own coinage
and was a member of the Athenian alliance. On the Acropolis of Likithos
towering over the harbor of Porto
Koufo once stood a temple dedicated to Pallas Athina. During the Peloponnesian
war it fell victim to both the Athenians and the Spartans. The historian Thucydides
recounts that in 423 BC it was occupied by Vrasidas the Spartans. In 348 EC the
town became absorbed into the kingdom of Philip of Macedon, in 168 BC it was again
conquered, this time by the Romans, and the town went into decline. During the
Byzantine era it became a dependency of mount
Athos. The mighty walls and other buildings were plundered by the Turks in
the 19th century pomegranate they once contained was used to pave the streets
of Thessalonica and Istanbul.
Sikia was one of the largest and most active villages of Halkidiki and took part
in the revolts against Turkish rule in 1821 and 1854. During the Byzantine era,
the village was referred to, as Logos and was the headquarters for the military
guardians of Athos. In 1821 the people of Sikia, always unsubdued, and with a
strong naval tradition, often manifested as piracy, revolted under the leadership
of Stamos Hapsas, and started to advance of Thessaloniki. Near the monastery of
St Anastassia they met the Turkish forces in a terrible battle in which many of
them gave their lives for freedom. In 1854, Tsamis Karatassios started his revolution
from Sikia and according to village tradition he burned the church of Agios-Athanassios
together with the Turkish garrison who had refused to surrender.
This text is cited June 2005 from the Municipality of Toroni URL below
TRIFYLLI (Village) GIANNITSA
In the beggining of the last century Trifiltsovo, such as Trifili
was named, had a few houses and was surrounded by bogs. The areas of Tsaira and
Nisi, western of the village, constituted Roumani, a place of bushy sprouting
and many springs of water. The river Mpalitzas passes from the east side of the
village, where there was a bog with a great variety of fauna. After the drying
of the bog, the land was shared to the residents and until now consists the most
fertile area of the community. In 1922 refugees from the Black Sea area came to
the village and in 1924 more refugees came from Thrace.
The residents dealt with stockbreeding and the cultivation of trefoil,
sesame, corn, wheat, vine, mulberry and the production of cocoons of silk and
wine. The settlement belonged to the community of Drosero until 1951, when it
became a member of the community of Gypsohori. In 1977 was created the community
of Trifili with the settlement of Gypsohori. Since 1948, when Drosero was burned,
until 1955 the police station of Drosero functioned in Trifili. In 60's - 70's
there was a strenuous immigration of the residents to Germany, America and Australia.
This text is cited May 2005 from the Municipality of Megas Alexandros URL below
PIERIA (Prefecture) GREECE
The Turks seized Constantinople
in 1453. But they never succeeded in ruling the Greek mind. Moreover they failed
in conquering Olympus, which
since Roman times remained under semi-independence conditions.
It is known that since 1599 Klefts run down from Olympus
in order to arrest the Venetian ambassador, who was on his way to Constantinople.
Their deed proves that the Turkish domination in Pieria was not consolidated.
A famous mountain captain named Salamuras, fights around Platamon,
while Armatoliki of Olympus
becomes very glorious by having as a leader Lazos the offspring of the heroic
family Lazeoi, who offered over 400 members as victims for the Greek independence.
Another offspring of the same family was our national hero Georgakis Olympios,
who, after many brave fights in Olympus
and the rest of Macedonia, planned a revolution in Balkan Peninsula, against the
ottoman oppression. Finally he sacrificed himself n the monastery of Sekou in
the Karpathian Mountains.
This armatoliki of Olympus
is very famous for the brave men, who offered their lives during the pre-Revolutionary
period but all well as through the period of the national Greek Revolution in
1821 until the complete liberation of Macedonia and its unification with Greece.
Lazos brothers and his children Tolios, Liolios, Kostas, together
with Georgakis Olympios, Diamantis Nikolaou, Goulas Draskos, Nikotsaras, Siros,
Binos, Liakopoulos and many others participated in the revolutionary movements
in Olympus, Chalkidiki,
Serres and Veria.
After their unsuccessful efforts and the ruin of the troops in Naousa,
Chalkidiki and Milia
in Pieria they bravely kept on holding the flag of Revolution.
Having ar tremendous moral they went down to South Greece in order
to participate, along with the rest of the Greek forces, in many battlefields
such as Psara Island, Skiathos
Island, Messolongi.
