Crestonia (or Crestonice) () was an ancient region immediately north of

Mygdonia Mygdonia (; ) was an ancient territory, part of ancient Thrace, later conquered by Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon, which comprised the plains around Therma (Thessalonica) together with the valleys of Klisali and Besikia, including the ar ...

. The Echeidorus river, which flowed through Mygdonia into the

Thermaic Gulf The Thermaic Gulf (, ), also called the Gulf of Thessaloniki and the Macedonian Gulf, is a Gulf (geography), gulf constituting the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea. The city of Thessaloniki is at its northeastern tip, and it is bounded by Pie ...

, had its source in Crestonia. It was partly occupied by a remnant of the Pelasgi, who spoke a different language from their neighbors (

Thracians The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European languages, Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared betwee ...

and Paeonians); later the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

The main towns of Crestonia were Creston (''Crestone'') and Gallicum (Romanized name). The region, along with Mygdonia, was held by Paeonians for a time, later by Thracians. At the time of the invasion of Xerxes I of Persia, Crestonia was ruled by an independent Thracian prince (

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, 8. 116). By the time of the commencement of the

Peloponnesian war The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

, Crestonia had been annexed to the kingdom of Macedonia. Today, ancient Crestonia is comprehended within the regional units of Kilkis and

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

(northern part) in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

External links

William Smith, ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography''

Lower Macedonia Geography of ancient Macedonia Historical regions in Greece {{AncientMacedonia-geo-stub