Cassandreia, Cassandrea, or Kassandreia ( grc, Κασσάνδρεια, ''Kassándreia'') was once one of the most important cities in

Ancient Macedonia Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by ...

, founded by and named after

Cassander Cassander ( el, Κάσσανδρος ; c. 355 BC – 297 BC) was king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from 305 BC until 297 BC, and ''de facto'' ruler of southern Greece from 317 BC until his death. A son of Antipater and a conte ...

in 316 BC. It was located on the site of the earlier

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

city of

Potidaea __NOTOC__ Potidaea (; grc, Ποτίδαια, ''Potidaia'', also Ποτείδαια, ''Poteidaia'') was a colony founded by the Corinthians around 600 BC in the narrowest point of the peninsula of Pallene, the westernmost of three peninsulas a ...

, at the isthmus of the Pallene peninsula.POTEIDAIA (Nea Poteidaia) Chalkidike, Greece
entry in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. The fact that Cassander named it after himself suggests that he may have intended it to be his capital, and if the canal which cuts the peninsula at this point was dug or at least planned in his time, he may have intended to develop his naval forces using it as a base with two harbours on the east and west sides. Cassandreia soon became a great and powerful city, surpassing the other Macedonian towns in wealth.

Philip V of Macedon Philip V ( grc-gre, Φίλιππος ; 238–179 BC) was king ( Basileus) of Macedonia from 221 to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of the Roman Republic. He would lead Macedon a ...

made Cassandreia his main naval base. At the end of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...

, around 43 BC by order of Brutus a Roman colony was settled by the proconsul Q. Hortensius Hortalus, which 30 BC was resettled by August with the installation of new settlers and took the official name ''Colonia Iulia Augusta Cassandrensis''. The territory of the colony had included within its boundaries the peninsula of Pallini and the district stretched north of the canal to the foot of the mountain Cholomontas. The colony enjoyed '' ius Italicum'', and is mentioned in

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

's encyclopaedia and in inscriptions. It was destroyed by the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

and

Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

around 540 AD. The modern settlement of Kassandreia (named Valta before 1955) lies to the south of the ancient site. The ancient site of Cassandreia, near the town Nea Poteidaia, has not been excavated. The Christian

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

based on the ancient town is mentioned in the early 10th-century ''

Notitiae Episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') are official documents that furnish Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the -mostly Lat ...

'' of

Byzantine Emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as ...

Leo VI the Wise Leo VI, called the Wise ( gr, Λέων ὁ Σοφός, Léōn ho Sophós, 19 September 866 – 11 May 912), was Byzantine Emperor from 886 to 912. The second ruler of the Macedonian dynasty (although his parentage is unclear), he was very well ...

. Its bishop Hermogenes participated in both the

Robber Council The Second Council of Ephesus was a Christological church synod in 449 AD convened by Emperor Theodosius II under the presidency of Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria. It was intended to be an ecumenical council, and it is accepted as such by the mi ...

of Ephesus in 449 and the

Council of Chalcedon The Council of Chalcedon (; la, Concilium Chalcedonense), ''Synodos tēs Chalkēdonos'' was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, B ...

in 451. In addiction to the ancient Greek Orthodox metropolis ( el), Cassandria is also listed today by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 860

Notable people

* Aristobulus (4th century BC), historian * Poseidippus (3rd century BC), comic poet

References

*F. Papazoglou, ''Les villes de Macédoine à l'époque romaine'', Supplément du BCH 16,

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

, 1988.

D. C. Samsaris, ''The Roman Colony of Cassandreia in Macedonia (Colonia Iulia Augusta Cassandrensis)'', Dodona 16(1), 1987, p. 353-437 *John R. Melville-Jones, 'L'ixola di Caxandria' in Thesaurismata 27, 1997, 125-138.

External links

Greek Coinage of Cassandreia
{{coord, 40.195, 23.330, region:GR, display=title 316 BC Populated places established in the 4th century BC Macedonian colonies Hellenistic colonies in Chalcidice ancient Greek cities Coloniae (Roman) Former populated places in Greece Antipatrid colonies in Macedonia 310s BC establishments Populated places in ancient Macedonia Titular sees in Europe