thumb|250px|Localization of Amphipolis <BR>  

'''Amphipolis''' ( &ndash; ''Amphípolis'') was an ancient Greek city in the region once inhabited by the periphery of East Macedonia and Thrace. It was built on a raised plateau overlooking the east bank of the Macedonia with a population of 3 623 (2001 census).

==Origins of the city==
thumb|350px|left|View of the delta of the river Strymon from the [[acropolis of Amphipolis]] 

Xerxes I of Persia passed during his invasion of Greece of 480 BC and buried alive nine young men and nine maidens as a sacrifice to the river god. Near the later site of Amphipolis Alexander I of Macedon defeated the remains of Xerxes' army in 479 BC.

Throughout the 5th century BC, Athens sought to consolidate its control over Thrace, which was strategically important because of its primary materials (the gold and silver of the Miletian Tyrant Histiaeus, the Athenians founded a first colony at Ennea-Hodoi (‘Nine Ways’) in 465, but these first ten thousand colonists were massacred by the Thracians.<ref>Thucydides I, 100, 3</ref> A second attempt took place in 437 BC on the same site under the guidance of Hagnon, son of Nicias.

thumb|250px|Map of Amphipolis

The new settlement took the name of Amphipolis (literally, "around the city"), a name which is the subject of much debates about Photius) offers a different explanation apparently given by battle at which both Philip II despite several other Athenian attacks, notably because of the government of Callistratus of Aphidnae.

==From Athenian Colony to Roman province==
thumb|250px|[[Fortifications and bridge of Amphipolis]]

In 357 BC, Philip removed the block which Amphipolis presented on the road to Macedonian control over Thrace by conquering the town, which Athens had tried in vain to recover during the previous years. According the historian Theopompus, this conquest came to be the object of a secret accord between Athens and Philip II, who would return the city in exchange for the fortified town of Pydna, but the Macedonian king betrayed the accord, refusing to cede Amphipolis and laying siege to Pydna.
 
After the conquest by Philip II, the city was not immediately incorporated into the kingdom, and for some time preserved its institutions and a certain degree of autonomy. The border of Macedonia was not moved further east; however, Philip sent a number of Macedonians governors to Amphipolis, and in many respects the city was effectively ‘Macedonianized’. Nomenclature, the calendar and the currency (the gold stater, installed by Philip to capitalise on the gold reserves of the Pangaion hills, replaced the Amphipolitan Alexander, Amphipolis was an important naval base, and the birthplace of three of the most famous Macedonian Laomedon whose burial place is most likely marked by the famous lion of Amphipolis.

thumb|200px|left|[[Fresco of a house in Amphipolis]]

Amphipolis became one of the main stops on the Macedonian royal road (as testified by a border stone found between Philip V and an ephebarchic (?) law from the gymnasium. After the final victory of Rome over Macedonia in a battle in 168 BC, Amphipolis became the capital one of the four mini-republics, or ‘merides’, which were created by the Romans out of the kingdom of the Antigonids which succeeded Alexander’s Empire in Macedon. These 'merides' were gradually incorporated into the Roman client state, and later province, of Thracia.

thumb|350px|The Amphipolis Lion by Vlahos Vaggelis

==Revival in Late Antiquity==
During the period of Christian Churches that were built. Significantly however, these churches were built within a restricted area of the town, sheltered by the walls of the acropolis. This has been taken as evidence that the large fortified perimeter of the ancient town were no longer defendable, and that the population of the city had considerably diminished. 

Nevertheless, the number, size and quality of the churches constructed between the fifth and sixth centuries are impressive. Four basilica of St. Vitalis in Ravenna. It is difficult to find reasons for such municipal extravagance in such a small town. One possible explanation provided by the historian André Boulanger is that an increasing ‘willingness’ on the part of the wealthy upper classes in the late Roman period to spend money on local gentrification projects (which he terms ‘'évergétisme’', from the Greek verb εύεργετέω, meaning ‘I am doing well’) was exploited by the local church to its advantage, which led to a mass gentrification of the urban centre and of the agricultural riches of the city’s territory. Amphipolis was also a diocese under the suffragan of Thessaloniki - the Bishop of Amphipolis is first mentioned in 533 AD.

==From the reduction of the urban area to the disappearance of the city==
thumb|220px|Ram-headed capital of a column from a pre-christian temple in Amphipolis

thumb|Lage von Amphipolis in Griechenland

'''Amphipolis''' (/''Amphípolis'') war eine griechische Thasitischen Peraia zu übernehmen und zu kontrollieren. Ihr Hafen an der Mündung des Strymon (ursprünglich ''Aioneios'') hieß nach einer alten thrakischen Siedlung Eion oder Ennea Hodoi. 

Bereits im Jahr 464 v. Chr. hatte Athen erfolglos versucht, in diesem Gebiet Fuß zu fassen, war aber vom Stamm der Edonen in der Schlacht von Dabreskos zurückgeschlagen worden.

Amphipolis erlangte während des Peloponnesischen Kriegs Bedeutung, unter anderem wegen der Beschaffung von Holz für den Schiffbau, Einnahmen aus den Bergwerken der Umgebung, Zölle sowie der strategischen Position.<ref>Stratege Schlacht, in der Sparta Sieger blieb, kamen beide Generäle ums Leben. Kurz darauf wurde der Nikiasfrieden geschlossen. Die Einwohner bestatteten den Spartaner innerhalb der Mauern. Sie betrachteten ihn als den zweiten Gründer ihrer Stadt und verehrten ihn mit Spielen und kultischen Feiern als Heros.

Im Jahr 356 v. Chr. wurde Amphipolis von Philipp II. von Makedonien erobert. Da die Athener an ihren Ansprüchen auf die Stadt festhielten, spielte der Konflikt um Amphipolis in den Folgejahren (bis 338) eine wichtige Rolle für die Entwicklung der makedonisch-athenischen Beziehungen.

Amphipolis wird auch in der Apostelgeschichte im Neuen Testament erwähnt ().

== Weblinks ==