Pella (Greece)
Pela, or Pella, (in ancient Greek, Πέλλα, Pélla) is an ancient city, located in the central plain of the Macedonia region in Greece. Important Macedonian city located to the west of the river Axio, or Vardar of the Slavic, between it and the Lidias, about 40 km northwest of the ancient Therma, present-day Thessaloniki, and about 10 km north of the Thermaic Gulf. Perched on a hill overlooking a muddy lake in ancient times: this city with a mixed Greco-Barbarian population came under the control of the Temenid kings at the beginning of the 5th century BC. C., but it did not come out of obscurity until it became his habitual residence, at a time when the kingdom was in full expansion under the dependence of the Thracians and the Chalcidian League. It became the capital of the Kingdom of Macedonia in the early IV century BCE. C. replacing Egas, the current Vergina, and kept this category in the Hellenistic period, under the reign of the Antigonids.
The city was sacked by the Romans in 168 B.C. C., at the end of the third Macedonian war. It then entered a long decline from which not even a colonial refoundation under Augustus managed to make it resurface. Archaeological excavations of the site have revealed a population organized according to a hypodamic plan, centered in a large agora, whose vast residences adorned with numerous mosaics testify to its prosperity. The inscriptions found during the excavations have made it possible to settle the debate on the nature of the ancient Macedonian language in favor of the thesis of a dialect of the Greek dialect.
At the time of the Macedonian Empire and during its greatest splendor, it was its capital. Before, at the beginning of the history of Macedonia, the capital had been Egas, the current Vergina. King Archelaus of Macedonia (413-393 BC) abandoned this ancient city to build himself a palace not far away that he had the great Greek painter Zeuxis decorate. This is how Pela was born.
During these years of great boom and splendor, Pella was a center of culture famous throughout the known world. A great majority of the outstanding artists met in this city. Euripides premiered his best plays there and he died here, and the painter Apelles also worked there. Mosaic art also had its headquarters in this city. They were mosaics built with colored pebbles with very delicate shades that created very beautiful compositions of figures. They are usually with a dark background and the rest in light tones. They are delimited by strips of lead or ceramic to emphasize the silhouettes. At the end of the 3rd century B.C. C. these pebbles were replaced by glass tiles. In 1956 excavations were made that discovered the center of this ancient city and house floors made of mosaic with mythological scenes in most cases came to light.
Philip II of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great were born in this city, educated by the great Aristotle, who was another illustrious guest of the city.
The Via Egnatia passed through Pella, an ancient Roman road from the second half of the 2nd century BC. C., which crossed the Balkan Peninsula from the Adriatic Sea to Byzantium (now Istanbul, Turkey).
You can visit its ruins from the Macedonian period, the pebble mosaics, the museum and the acropolis.
History
Capital of the Kingdom of Macedonia
The first mentions of the city are found in Herodotus regarding the campaign of Xerxes II, and in Thucydides regarding the Macedonian expansion and the war with Sitalces, king of the Odrysian Thracians.
The origins of the city are obscure, as is the precise date of its incorporation into the Kingdom of Macedonia: local epigraphy suggests that Pella, in the 5th century B.C. C., was a mixed Greek-barbarian establishment, and like him there were several in the Macedonian central plain around the Thermaic Gulf (Icnas, Calestra, Sindo and Terma). A funerary inscription from the first half of the V century a. C. engraved in Ionic characters by a certain Orthagoras or Pythagoras, son of Aristocrates and Aristobulus, constitutes an indication that proves that this population was of Ionian origin. Pella would have been conquered by the Temenids around the years 510-505 BC. C. But it is possible that it maintained a certain autonomy until the middle of the V century a. C., as was probably also the case with the neighboring city of Icnas, which continued to mint its own coinage until a. C. In all probability it also had its own civic institutions.
For Xenophon, it was at the beginning of the 4th century B.C. C., the largest city in Macedonia. It would be King Archelaus or more probably Amyntas III who made it the capital of the kingdom a little before this time and attracted renowned Greek artists, such as the painter Zeuxis, the poet Timothy of Miletus and, especially the tragic Euripides, whose days ended in Pella. There he wrote and had his tragedy Archelaus performed. This change in political status was accompanied by the settlement of Macedonian colonists and a notable change in demography that is perceptible in the epigraphy: the name day was modified, with a greater variety of names and with less Ionian influence. Macedonian names were used along with others of Hellenic origin. Amyntas III's decision to make Pella his capital can be explained by the need to better control the new territories of the kingdom and the ancient Greek cities always ready to revolt under the influence from the neighboring Chalcidian League. Pella herself rose in the year 383 B.C. C. It was the son of Amyntas III, Philip II, who grew up in the new palace of Pela, who managed to integrate these territories within the kingdom. Contrary to the oratorical exaggeration of Demosthenes, the king's great Athenian enemy, Pella had nothing of the town that it was, although it did not reach the demographic importance of Athens.
