Listed 17 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "KAVALA Prefecture GREECE" .
In 360 359 B.C., colonists from Thasos, led by the exiled Athenian (from Aphidnae deme) politician and rhetor, Kallistratos, founded a city on this site which they called Krenides springs from the abundant springs at the foot of the hill where the ancient settlement was made.
On the opposite coast of Thrace the Thasians held Stryme, Galepsus, Osyme, Daton, Scaptesyle
FILIPPI (Ancient city) KAVALA
While these things were going on, the Thasians settled the place called Crenides,8 which the king afterward named Philippi for himself and made a populous settlement.
THASSOS (Ancient city) THASSOS
KAVALA (Town) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
Ancient Neapolis,
the port of Philippi
where apostle Paul first landed on European soil, became the Byzantine town of
Christoupolis, the last stronghold against a host of aggressors; the city was
fortified by Andronikos II Palaeologos only to be pillaged in the 14th century
by irregular bands of Ottoman Turks. From the 15th century, under its new name,
Kavala, this strategically located city once again flowered both economically
and culturally.
Kavala from the 16th to the 19th century
In the middle of the 16th century, the French naturalist Pierre Bellon
described Kavala's walls, baths, places of worship and aqueduct, built during
the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and the reason for the changed face of the
city (which had previously been reduced to a way station after the Turks destroyed
it in 1391).
Because of the etymology of the word, Bellon believed that Kavala
was founded on the site of the city of Boukefala (Bucephala) and that it was initially
(around 1520-1530) inhabited by Jews of Hungarian origin, who were eventually
surrounded by both Greeks and Muslims.
In the 17th century Evliyia Celebi postulated that the word derived
from Kavalos, son of Philip II, while the French philhellene Charles Sonnini observed
in 1780 that the rock on which the city's houses still cluster resembles a horse
('caballo' in Spanish).
By the end of the 18th century, Kavala had developed into a center
of French commerce
with close ties with Marseille and Constantinople.
It already consisted of five neighborhoods with 900 houses (most of them Turkish).
Outside the fortified peninsula, cotton warehouses were built, which together
with the inns and the customs house gradually came to constitute the city's business
district.
Kavala in the 19th century
While business activities were beginning to spread beyond the city
walls, the administrative center (the Turkish governor's residence) continued
to be located within the fortified hilly peninsula. Between two and three thousand
people were packed into this area, which measured less than 25 acres. Initially,
this was where the small Greek community of Panayia (on the site of the Byzantine
town of Christoupolis) was located.
The future regent of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, was born in the old city.
During his heyday, in 1812, he built the poorhouse where the ancient Parthenon
temple had stood; also called the 'tebelhane' (inn for the lazy), it was later
converted into a muslim theological school.
The Greek business community, which from the mid-19th century had
begun to show considerable growth, built new churches (Ayios Ioannis, 1865-1867),
schools (e.g. the Parthenagogeio or Girls School), hospitals (e.g. the Evangelismos),
and some splendid mansions.
The very profitable tobacco
business had already started to attract a constantly rising number of Christians.
Kavala in the early 20th century
At the turn of the century Kavala was growing by leaps and bounds.
Tobacco exports
were at their peak (circa 10,000 tons annually), reaching a value of almost two
million pounds sterling. The tobacco warehouses were brimming with seasonal laborers
from all over eastern Macedonia.
The Greek population, which constituted the majority of the town's
inhabitants, was thriving. Charitable and pro-education societies of men and women,
clubs, hospitals, athletic associations, printing presses and Greek schools of
every level were founded and prospered in a city that was bursting with life and
nationalist hopes. The newspaper "Flag" was the mouthpiece for advocates
of a free Macedonia.
With the Greek vice consulate as headquarters, prosperous Kavala took
part in the Macedonian
Struggle, both by organizing Greek guerrilla bands and by acting as a post
for the transport and distribution of military supplies and arms.
Kavala after the liberation
Kavala was liberated and incorporated into the Greek state on 6 June
1913, after seven months of Bulgarian occupation.
The city spread out impressively along the waterfront, where most
of the tobacco warehouses were located. Within one century its population had
grown tenfold and its economic prosperity was more than evident.
The change in the flow of trade
at the end of the 19th century and the isolation of the port of Kavala from the
railroad
network had not affected the export traffic. The town's modernization and
wealth, which soon easily absorbed some 25,000 refugees from Thrace and Asia
Minor, was disrupted only by the destruction dealt by the Bulgarian occupations
during the First and Second World Wars.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains images.
THASSOS (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
Island in the northern Aegean
Sea, along the coast of Thracia.
Thasos owed its name to the mythological hero Thasus, a son of the
Phoenician king Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, Cilix , Phoenix and Europa. It
is while running after his sister Europa, abducted by Zeus to become the mother
of the Cretan king Minos, that Thasus eventually settled in the island to which
he gave his name.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
THASSOS (Ancient city) THASSOS
Since Athens supplied the largest number of warships in the fleet
of the Delian League, the balance of power in the League came firmly into the
hands of the Athenian assembly, whose members decided how Athenian ships were
to be employed. Members of the League had no effective recourse if they disagreed
with decisions made for the League as a whole under Athenian leadership. Athens,
for instance, could compel the League to send its ships to force reluctant allies
to go on paying dues if they stopped making their annual payments. The most egregious
instance of such compulsion was the case of the city-state of the island of Thasos
which, in 465 B.C, unilaterally withdrew from the Delian League after a dispute
with Athens over gold mines on the neighboring mainland. To compel the Thasians
to keep their sworn agreement to stay in the League, the Athenians led the fleet
of the Delian League, including ships from other member states, against Thasos.
The attack turned into a protracted siege, which finally ended after three years'
campaigns in 463 B.C. with the island's surrender. As punishment, the League forced
Thasos to pull down its defensive walls, give up its navy, and pay enormous dues
and fines. As Thucydides observed, rebellious allies like the Thasians "lost
their independence," making the Athenians as the League's leaders "no
longer as popular as they used to be."
This text is from: Thomas Martin's An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, Yale University Press. Cited November 2004 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
THASSOS (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
