Thessalonica

Thessalonike (Salonica)

A city and port in Macedonia (northern Greece), at the head of the Thermaic Gulf. After earlier settlement of the area by the Thracian tribe of the Mygdones, the city was founded on the site of their township Therme (Sedes) c 316 BC by one of Alexander the Great's successors, Cassander, who named it after his wife, Thessalonice, the sister of Alexander. The new foundation was the product of the amalgamation (synoecism) of twenty-six small towns and villages. It owed its importance to its location at the meeting-point between the highway to central Europe (by way of the rivers Axius [Vardar] and Margus [Morava]) and the east-west route—the later Via Egnatia—leading from Byzantium (İstanbul) to the Adriatic.

Protected by the peninsula of Chalcidice, the open anchorage of Thessalonica replaced Pella (where the harbor had silted up) as Macedonia's principal port. When Pyrrhus of Epirus invaded the country, the Macedonian king Antigonus II escaped to Thessalonica (274). Following the Roman victory over Perseus of Macedonia at Pydna, it underwent a long siege that resulted in its capitulation; but the Romans made it the capital first of the Second Macedonian Region and then of their new province of Macedonia-Achaea (146). During the civil war between Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar (49), Thessalonica served as the former's base, but during the Philippi campaign (42) it chose the winning side of Antony and Octavian (the future Augustus), issuing coinage with both their heads and receiving confirmation of its free status (libertas). In AD 49/50 (and again in 56) St. Paul visited the city, whose Christian community he addressed in his Epistles to the Thessalonians.

The prosperity of Thessalonica in imperial times was illustrated by abundant monetary issues, on which special attention was devoted to the local Pythian (Victory, Caesarean, Cabirian) Games, intended to compete with the festivals of its rival Beroea. Under Trajanus Decius (249–51) it became a Roman colony, striking coins that display four temples connected with the imperial cult (neocorate); but these issues continued to employ Greek, rather than Latin, inscriptions until they ceased under Gallienus (253–68). At this period the city had to repel repeated attacks by the Goths. During the tetrarchy introduced by Diocletian (284–305), however, it entered on a new period of brilliant life as one of the major imperial capitals, in which his Caesar Galerius resided; from now onward it was also one of the principal mints of the Roman world. In 324 Constantine the Great mustered his fleet at its port before launching his victorious campaign against Licinius.

Theodosius I the Great (379–95) employed Thessalonica as his base for operations against the Germans. In his reign, its important ecclesiastical vicariate became a standing institution. His Edict that bore its name (380) attacked pagans and supporters of the Arian Church. In 390, after his military commander, the Visigoth Butheric, had been lynched for failing to control outrages by his troops, Theodosius invited the population to a special performance in the hippodrome, where he had between seven and fifteen thousand of them massacred—an action for which he was compelled to do penance by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Mediolanum (Milan). In 441/2, in replacement of threatened Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica), Thessalonica was made the headquarters of the praetorian prefect of Illyricum—one of four such officials who administered the eastern and western empires—and subsequently rose to become the second city of the Byzantine empire.

Certain discoveries go back to the period of Mygdonian (Thracian) habitation. Thus a temple of c 500 BC has been located at Therme, the township that preceded Thessalonica. Moreover at Sindos, a suburb of the modern city, investigations below thick alluvium from the river Echedorus (Gallicos) have revealed an inhumation cemetery of c 540–470 BC that contained rich material including five gold face-masks, and seems to have been the burial center of the adjacent Thracian settlement of North Anchialos (the ancient Sindos or Chalastra or Strepsa).

The later city of Thessalonica, rising from its bay in the form of an amphitheater on the slopes of Mount Khortiatis, was designed according to a regular plan; a Hellenistic temple of Serapis and a gymnasium have been identified. There was also extensive building activity during the later second and early third centuries AD, including the construction of a colonnaded agora and houses with large mosaic floors. The presence of Galerius during the tetrarchy prompted the creation of a magnificent new palace quarter c 300. Two large halls that formed part of his residence have been uncovered. One is an octagonal building with apsed niches, and the other, a rectangular structure, forms the vestibule of a colonnaded processional street, flanked by the hippodrome (the scene of Theodosius' massacre), which has recently been reexamined. The crossroads at which this street began is surmounted by the triple, domed Arch of Galerius, adorned with reliefs illustrating his victory over the Persians. The street led up to a precinct enclosing Galerius' sumptuously decorated circular mausoleum (though he was eventually buried at his birthplace Romulianum instead, because Licinius would not permit the removal of his body to Thessalonica). When the empire became Christian, this rotunda was transformed into a church, which, like several others inside and outside the walls, may go back as early as the fourth century AD.

The selection of Thessalonica as the capital of one of the four imperial prefectures in 441/2 instigated a further lavish phase of development. A new palace was built for the prefect, new walls were constructed (incorporating marble seats taken from the hippodrome), and traces of baths and private dwellings of the same date are to be seen. There was also a remarkable array of Christian churches. A two-aisled basilica, known from the later Middle Ages as the Akheiropoietos (`made without hands,’ after an ikon believed to have been miraculously painted), was dedicated to the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) soon after her recognition by the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431, and completed c 470; it is the only major pre-Byzantine basilica hall-church in Greece that still remains in use. The cupola of the Church of St. George, of the same century, was adorned by a mosaic that, although largely destroyed, can be partly reconstructed. The more or less contemporary Basilica of St. Demetrius, a martyr of Galerius' persecutions, possessed four aisles and transepts, and is the largest church in Greece. The small chapel of Hosios David (an obscure hermit), alternatively known as Panayia tou Latomou, seems to date back to the late fifth century, and is perhaps the earliest church in Europe to exhibit the Syrian cross-in-square grand plan; it contains a remarkable apse mosaic of the beardless Christ between Ezekiel and Habakkuk, discovered beneath a plaster coating. An edifice at Monolaki Kyriakou displays Roman, early Christian, Byzantine and Islamic constructional phases. A severe earthquake in 1978 has necessitated extensive conservation and restoration work in the city.