The Klefts and the Armatoli of Olympus
never compromised with the idea of having their beloved Macedonia enslaved. In
1835 the brave Karamitsios attacks the castle of Platamon
and liberates Leptokaria in Pieria. Unfortunately numerous Turkish forces regain
the territory and kill Karamitsios and his men.
In March of 1854 Armatoli run down anew from Olympus
and liberate Vrontou, but
the foreign intervention prevents their dreams from becoming reality.
Again in February 1878, while the Turkish-Russian war was taking place,
representatives from all the villages of Olympus
gather in Litochoro to proclaim
a new Revolution.
A revolutionary government was elected under the leadership of Evangelos
Korovangos with the participation of the bishop of Kitros Nikolaos Lousis, Athanasios
Asteriou, Zahariades and father Nikiforos. These people inform the foreign embassies
that the Macedonians took the arms in order to gain their freedom.
During this Revolution Katerini was liberated. But once more they
were unlucky. The Turkish army burnt the villages and killed the people.
This text (extract) is cited October 2003 from the Prefecture
of Pieria tourist pamphlet.
VERIA (Town) IMATHIA
During the period of the Ottoman rule, Veria still remains a very
important commercial and intellectual center of the Greek nation.
From this period there are many two integral neighborhoods, with the
names Kiriotissa and Barbouta. Inside Barbouta exists the old Jewish neighborhood.
Veria is liberated from the Turks on the 16th October 1912.
This text (extract) is cited November 2003 from the Greek
National Tourism Organization tourist pamphlet (1998).
POTIDEA (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
. . . Next to these in the line were five thousand Corinthians, at whose desire Pausanias permitted the three hundred Potidaeans from Pallene then present to stand by them.
FAGRIS (Ancient city) SERRES
This was effected by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians, who afterwards inhabited Phagres and other places under Mount Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon lpar;indeed the country between Pangaeus and the sea is still called the Pierian gulf.
HALKIDIKI (Ancient area) GREECE
Region of the peninsula of Chalcidice, which was named after the Bottiaeans (people of thracian origin), who inhabited it after the occupation of their land by the Macedonians. By the 4th century B.C. the name Bottice ceased to exist (encyclopedia P.L.B.).
Eretria colonized the cities situated round Pallene and Athos, and Chalcis colonized the cities that were subject to Olynthus, which later were treated outrageously by Philip.
PELLA (Ancient city) GIANNITSA
(...) and by the acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along the river Axius extending to Pella and the sea; the district of Mygdonia, between the Axius and the Strymon, being also added by the expulsion of the Edonians.
This extract is from: Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (ed. Richard Crawley, 1910). Cited Mar 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
AMFIPOLIS (Ancient city) SERRES
Cleon, the most prominent and influential leader at Athens after the Athenian victory at Pylos in 425, was dispatched to northern Greece in 422 to try to stop Brasidas. As it happened, both he and Brasidas were killed before Amphipolis in 422 B.C. in a battle won by the Spartan army. Their deaths deprived each side of its most energetic military commander and opened the way to negotiations. Peace came in 421 B.C. when both sides agreed to resurrect the balance of forces just as it had been in 431 B.C. The agreement made in that year is known as the Peace of Nicias after the name of the Athenian general Nicias, who was instrumental in convincing the Athenian assembly to agree to a peace treaty. The Spartan agreement to the peace revealed a fracture in the coaltion of Greek states allied with Sparta against Athens and its allies because the Corinthians and the Boetians refused to join the Spartans in signing the treaty.
This text is from: Thomas Martin's An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, Yale University Press. Cited Oct 2002 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
POTIDEA (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
The outbreak of the war came when the Spartans issued ultimatums to Athens that the men of the Athenian assembly rejected at the urging of Pericles. The Spartan ultimatums promised attack unless Athens lifted its economic sanctions against the city-state of Megara, a Spartan ally that lay just west of Athenian territory, and stopped its military blockage of Potidaea, a strategically located city-state in northern Greece. The Athenians had forbidden the Megarians from trading in all the harbors of the Athenian empire, a severe blow for Megara, which derived much income from trade. The Athenians had imposed the sanctions in retaliation for alleged Megarian encroachment on sacred land along the border between the territory of Megara and Athens. As for Potidaea, it been an ally of Athens but was now in rebellion. Potidaea retained ties to Corinth, the city that had originally founded it, and Corinth, an ally of Sparta, had protested the Athenian blockade of its erstwhile colony. The Corinthians were already angry at the Athenians for having supported the city-state of Corcyra in its earlier quarrel with Corinth and securing an alliance with Corcyra and its formidable navy. The Spartans issued the ultimatums in order to placate the Megarians and, more importantly, the Corinthians with their powerful naval force. Corinth had threatened to withdraw from the Peloponnesian League and join a different international alliance if the Spartans delayed any longer in backing them in their dispute with the Athenians over Potidaea. In this way, the actions of lesser powers nudged the two great powers, Athens and Sparta, over the brink to war in 431 B.C.