The reign of Antigonus II Gónatas probably represented the heyday of the city since most of the remains found date from this period. Polybius and Titus Livy mentioned it in many of their works, both as the capital of Philip V and Perseus during the Macedonian wars. The only currently known description of the city was written by Titus Livy regarding the visit made by the Roman general Emilio Paulo to the city after defeating Perseus in the battle of Pydna in 167 BC. c.:
Pela, built on a hill of descending slope to the northwest, is surrounded by swamps formed by the drainage of the lakes and a depth that makes them intransitable both in winter and in summer. From the very center of the swamp closest to the city, it stands out, in the form of an island, a citadel settled in a dam of enormous work, strong enough to support the walls and resist the humidity of the surrounding waters. From afar, the citadel seems adjacent to the city walls, but they are separated by a channel on which they have built a communication bridge.
Institutions of the Macedonian city
As the capital of the Macedonian kingdom, Pella was the habitual residence of the king, who had his palace there. Other buildings in the Macedonian city were the sanctuary of Heracles, the meeting place of the Council of Macedonia (the Sinedrion) and also of the bouleuterion, where the bouleterion met. , the Greek council. It was also the meeting place of the Macedonian army during the spring festival of the Xandika, during which a purification ceremony took place that was described by Tito Livio.
Yet Pella also had its own civic institutions even after it became the capital of Macedonia. In it there were two politarchs , the main magistrates in the Greek cities. It is believed that there was a priesthood of the god Asclepius, as was also the case in other cities such as Amphipolis and Calydon. There was also a second magistracy, of a financial nature, as in other Macedonian cities (Thessaloniki, Apollonia, Dion, etc.). Its existence is attested in a decree found in the Asclepeion regarding the existence of two treasurers (taimai).
In Pella there was a mint in Antigonid times, whose coins were minted under the name Botteaton (in ancient Greek: ΒΟΤΤΕΑΤΩΝ), which had no ethnic significance at that time, but rather indicated an administrative division of the Macedonian kingdom: it is one of the four merides (μερίδες in Greek), possibly dating back to the time of Philip II and retaken by the Romans on the occasion of the dismemberment territory of the kingdom in the year 167.
Roman sources indicate that Pella was also home to the main Treasury of the kingdom. The fact that Pella's currency was different from that used by all Macedonians implies that the district had its own Treasury and its own finances. This also corresponded to the existence of a regional assembly, probably of a primary representative nature, as epigraphy indirectly attests.
Religious Life
- Cults and shrines
Although it was not the religious capital of the kingdom, a role played by Dion, Pella contained numerous sanctuaries, most of which have been found and studied for their inscriptions and valuable material on the religious life of the city's inhabitants.
- The Tesmoforion, located at the northwest end of the city, was the sanctuary of Démeter Tesmofora: it consisted of a small peribole of ten meters in diameter with an altar in the center. There were numerous clay figurines that had been produced in series in a local workshop. The appearance of numerous bone remains of animals, especially pigs and sheep, attest to the sacrifices that were made on the occasion of the feast of the Tesmoforias, which was celebrated in autumn.
- The sanctuary of Aphrodite-Cibeles, the Mother of Gods, occupied all the length of an apple north of the agora. It covered a vast space in which there were two small temples north and south, warehouses, workshops and an underground cistern. The worship of the goddess was identified by several inscriptions, statuettes and clay figurines. The first phase of its construction dates from the last quarter of the 4th century BC and was abandoned in the 1st century, following an earthquake that destroyed the entire practice of the city.
- The sanctuary of Darron, a local warrior god identified by a century inscriptionIIa. C., was in the southwest of the city, near the monumental route that united the city with the port. Hesiquius of Alexandria defined Darron as a warrior god in the fourth century, but the inscription of Pela is the first epigraphic test of his cult.
Thanks to different statuettes of different gods, it is known that other cults were practiced. Athena, with the epithet Alkidemus, was represented not only with the gorgoneion , the head of the gorgon Medusa, but also with a helmet with three bull horns, she was a protective goddess of troops. Dionysus and Pan were also honored at Pella.
