ABSTRACT
Thessalonike was founded, probably in 316 BC, by Cassander, who was then ruling in Macedonia as regent for the son of Alexander the Great.1 By this time, the successors of Alexander were manoeuvring against each other. Cassander, in effect, was creating for himself an independent kingdom in Macedonia, and was providing it with ‘dynastic’ cities. One, Cassandreia, was a refoundation of the Corinthian colony of Potidaia in Chalkidike. Thessalonike, the other, was situated on the shore of the sheltered Thermaic gulf, which had taken its name from an earlier Greek colony, Therme, whose exact location has been a matter of dispute, but which can be seen to have been on the site later covered by the new foundation. Unlike Cassandreia (which is at something of a dead end), Thessalonike was an enormously successful foundation. The section of the Thermaic gulf which once extended as far as Pella, making the older city a sea port, was already silting up. Thessalonike thus took over the role of Macedonia’s principal port. It had good overland communications, northward by the valley of the Axios into the central Balkans, eastward to Byzantium and Asia, westward to Epidamnus and the Adriatic, the east-west route later developed by the Romans as the Via Egnatia. Throughout the changing political fortunes of the region, this provided a sound basis for the economy of the city, which has flourished continuously since its foundation.
