PYDNA
Macedonia, Greece.
A city in Pieria,
the ethnic being Pydnaios. It issued coinage as early as
the late 6th c. B.C. Like Methone, Pydna was considered
a Greek city, as opposed to the Thracian and Macedonian cities along the coast of the Thracian gulf and inland. It is mentioned first by Thucydides (
1.137) in connection with Themistocles' flight to Persia, as “Pydna of
Alexander,” the king of Macedonia. It became important
during the Peloponnesian War. In 432 B.C. it was besieged
by the Athenians (
Thuc. 1.61). Archelaus made a brief
siege of the fortified seashore city of Pydna with the help
of the Athenian navy (ca. 410 B.C.) and after taking it
moved the city 20 stades inland from the shore (
Diod.
Sic. 13.14). But after Archelaus' death it appears that
the citizens of Pydna moved their city back to the shore.
Pydna issued coins again from 389 to 379 B.C. In 364-363 B.C. the Athenians took it, but in 357-356 B.C. it fell
into Philip's hands. In 317-316 B.C. after a long siege of
the city Kassander put Olympias, Alexander the Great's
mother, to death there (
Diod. 19.36.1, 49.1). In the same
place the last act of the drama of Macedonian Hellenism
took place: the battle of Pydna (22 June 168 B.C.) in
which M. Aemilius Paulus defeated Perseus, last king of
Macedonia, and put an end to Macedonian power.
Although the site of Pydna is disputed, it is reasonably
well established. The city on the shore is on a hill S of
the town of Makrygialos, called by the natives “Old
Pydna” or Paliokitros. The Pydna of Archelaus is at
Kitros. The port is by the promontory Atherida. The battle of Pydna, according to a recent study, took place on
the hills on either side of the river now called Mavroneri
(ancient Leukos), while its tributary, the Pelikas, is
identified as the Aeson. Another theory is that the battle took place nearer Pydna, by the modern town of Ano and Kato Joannis, near Kourinos, where there are two grave tumuli.
There have never been excavations in the area of
Pydna except for the discovery of a “Macedonian” tomb
by Heuzey. The information about the topography of
Pydna and the battle near it is based on continual surface observations by many investigators, and on chance
finds, which are in the Thessalonika Museum and the
Archaeological Collection of Katerini, the present capital of the Nome of Pieria.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. Heuzey & H. Daumet,
Mission Archéologique de Macédoine (1876) 239-66
MPI; Ch. Edson,
“The Tomb of Olympias,”
Hesperia 18 (1949) 84-95
I;
id.,
ATL I (1939); III (1950) passim; V. Kahrstedt,
“Städte in Makedonien,”
Hermes 81 (1953) 85-111; Chr. M. Danoff,“Pydna,”
RE Suppl. X (1965) 833-42;
W. K. Pritchett,
Studies in Ancient Greek Topography
II; Battlefields (1969) 145-76
MI.
PH. M. PETSAS
