NEAPOLIS
or NEA POLlS (Kavala) Thrace, Greece.
A coastal city, a colony of Thasos, on the site
of the modern city of Kavala. It seems to have been
founded ca. the middle of the 7th c. B.C. in this very
strategic position through which pass the ancient coast
road which joins Asia and Europe, and the road which
leads from the shore to gold-bearing Mt. Pangaeum and
the proverbial land of Datos.
After the flight of the Persians from Greece, Neapolis
was a member of the first Athenian League, and from
454-453 B.C. on it is entered in the Athenian Tribute Lists
with an unvarying tribute of 1000 drachmai a year.
Close ties of friendship and alliance bound the city to
Athens, as shown by two Athenian honorary decrees of
410 and 407 B.C. which praise the Neapolitans and give
them several privileges in the sanctuary of Parthenos.
Around 350 B.C. Philip II of Macedon, who had captured one after another of the Greek cities in Thrace,
took Neapolis also and used it as the harbor for Philippi.
At the battle of Philippi (42 B.C.), the harbor of Neapolis
was used as a base by the Republican generals, Brutus
and Cassius. It kept its importance as a station on the
Via Egnati through the Imperial and Early Christian periods.
The remains and known traces of the ancient city are
scanty. Of its walls, which probably date to the early
5th c. B.C., a few large sections are preserved, chiefly on
the N side of the Kavala peninsula, where the ancient
town was, but some also on the E and W. The wall, built
of granite blocks of varying sizes, is in places preserved
to a height of ca. 2 to 4 m.
Notable was the sanctuary of the patron goddess of
Neapolis, the Parthenos, probably a Hellenized figure of
the Thracian Artemis Tauropolos or Bendis. An archaistic figure of the goddess is known from a bas-relief on
an Athenian decree of 356-355 B.C. (National Museum
1480). Investigation in the area of the sanctuary, which
is approximately in the middle of the ancient town in
the years 1936-37 and 1959-63, uncovered sacred hearths,
building walls, parts of the peribolos or a supporting terrace wall, and deposits of pottery and figurines. In the
beginning of the 5th c. B.C. an Ionic peripteral temple built of Thasian marble was constructed in the sanctuary area (column capitals of excellent workmanship and architectural fragments from the temple are in the
Kavala Museum). No houses or other buildings have
been uncovered. The well-preserved and very impressive
aqueduct of the city is the work of Sultan Suleiman the
Magnificent.
The pottery found in the excavations comes from the
workshops of Asia Minor, Chios, Lesbos, the Cyclades,
Attica, Corinth, and Lakonia. Among the most interesting pieces are a “Melian” amphora with representations
of Peleus, Thetis, and the Nereids; a Chian krater with
a representation of the Chalydonian boar hunt; and an
Attic black-figure amphora by the painter Amasis. On
the site or in the area of the Parthenon sanctuary three
votive inscriptions were found (4th-2d c. B.C.), a marble
naiskos-treasury, and a bas-relief of the mid 4th c. B.C.
with the representation of a sphinx facing an amphora
(Kavala Museum).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
IG I
2 108; T. Bakalakis,
Νεάπολισ-Χριστούπολισ-Καβάλα,
A.E. (1936) Iff; a description of the excavations conducted under state auspices,
ΠΑΕ (1937)
59ff; id.,
Ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ τῆς Παρθένου ἐν Νεαπόλει A .E.
(1938) 106ff;
ΑΔ (1960) 219ff; (1961-62) 235ff; (1963)
257; (1964) 370ff; (1967) 417; P. Collart, Philippes ville
de Macédoine (1937) 102ff; J. Pouilloux,
Recherches sur
l'histoire et les cultes de Thasos I (1954) 109ff and 152ff;
D. Lazarides,
Νεάπολισ-Χριστούπολισ-Καβάλα, Ὁδηγός Μουσείου Καβάλας (1969).
D. LAZARIDES