PELLA
Macedonia, Greece.
A city in the
region of ancient Bottiaia to which King Archelaus (413-399 B.C.) moved the capital of Macedonia. It was the seat of Philip and the birthplace of Alexander.
Stephanos of Byzantium (s.v. Pella) mentions the pre-history of the place: “Pella of Macedonia was formerly
called Bounomos or Bounomeia . . .” In historical times
it was first mentioned by Herodotos (
7.123) in the description of Xerxes' journey to the Axios river “which
is the boundary between Mygdonia and Bottiaiis. The latter has a narrow coastal strip occupied by the cities of
Ichnae and Pella.” Later, Thucydides mentions Pella
twice, first in the passage about the Macedonians spreading E, before his time, and then in the attack of the Thracians under Sitalces against the Macedonian king Perdiccas, in his own time (
Thuc. 2.99.4, 100.4). Southern Greeks took scant notice of Archelaus' activities in the last years of the Peloponnesian War, and laughed at his building of a palace in Pella (Ael.,
VH 14.17). But
in Archelaus' time the painter Zeuxis came to Pella to
decorate the palace, and the poet Timotheus also came,
and the dramatist Euripides, who wrote the
Archelaus
there and died in Macedonia. After the time of Archelaus,
Pella grew larger, so that in Xenophon's time it was
called the “largest of the cities of Macedonia” (
Hell.
5.2.13). The statement of Demosthenes (18.68) that
Philip grew up “in a small and insignificant village” was
a rhetorical exaggeration. Information about Pella is curiously scanty in the time of Philip, Alexander, and the Diadochoi, but from a political and artistic point of view the best days of Pella were probably during the long
reign of the philosopher king Antigonos Gonatas (274-239 B.C.).
The only description of Pella which has survived is
that of Livy (
44.46.4-7), who writes of the capture of
the Macedonian capital by Aemilius Paulus after the
battle of Pydna, in which Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, was defeated. On the basis of his description, travelers and archaeologists from the end of the 18th through the 19th c. vaguely located Pella at a few
visible remains of an ancient city near the town of Agioi
Apostoloi, N of the Giannitsa swamp. In the first year
after the liberation of Macedonia from the Turks (1912),
excavations uncovered the remains of peristyle-type
houses, an underground cistern, a hoard of silver coins
of Kassander, bronze and iron household implements,
bronze bed fittings, etc. A fuller and clearer picture of
the topography of the ancient city has only been gained
after continuous surface observations which began in
1954.
The most ancient finds from the area, which go back
at least to the Bronze Age, came from: (
a) fields N of
the so-called Baths of Alexander; (
b) from a hill W of
the town of Palaia Pella; and especially from (
c) the
top of the Phakos within the former marsh. Test trenches
in the latter revealed a prehistoric settlement, like others
around the marsh, the best known being that of Nea
Nikomedeia, dating to the Early Neolithic period (7th
millennium B.C.). The prehistoric settlement on the Phakos may be Bounomos or Bounomeia (Steph. Byz.).
Over 40 test trenches brought Classical and Hellenistic remains to light over the whole area between the Phakos and the towns of Palaia Pella and Nea Pella. This area is about 2 km sq. It was ascertained that the
acropolis encompassed a part of a double hill, that is, the
hill occupied by the town of Palaia Pella (formerly
Haghioi Apostoloi) and another, to the W of it. On the
W hill, especially (Sections II and III), some rather
scanty remains of important buildings were uncovered.
Those which have come to light up to the present are:
(
a) walls ca. 2 m thick with huge poros orthostates (ca.
one m high, under one m thick, up to 2 m long), (
b）
Ionic and Doric architectural members, the scale of
which is shown by a Doric poros capital, dated to the
first quarter of the 4th c. B.C. with the side of the abacus
one m long, (
c) parts of a triangular votive monument
of bluish stone, (
d) fragments of marble architectural
members, statues, etc.
The position and scale of these constructions establish
that here on this “W hill” was probably the palace of
Archelaus, and the palace complex and temple, perhaps
that known from Livy (
42.51.2) as the Temple of
Athena Alkidemos. It is probable that the fortified peribolos of the palace complex made a part of the acropolis
wall and continued the city wall, which is now, however,
invisible, since, in all probability, only its foundations
and orthostates were of stone, while the upper parts were
of mudbrick, which hid the stone parts under a layer
of earth when they collapsed.
More striking are the discoveries around the center of
the ancient city, N of the Thessalonika-Edessa road (Section I, from which Sections IV and v are separated by the
road). Here, about six blocks of buildings were uncovered, constructed according to the Hippodamian system
of town planning. One of the blocks had three peristyle
courts with stoas and adjoining rooms on all sides, according to the Hellenistic type of house with peristyle.
The others had approximately the same arrangement.