The material found in the necropolis has also been used to learn about certain religious practices. In the eastern necropolis, a piece of gold in the shape of a laurel leaf dating from the 4th century BC has been found. It bears an inscription: "ΦΕΡΣΕΦΟΝΗΙ ΠΟΣΕΙΔΙΠΠΟΣ ΜΥΣΤΗΣ ΕΥΣΕΒΗΣ" ("To Persephone, of the pious initiate (mystés) Posidippus"). Other examples of golden leaves are known from different tombs in Pella. some have also been found in Achaia and Thessaly with similar inscriptions referring to a mystés. The interpretation of the epigraphic formula is still debated, although there is agreement that the cult of the mysteries in question are neither the Eleusinian nor the Samothracian. At first, upon discovering the gold piece, it was believed that Posidipus dedicated the gold piece to Persephone as goddess of the underworld or that he was an initiate in a cult of this goddess. This would demonstrate the existence of a cult of Persephone in Pella. Another interpretation, based on the Pelinna inscriptions, is that Posidippus wanted to draw the goddess's attention to her initiate status in order to secure a privileged position in the underworld. According to this theory, the cult of the mysteries in which this character was initiated would not be consecrated only to Persephone but was also dedicated to other divinities, especially Dionysus. Another Posidipus, also a citizen of Pella and initiated into a cult local is known from an Aetolian League inscription at Termo, dated to 263 BC. C.: this epigrammist residing in Alexandria could be related to Posidipus although the name was common in Pella. The Termo inscription made an explicit allusion to its author's passage through the kingdom of the dead and could be similar to the gold plates located in the mouth of the deceased with the inscription indicating their initiate status or their crowns of foliage (ivy, myrtle), whose mission was to facilitate the passage to the other world.
- The Curse Tab of Pela
Among the inscriptions related to the religious practices of the inhabitants of Pella, a lead tablet with a love curse stands out, which attests to the existence of magical practices in Macedonia. In the case of the Pella tablet, it is a curse by which a woman whose name has not been preserved tried to prevent the marriage of her husband or partner with another woman, Zetimas. The tablet was discovered in 1986 in a tomb in the eastern necropolis of Pella, the oldest in the city (the first burials date from the 5th century BC) No other object was found in the tomb apart from the tablet, so its dating had to be done based solely on the location of the burial within the cemetery. The researcher I. Akamatis calculated that the burial must date from between 380 and 350 BC. C. The text of the curse was translated by L. Dubois:
I write as a curse in the marriage ceremony of Tetima and Dionyshoon, and of all the other wives, both widows and virgins, but in particular Tetima; and I entrust Makron and the spirits that only when I dissent, unroll and pray this, then she may marry Dionyshoon, but not before, for I do not want her to take another woman, but to me; I am your supplicant: you fellows of Faith, beloved spirits, for all of mine have forsaken me. But keep this, for my sake, so that these things don't happen, and the wicked Tetima is bad and I'm happy and blessed.
The discovery of the wrapped tablet buried in a tomb shows that the wishes of the anonymous woman who had it made were not fulfilled. But the interest of the record goes far beyond the study of katadesmoi or curses: it is written in a Greek dialect whose particularities are close to those of Thessalian and some dialects of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. C. and whose characters are unmistakably Greek. Some linguists think it may be the Old Macedonian language, or at least the form of Macedonian spoken in the kingdom's capital in the 4th century a. C.
The Roman city
In the Roman reorganization of Macedonia, Pella was the capital of the third méris (district) and perhaps the seat of the Roman governor. Crossed by the Via Egnatia, Pella was an important city on the road between Epidamnos and Thessalonica. Cicero was in the city in 58 B.C. C., but at that time the capital of the province had been transferred to Thessalonica, so Pella had lost importance.
For unknown reasons, possibly related to a major earthquake, the city fell into decline at the end of the 1st century BCE. C. It suffered a colonial decline between the years 45 and 30 a. C. It was named Colonia Iulia Augusta Pella on imperial coins. Augustus settled in it Italic inhabitants whose lands he had confiscated in Italy to settle his veterans in. But contrary to other Macedonian colonies (Dion, Philippi, Cassandrea) he did not obtain the ius italicum . In the colony there were four pairs of magistrates (duoviriis quinquennales).
The decline of the city, despite the arrival of new settlers, was rapid. Dio Chrysostom and Lucian of Samosata witnessed, perhaps exaggeratingly, the ruin of the ancient capital of Philip II and Alexander the Great. In reality, the Roman city was located further west than the Macedonian capital, which explains why these testimonies are partially contradicted by numismatics and epigraphy.
