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Amphipolis - Serres

When Paul the Apostle and Silas left Philippi , after their eventful stay, they took the Via Egnatia and headed in haste for Thessalonica.

It is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles that'... when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica ...' (17:1), which means that although there were important cities in the region, Paul passed them by without halting. He was in a hurry to reach Thessalonica, where he knew 'there was a synagogue of the Jews', since this is mentioned at the end of the passage cited.

However, Amphipolis was one of the most important cities in Macedonia . It was founded in 43 7/6 BC by General Hagnon, son of Nikias, on the site of the earlier city of Ennea Hodoi, and was named because of the fact that it developed on both banks of the River Strymon. This was a naturally fortified and strategic position that controlled the fertile farm land and the sources of metal ores. Amphipolis was the headquarters of the First Meris, one of the four administrative regions into which the Romans divided Macedonia . Alexander the Great had set out from Amphipolis on his campaign of conquest and it was here that his wife Roxane and her son were assassinated. It was the birthplace of Zoilos Homeromastix ('Scour-ger of Homer'), the fourth-century BC sophist, and of Pamphilos, teacher of Apelles and Pausias. Much later it became an episcopal see and a significant religious centre, as is indicated by the discovery of basilicas and an Early Christian rotunda church in archaeological excavations. Amphipolis is believed to have been destroyed some time in the eighth or ninth century and to have been rebuilt in the thirteenth or fourteenth. It is to this latter period that the remnants of two towers, one on each bank of the Strymon, date. They belonged to monasteries on Mt Athos and were most probably used as storehouses, while at the same time functioning as surveillance posts (vigles) for the pass to the heartland.

The vital and strategic role of Amphipolis during Antiquity is reflected in the panic that seized the Athenians when it was captured in 422 BC by the Lacedaemonian General Brasidas, during the Peloponnesian War, an event described loquaciously by Thucydides. In the famous battle that ensued, both the leader of the victors, Brasidas, and the leader of the Athenians, Kleon, were killed. Amphipolis enjoyed a splendid heyday during the reign of Philip II. Among the city's sons were three of Alexander the Great's most distinguished admirals, Nearchos, Androsthenes and Lao-medon. Her remarkable floruit during the Roman Age is further attested by the fact that the Via Egnatia passed so close by.