Ancient Amphipolis Thrace

Thracian Amphipolis Open Tues-Sun, 9am-3pm, free.

This ancient city lay near the mouth of the River Strymon and Mount Pangaion (1956meters/6417feet).

This mountain was known to the ancients for its cult of Dionysos (with his followers, the Maenads), as well as for its gold mines and forests.

The city was founded in the 5th century BC and prospered during the 4th century BC under Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. It is mentioned by Thucidydides in his "Peloponnesian Wars".

It was a staging post on the Via Egnatia under the Romans and continued as an important city during Byzantine times. Near the 5th century BC bridge that crosses the Strymon is an enormous marble lion which was reconstructed in 1937 from fragments.

It dates to the Hellenistic period and resembles the lion of Cheronia, though of later date, around the end of the 4th century BC.

There are also significant remaining portions of wall fortifications as well as an early Christian basilica with mosaic floors.

The Archaeological Museum in Kavala houses Hellenistic and Roman sculpture from the city, as well as finds from its cemetery, including polychrome glass, gold wreaths and diadems, jewelry, colored busts of goddesses, grave stelai (one of which is painted), figurines and pottery from a workshop not yet found.

There is also a reconstruction of a double funeral chamber from the 3rd Century BC with paintings, with its stele standing next to it; articles from the same tomb, including some of gold, as well as a polished silver mirror in a folding case and a man's ring with the portrait of a youth on it.