This text is from: Thomas Martin's An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, Yale University Press. Cited Mar 2003 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
OLYNTHOS (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
Chalcis colonized the cities that were subject to Olynthus, which later were treated outrageously by Philip. (Strabo 10.1.8)
POTIDEA (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
Artabazus son of Pharnaces, who was already a notable man among the
Persians and grew to be yet more so through the Plataean business, escorted the
king as far as the passage with sixty thousand men of the army that Mardonius
had chosen. Xerxes, then, was now in Asia, and when Artabazus came near Pallene
in his return (for Mardonius was wintering in Thessaly and Macedonia and making
no haste to come to the rest of his army), he thought it right that he should
enslave the people of Potidaea, whom he found in revolt. When the king had marched
away past the town and the Persian fleet had taken flight from Salamis, Potidaea
had openly revolted from the barbarians and so too had the rest of the people
of Pallene.
Thereupon Artabazus laid siege to Potidaea, and suspecting that Olynthus
too was plotting revolt from the king, he laid siege to it also. This town was
held by Bottiaeans who had been driven from the Thermaic gulf by the Macedonians.
Having besieged and taken Olynthus, he brought these men to a lake and there cut
their throats and delivered their city over to the charge of Critobulus of Torone
and the Chalcidian people. It was in this way that the Chalcidians gained possession
of Olynthus.
Having taken Olynthus, Artabazus dealt immediately with Potidaea,
and his zeal was aided by Timoxenus the general of the Scionaeans, who agreed
to betray the place to him. I do not know how the agreement was first made, since
there is no information available about it. The result, however, was as I will
now show. Whenever Timoxenus wrote a letter to be sent to Artabazus, or Artabazus
to Timoxenus, they would wrap it around the shaft of an arrow at the notches,
attach feathers to the letter, and shoot it to a place upon which they had agreed.
Timoxenus' plot to betray Potidaea was, however, discovered, for Artabazus in
shooting an arrow to the place agreed upon, missed it and hit the shoulder of
a man of Potidaea. A throng gathered quickly around the man when he was struck
(which is a thing that always happens in war), and they straightway took the arrow,
found the letter, and carried it to their generals; the rest of their allies of
Pallene were also there present. The generals read the letter and perceived who
was the traitor, but they resolved for Scione's sake that they would not condemn
Timoxenus with a charge of treason, for fear that the people of Scione should
hereafter be called traitors.
This is how Timoxenus' treachery was brought to light. But when Artabazus
had besieged Potidaea for three months, there was a great ebb-tide in the sea
which lasted for a long while, and when the foreigners saw that the sea was turned
to a marsh, they prepared to pass over it into Pallene. When they had made their
way over two-fifths of it, however, and three yet remained to cross before they
could be in Pallene, there came a great flood-tide, higher, as the people of the
place say, than any one of the many that had been before. Some of them who did
not know how to swim were drowned, and those who knew were slain by the Potidaeans,
who came among them in boats. The Potidaeans say that the cause of the high sea
and flood and the Persian disaster lay in the fact that those same Persians who
now perished in the sea had profaned the temple and the image of Poseidon which
was in the suburb of the city. I think that in saying that this was the cause
they are correct. Those who escaped alive were led away by Artabazus to Mardonius
in Thessaly. This is how the men who had been the king's escort fared.
