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Philippi

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Place description

Philippi was a colony of Thasos refounded by Philip II in 356BC. He renamed the original settlement under his name and settled poor Macedonians there. The plain in the west of the city was cultivated by the Macedonians as an agricultural land. A theatre was built in the age of Philip II. In 42BC, Mark Antony and Octavia won a decisive victory over Julius Caesar’s assassins on a plain south and west of Philippi. Philippi was subsequently refounded by Antony as a Roman veteran-colony and became one of the stations along via Egnatia, which was also the main thoroughfare of the city. Settled by westerners coming between 30BC and the later 1st century AD, Philippi became a thoroughly Roman place with its Roman deities and exclusively Latin inscriptions. The Philip II theatre was remodelled into Roman style in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, and its new shape allowed a deeper stage. According to an inscription, mime-artists performed Latin sketches there. An inscription of the tombstone of a local benefactor also mentioned that he sponsored gladiatorial games, wild beast hunt shows and the sprinkling of saffron perfume to mask the smells. In the 3rd century AD, an additional circular arena was built with an underground passage that allowed the sudden appearance of animals. The theatre continued to be used until AD400. Under a basilica in the city, there was a Macedonian tomb belonged to a known local family. Some superstructure was built on top of the tomb and it became a hero-cult. In the Roman forum, there was a marble-paved square enclosed on three sides by colonnades. A speaker’s forum was centrally placed at the forum. There was also an upper terrace with monumental buildings at the north side. At the southern section of the forum, there was a two-storey shopping stoa and a market or macellum. Two temples stood in the northwest and northeast section. One of them was adorned with statues of Athena and Victories. Two monuments and two public fountains were also built in the forum. A palaistra dated to the late 2nd century was featured with a colonnaded exercise court, a small lecture hall and a latrine. Christianity grew rapidly in Philippi and it produced martyrs by the early 2nd century. After 311AD, the city became a Christian centre and a place for pilgrimage. A basilica of St Paul was known to have existed in AD350. Four grandeur basilicas were also built in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. The city continued to be an imperial fortress in the 10th century.