They are surrounded by roads with a width of ca. 9 m
along which are water pipes and drains. Parts of the
buildings were at least two-storied, as apparent from the
remains of stairs and from architectural fragments such
as little columns and pillars. The floors of the ground
floor rooms were covered with mosaic pavement, some
completely plain, others with a geometric pattern, and
others with figures, but all of them made of natural
river pebbles. In 1957 the first four figured mosaics
were uncovered. These show: (
a) Dionysos, naked, on a
panther, (
b) a lion hunt, perhaps an episode known from
the life of Alexander, when he was saved by Krateros,
(
c) a gryphon tearing a deer apart, and (
d) a couple of
centaurs, male and female. In 1961 in another block four
more mosaic floors were uncovered, one of which is
badly damaged. The others show: (
a) the rape of Helen
by Theseus, (
b) a deer hunt with the inscription, “Gnosis
made it,” and (
c) an Amazonomachy.
In another section near the former marsh (Section VI)
a circular floor in the same pebble technique was discovered, mainly decorated with floral motifs, like the mosaics of Verghina.
The buildings with the mosaic floors are dated to
around the last quarter of the 4th c. or the beginning of
the 3d c. B.C. Some of the peristyle columns and walls
have been reconstructed in place. The mosaic floors have
been taken up and consolidated, and are in the local
museum, except for the mosaic of Gnosis, which remains
in situ.
Of the architectural fragments, besides the stone columns, pillars, and parts of a cornice, worth mention are
Corinthian pan and cover tiles decorated with palmettes,
painted simas from the pediments, etc. Among the tiles,
some are stamped with the name of the city in the genitive case (
ΠΕΛΛΗΣ. This was the first indisputable evidence, found in 1957, for the site of the Macedonian capital.).
Of the sculpture from the site, the older finds are the
most notable: (
a) a marble funeral stele taken to the
museum at Constantinople and (
b) a statue of a horseman, possibly from a pediment, in the Thessalonika
Museum. Of the more recent finds the most interesting
are: (
a) a severe style marble dog, (
b) a bronze statuette
of Poseidon of the Lateran type. Other small finds are
Votive inscriptions (to Asklepios, the Great Gods, Zeus
Meilichios, Herakles, the Muses, etc.), funeral inscriptions
with bas-relief portraits, some bilingual in Greek and
Latin, two unpublished milestones from the Via Egnatia, etc.
Of the pottery, most notable are some red-figure fragments and a class of local pottery which follows on old
tradition (the technique is gray Minyan; the decoration
early Mycenaean; the handles show its Hellenistic date).
A large number of coins, chiefly of bronze, and many
small worked pieces of bronze were found. The small
finds are mainly kept in the local museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. P. Oikonomos,
Πέλλα
(1914) 127-48
PI; (1915) 237-44
PI; id.,
Νομίσματα τοῦ βασιλέως Κασσάνδρου,
Deltion 4 (1918) 1-29
I; id., “Bronzen von Pella,”
AthMitt 51 (1926) 75-97
I; E. Oberhummer, “Pella,”
RE XIX (1937) 341-48
M; Ph. M. Petsas,
“Alexander the Great's Capital,”
ILN 2 (Aug. 1958)
197-99; id., “New Discoveries at Pella, Birthplace and
Capital of Alexander,”
Archaeology 11 (1958) 246-54
I;
id., “Pella, Literary Tradition and Archaeological Research,”
Balkan Studies 1 (1960) 113-28
I; id.,
Πέλλα Μεγ. Ἑλλην.' Ε᾿γκυκλοπαιδεία, Συμπλήρωμα Δ᾽, pp. 149-52
I;
id., “A few Examples of Epigraphy from Pella,”
Balkan
Studies 4 (1963) 155-70
I; id., Pella (1964)
MI; id., “Ten Years at Pella,”
Archaeology 17 (1964); id., “Pella,”
EAA 6 (1965) 16-20
I; id.,
Mosaics from Pella, La Mosaïque Gréco-romain (1965) 41-56
PI; id.,
Χρονικά Ἀρχαιολογικά, Μακεδονικά 7 (1967) 306-7
I; id.,
Ἀρχαιότητες καί Μνημεῖα Κεντρικῆς Μακεδονίας,
Deltion 23 (1968) 334-36
I; id.,
Χρονικά Ἀρχαιολογικά 1966-67,
Μακεδονικά 9
(1969) 170-75
I; id.,
Αἰγαί-πέλλα Θεσσαλονίκη, “
Ἀρχαία Μακεδονία,”
Α᾽Διεθνές Συμπόσιον (1970) 220-23
PI; X. I.
Makaronas,
Ἀνασκαφαί Πέλλης 1957-1960,
Deltion 16
(1960) 72-83
PI;
Ἀνασκαφή Πέλλης,
Deltion 19 (1964) 334-44
PI; id.,
Χρονολογικά Ζητήματα τῆς Πέλλης, “
Αρχαία Μακεδονία,”
Α᾽Διεθνές Συμπόσιον (1970) 162-67
I; G. Daux,
“Chronique des Fouilles 1961,”
BCH 86 (1962) 805-131; D. Papaconstantinou-Diamantourou,
Pella (1971).
PH. M. PETSAS