This extract is from: Herodotus. The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley, 1920), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Mar 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Since the people of Athens desired for the glory of it to take Potidaea by storm, they sent Hagnon there as general with the army which Pericles had formerly commanded. He put in at Potidaea with the whole expedition and made all his preparations for the siege; for he had made ready every kind of engine used in sieges, a multitude of arms and missiles, and an abundance of grain, sufficient for the entire army. Hagnon spent much time making continuous assaults every day, but without the power to take the city. For on the one side the besieged, spurred on by their fear of capture, were putting up a sturdy resistance and, confiding in the superior height of the walls, held the advantage over the Athenians attacking from the harbour, whereas the besiegers were dying in large numbers from the plague and despondency prevailed throughout the army. Hagnon, knowing that the Athenians had spent more than a thousand talents on the siege and were angry with the Potidaeans because they were the first to go over to the Lacedaemonians, was afraid to raise the siege; consequently he felt compelled to continue it and to compel the soldiers, beyond their strength, to force the issue against the city. But since many Athenian citizens were being slain in the assaults and by the ravages of the plague, he left a part of his army to maintain the siege and sailed back to Athens, having lost more than a thousand of his soldiers. After Hagnon had withdrawn, the Potidaeans, since their grain supply was entirely exhausted and the people in the city were disheartened, sent heralds to the besiegers to discuss terms of capitulation. These were received eagerly and an agreement to cessation of hostilities was reached on the following terms: All the Potidaeans should depart from the city, taking nothing with them, with the exception that men could have one garment and women two. When this truce had been agreed upon, all the Potidaeans together with their wives and children left their native land in accordance with the terms of the compact and went to the Chalcidians in Thrace among whom they made their home; and the Athenians sent out as many as a thousand of their citizens to Potidaea as colonists and portioned out to them in allotments both the city and its territory.
This extract is from: Diodorus Siculus, Library (ed. C. H. Oldfather, 1989). Cited Mar 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
POTIDEA (Ancient city) HALKIDIKI
About the same time Philip, king of the Macedonians, who had been
victorious over the Illyrians in a great battle and had made subject all the people
who dwelt there as far as the lake called Lychnitis, now returned to Macedonia,
having arranged a noteworthy peace with the Illyrians and won great acclaim among
the Macedonians for the successes due to his valour. Thereupon, finding that the
people of Amphipolis were ill-disposed toward him and offered many pretexts for
war, he entered upon a campaign against them with a considerable force. By bringing
siege-engines against the walls and launching severe and continuous assaults,
he succeeded in breaching a portion of the wall with his battering rams, whereupon,
having entered the city through the breach and struck down many of his opponents,
he obtained the mastery of the city and exiled those who were disaffected toward
him, but treated the rest considerately. Since this city was favourably situated
with regard to Thrace and the neighbouring regions, it contributed greatly to
the aggrandizement of Philip. Indeed he immediately reduced Pydna, and made an
alliance with the Olynthians in the terms of which he agreed to take over for
them Potidaea, a city which the Olynthians had set their hearts on possessing.
Since the Olynthians inhabited an important city and because of its huge population
had great influence in war, their city was an object of contention for those who
sought to extend their supremacy. For this reason the Athenians and Philip were
rivals against one another for the alliance with the Olynthians. However that
may be, Philip, when he had forced Potidaea to surrender, led the Athenian garrison
out of the city and, treating it considerately, sent it back to Athens--for he
was particularly solicitous toward the people of Athens on account of the importance
and repute of their city--but, having sold the inhabitants into slavery, he handed
it over to the Olynthians, presenting them also at the same time with all the
properties in the territory of Potidaea.
This extract is from: Diodorus Siculus, Library (ed. C. H. Oldfather, 1989). Cited Mar 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
EDESSA (Town) PELLA
Prehistorical times 4000-3000 BC: In the area of "Loggos" and "Paradisos"
they have discovered archelological finds
Historical times: The settling of the Macedonians - Hellenic civilization
- the use of the name Edessa (derived from Fed- which is also a lingual type of
hyd-(issa) which is derived from the word hydor (=water) and means watertown,
the town of waters. Edessa becomes the capital city of Macedonian State.
Ancient times: Edessa is built on two levels - The Acropolis (the persent
place) and the main town (place "Loggos")
168 - 130 BC: The conquest by the Romans - The via Egnatia passes through
Edessa
27 BC - 249 AC: There is a mint in the town
The first Cristian Period: The dissemination of Cristianity begins after
the journeys in Macedonia of Apostle Paul
4th cent AC: The establishing of the Edessian Episcopate which is part
of the Metropolis of Thessaloniki. Both areas are part of the Roman Pope's authority.
end 4th cent AC: Edessa belongs to the region of 'Macedonia the first'
as part of the eastern Roman Empire (afterwards the byzantine empire)
691-692: The first well-known bishop Isidoros of Edessa takes part in the
ecumenical synod and signs as the bishop of the town of Edessa
731-733: The emperor Leon III Isavros detaches the area from church's authority
belonging to the Pope of Rome
913-959: Edessa is mentioned in the writings of Constantinos VII as an
area of the byzantine empire
989: The bulgarian occupies Edessa and it becomes the seat of his temporary
state and the bulgarian residence.