The last literary mention of the place in antiquity was that of Hierocles in his work Synecdemus in the 6th century. The city was destroyed by the Slavs at the end of the same century or at the beginning of the 7th century. In Byzantine times, the place was occupied by a fortress. The name reappeared only in the literature of a 12th-century Byzantine bishop living in Yannitsa, a medieval town near ancient Pella, who said "Slavitza, i.e. Pella (...)".
The urban plan
The city was built on the island of Phacos, a promontory overlooking the marshes surrounding Pella to the south and, beyond, a lake that opened to the sea in Hellenistic times.
The Palace
The city wall mentioned by Livy has not yet been completely found. It consisted of a defensive system of adobe (approximately 50 cm on a side) that was raised on stone foundations, part of which has been excavated to the north of the palace. Inside the walls there were three hills in the north and the palace was located in a privileged position on the central hill. It covered a considerable area that may have reached as much as 60,000 m². Its plan, still poorly known, was integrated into the geometric plan of the city.
The palace of Pella was made up of several (perhaps seven) large juxtaposed architectural ensembles, arranged in two categories, each including a series of rooms arranged around a large square courtyard with porticoes. Archaeologists have identified a palaestra and baths. The south façade of the palace, the one facing the city, was occupied in its entire length (of at least 153 m) by a grandiose portico, built on a two-meter-high base. The articulation between the four main complexes corresponded to an interruption of the portico by a large 15-meter propylaeus that provided the palace with an imposing monumental entrance that could be seen from the entire city.
The dating of this complex presents some problems: the large porticoed buildings could date from the reign of Philip II (355-336 BC), but other parts date from earlier. The baths could date from the reign of Cassander of Macedon (305-297 BC).
The size of the complex shows that, contrary to the palace of Aegas, it did not consist simply of a royal residence and a monument, but also a place from which the kings ruled and directed the administration of Macedonia.
The hypodamic plane
To the south of the palace lay the city proper, conceived according to the hypodamic plan: a regular orthogonal division of urban space. Two series of parallel streets intersected perpendicularly and formed a network of rectangular blocks (blocks) of eight different categories. Its width was constant at about 45 m while its length varied from one category to another, ranging from 111 m to 152 m, the most common being 125 m. The width of the streets was between 9 and 10 m, except for the main east-west street, which was 15 meters wide. This street constituted the main axis of the city and led to the agora, a central space that corresponded to the surface of 10 blocks, reserved to serve as a public square. Two north-south streets were also slightly wider and served to connect the city with the port, which was further south. The streets were provided with sewers and water collection pipes for use by private homes.
This orthogonal plane dated back to the first half of the IV century BCE. C. It was similar in its principles to those of other contemporary Greek cities, but it was distinguished by the imposing size of its blocks: in comparison, the city of Olynthos in Chalcidice, which provided the kings of Macedonia with a model of orthogonal urbanism, it had blocks of 86 by 35 meters. Many later Hellenistic cities created urban models almost comparable to those of Pella.
In the center of the city, the agora was practically square, 200 m from east to west and 181 m from north to south. The size of the complex was expanded to 262 by 238 m by adding porticoes that ran along each side.
The habitat
Each block of the urban network had at least two houses. The largest were in the central area of the city, around the agora and measured between 2,500 and 3,000 m² while the smallest had an area between 200 and 500 m². The shape of these houses was organized around a patio with a peristyle, provided with Ionic or Doric columns, behind which the rooms opened. Some included another floor. The wealthier houses had large banqueting rooms that generally opened onto the north side of the courtyard. They were paved with very elaborate mosaics that demonstrate the existence in Pella of important mosaicists. The mosaics were made with pebbles (later they were replaced by glass tesserae), with which mythological scenes based on paintings of the time were represented, especially by the artist Zeuxis. The names of the characters represented were indicated with stone inscriptions in the lower part of the scene. These mosaics consisted of various technical aspects, such as the use of lead or terracotta plates to highlight the motifs, a special stage within this type of pavement.
The largest house found had two courtyards with columns, one with a Doric peristyle and the other with an Ionic peristyle. It is known as the House of Dionysus because of the mosaic that adorns the banquet hall in which a panther represents the god. Other mosaics depicted a lion hunting, a couple of centaurs, and a griffin attacking a doe. The antechambers of the house had mosaics with geometric motifs. A second notable house is the so-called House of the Kidnapping of Helena. due to a mosaic of exceptional size (8.5 by 2.8 m) depicting the abduction of Leda's daughter by Theseus. This mythological panel shows Theseus heading to the left, where his chariot is driven by Forbas, while Helen turns back clinging to the arms of a companion, named Deianira in an inscription. This depiction of the mythological episode differs markedly from traditional depictions., where Deianira is not found, who is not associated with this myth, nor is Forbas (Thus, in a representation attributed to Polygnotus from the year 430 BC, the coachman is Pirítoo and Helena's companion is her sister Phoebe). This unexpected innovation in motif could have been inspired by the artist or based on a painting from the IV century B.C. C. attributed to Zeuxis. Other mosaics from the same house show an Amazonomachy and a deer hunting scene, signed by the Gnosis Painter. These different mosaics were from immediately after the reign of Alexander the Great.