10th cent: The beginning of the use, name "Vodena" instead of Edessa (Slavic
word for water=voda which means watertown, the town of waters
1003: The emperor Vasilios II "the bulgar stayer" liberates Edessa and
set ups byzantine garissons in the town while he sends the bulgarians to exil
1015: The town recaptured by the bulgarians but the emperor Vasilios II
campaigns and sets up new garissons
1019: The episcopate of Ochrid is established to which Edessa is part of
1204: After the 4th crusade Edessa was part of the Latin Kingdom of Thessaloniki
under Bonifate ole Monferance
1218-1219: Theodorus of Ipirus liberates Edessa from crusaders and the
town at this time is part of the domain of Ipirus
1239-1252: The establishing of the Vodena domain with the Theodorus if
Ipirus
1252-1254: Edessa was corporated to the empire of Nikea later under the
after emperor Michael VII Paleologos
1327-1328: During the civil war between the emperors Edessa is taken over
by Ioannis Katakouzinos VI who became later emperor
1341: Edessa was besieged by the Serbs under Stefan Dusan. The byzantine
generals Thomas and Andronikos Paleologos raise the siege
1342: The serbs of Dusan succed in occupying the town. In the end Dusan
gives the town over to the emperor Katakouzinos
1343: The occupation of Edessa by the Serbs
1351: Temperaly recapture of the town by the byzantines
1351-1395: The town's occupation by the Serbs. The city walls and many
public and private buildings are being destroyed. The citizens are enslaved. The
town begins to be built at the present place
1389: The town is occupied by the Ottomans
1395: A completely destruction of the town by a powerful earthquake
1750: Monks who were educators start the first schools
1767: The upgrading of the Episcopate of Edessa and becomes Metropolis
1782: The first secondary school named "Hellinomuseon" is established
1789: The metropolitan bishop Meletius together with many citizens of Edessa
takes part in the revolution of Lefkadian "Louizi" against the second Russian-Turkish
war.
1821: Many inhabitannts of Edessa take actively part in the revolution
of 1821 (Naum, Gatsos, Trupkos etc)
1862: The first hospital opens by the "Fraternity of Youths"
1862: A 'Boys' school was open
1872-1877: The "Educational society of Vodena (Edessa)" was set up and
the "Maiden School" was built for the young girls in Edessa
1877: A memorial of Edessa inhabitants was sent to the conference in Constantinople
where they declare their willingness to fight for the rights of Hellenism.
1891: The first regulation for the local "Hellenic Orthodox community of
Vodena (Edessa)" was written
1892: Edessa is connected by railway with Monastiri (Bitola-FYROM)
1895: The first textile factory was founded. The driving force, the power,
is the "White Coal" (=water). The begining of an industrial development in Edessa.
1900: The mosque "Geni Tzami" and the clock of the city was built
1904-1908: The inhabitants of Edessa take part in the Macedonian fight
for the liberation of Macedonia and its incorporation to Hellas
1907: The textile factory "KATO ESTIA" at "Loggos" district was founded
1912: Edessa was liberated from the Turks
1915: The first Hellene Mayor is appointed and parliamentary ellections
were accomplished. Edessa ellects debuty at the Hellenic Parliament.
1921: After the first excavations from Proffessor Evstratios Pelekidis,
the site of Ancient Edessa was showed
1922: The gymnasium "Perikalles" is founded and the Culture Assosiation
"Alexander the Great" is established.
1935: A conflagration and floods destroys a large part of the town
1936: The first Edessian was take part at Olympic Games in Berlin. Was
named Dimitrios Jakas.
1925-1940: A great industrial growth. Edessa is called "Manchester of the
East" (12000 inhabitants - 2500 industrial workers)
1940-1944: The town is occupied by the Germans (Nazi). They destroy a big
part of the traditional quarter "Varosi", the boys school and many other buildings
1946-1948: The civil war
Decades '50-'60: The end of industrial growth - Immigration
1962-1968: The waterfalls area is menaced by the public electricity service.
The citizens of Edessa stand out with unexpected for the age ecological assertions.
Decades '70-'80-'90: Town planning. Touristic - Cultural - Athletic - and
intellectual development.
1982: The town hall was founded
1991: The population of the city is 17.128 inhabitants.
Constantinos Stalidis, ed.
This text is cited Mar 2003 from the Municipality of Edessa URL below, which contains images.
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