The painted decoration on the walls of these houses rivaled the floors, as shown by early Pompeian style frescoes found in a house, 5 meters high.
The Roman Colony
The Roman colony founded around the year 30 B.C. C. was located 1.5 km east of the Hellenistic city, north of the Baths of Alexander the Great, on the Via Egnatia. Excavations have brought to light important remains, protected by a III century wall of a much more modest size than that of Hellenistic city. The material found testifies that the colony was used during the 4th and 5th centuries. It is impossible that this new fortified site corresponded to the fort mentioned by Procopius of Caesarea in his work On Buildings, under the name of "Basilika Amyntou ", among the fortresses rebuilt in the region by Justinian I. This would then be a literary testimony of the survival of the city in the VI.
A large early Christian basilica belonging to the late Roman city was located to the north of the Baths of Alexander. It was located in a still largely unknown neighborhood. It was a church of the armored basilica type, with three naves, a narthex, an exonarthex and an atrium. The building measured 42.5 by 20.2 meters and was topped on the east by a semicircular apse 7.5 m in diameter where the sinotronon has been found, which adapted to the shape of the apse and was covered in marble. The floor of the sanctuary, the central nave and the central area of the narthex was covered with opus sectile, and quite coarse mosaics with geometric motifs occupied the side aisles, the rest of the narthex and the exonarthex. The dating of opus sectile pavements in Macedonia, such as those at Amphipolis and Philippi, for example, place the construction of the church around the middle of the century V. After a first destruction, the basilica was rebuilt with some modifications in the VI century. The lateral wings were replaced by a tribune. Monumental porticoes gave way to the church from a street on one side and to a baptistery on the other. The building was suddenly destroyed in the early VII century, possibly due to an earthquake. The area then saw limited residential occupation in Byzantine times, during which another small church was built, built a short distance to the west of the first basilica.
The archaeological exploration of the site
Initial uncertainties about site siting
Regarding the location of the Macedonian capital, Strabo says that:
Pela is part of the Inferior Macedonia, which inhabits the Botieos. It occupies a promontory on Lake Ludiaco, as well as an islet that is attached to firm ground by a wooden bridge.Strabon, op. cit.VII, fr.20c.
The first travelers and scholars who became interested in the ancient city doubted the precise location due to its disappearance in antiquity and some important modifications in the geomorphology of the region. The sedimentation of the main rivers that flow into the gulf, the Lidias, the Haliacmon and the Vardar, has progressively lengthened the position of the coast. Following contemporary drainage of the Yanitsa marshes, the site lies 23 km from the coast of the Thermaic Gulf.
A Greek scholar, Meletios, indicated in a 1728 book that he was hesitating between Yanitsa and a place called ta Palatia, about which he investigated. In his writings of 1826, François Pouqueville took up this identification, giving it a slightly different spelling, Palatitza, and indicating that it was the village of Allah Kilissa. F. Beaujour, M. Cousinéry and William Martin Leake, for their part, gave the name Alla Klissé as a translation of the Greek Hagioi Apostoloi and specified that a spring located two kilometers from the town kept the place name of Pella. Thanks to Livy's description, archaeologists identified the site in the 19th century with the Greek city. This was confirmed by archaeological excavations in the 20th century.
A first shallow excavation was carried out between 1914 and 1915 by G. Oikonomos, although systematic exploration of the ruins began in 1953 and excavations in 1957 under the direction of Petsas. A first series of campaigns ended in 1963; The excavations were resumed in 1976, which still continue regularly in the agora sector.
The Archaeological Museum
The results of the archaeological excavations of Pella and other places with the same name are exhibited in the archaeological museum located on the same site. A first building to house the finds was erected in 1973 but, due to the importance of the discoveries made since the reopening of the excavations, a new museum was built that is perfectly integrated into the archaeological site and was inaugurated in 2009.
The collections are divided into several thematic areas dedicated to daily life, public life, sanctuaries, necropolises and the palace. Among the exhibits we can highlight the mosaic floors of several luxurious houses; the frescoes of the Pompeian style; various terracotta figurines or the so-called Pella curse tablet.