Birthplace of Alexander
| Pella Birthplace of Alexander |
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History
The ruins of the city were found by chance in 1957 and are still in the process of excavation. We can see the remains of two houses, some mosaics in situ and more mosaics and other finds in the museum. The agora and palace are not open to visitors. Philip II of Macedon (382-336 BC) and his son Alexander were both born and lived here.
Pella became the capital of the region known as Macedonia when King Arkelaos I (413 - 399 BC) moved his court there from Aigai (now known as Veryina) , as part of his efforts to transform Macedonia from a region despised by the city states of southern Greece, who considered the inhabitants to be uncouth, with a reputation for drunkenness. (They called them 'barbarians', a word now synonymous with rough behaviour but originally thought to refer to the language which sounded like 'bar bar'). The reputation for heavy drinking may be deserved but the beauty of the mosaics at Pella, the fine paintings in the tombs and the gold found at Veryina would suggest they also had a taste for the finer things of life. Arkelaos encouraged people of culture to his new court, including Euripides, whose play The Bacchae was first performed in the theatre here and who died here in 406 BC. (Socrates was also invited but declined.)
The assassination of Arkelaos in 399 brought an end to the development of Pella, and over the next forty years or so there were seven or eight kings. In 359 Philip II, son of Amyntas II, became king on the death, in battle against the Illyrians, of his brother Perdikas. During his reign and that of his son Alexander the city became prosperous and powerful, and capital of Philip's 'unified' Greece.
During this time it was linked to the sea by a canal. The city was sacked by the Romans in 146 BC, and destroyed by earthquake at the end of the first decade of 1st century BC c95-90
The Museum: €6 (€3): site and museum. I suggest you visit the museum first. it is lovely: light, airy, modern with just 3 rooms full of wonderful things.
Room I: In the first room are models of two of the houses on the site (late 3rd - early 2nd century BC). There were two distinct types of houses in Pella; the House of Dionysos, is an example of the type with an interior porch (peristyle), and the second, the house of the Abduction of Helen, has a courtyard, the focus of family life. The rooms in daily use and those used for receiving guests were on the northern side, which usually had an upper floor.
There is an aerial view of the House of Dionysos and a plan of the ancient city.
On the right hand wall is a reconstruction of the way the houses would have been decorated and some rare remains of a decorated wall, known as Pompeian style. The walls were built of stone up to a height of about 1 metre and then of brick. The inside was always plastered.
Note the beautiful bronze bed posts (fulcra) with horses heads .
Room III (ahead): Here are some truly gob smacking mosaics made of tiny uncut natural sea pebbles, outlined with lead or clay, with semi precious stones, now missing, for the eyes. These are floors from the houses over the road, dating 325-300 BC, most of them in excellent condition. The magnificent lion hunt, on your left, is from the central part of the andron (banqueting room) in the House of Dionysos, and is thought to represent the scene when Alexander was rescued from a lion during a hunt at Granikos. The two young hunters, naked apart from flowing capes, stand either side of the lion with their weapons raised poised to stab the lion; one has taken the sword from its scabbard, the other, who wears a hat, has a spear in one hand, his sword still in its scabbard in the other. (The wonderful lion looks somewhat bemused, poor thing!). The outlines of the figures are shown in fired clay.
The rather damaged mosaic of a griffin devouring a deer is from the entrance to the andron of Dionysos' house.
Next to this is another superb floor showing Dionysos, holding a thyrsos with a red and white ribbon and sitting naked on a beautiful prancing panther, (a bit of a poseur?). Strips of clay are used for Dionysos' curly hair and green and red tesserae for his wreath and the ribbon.
The late Hellenistic period marble head of Alexander has the characteristic upwards tilt, said to be caused by 'ocular torticollis'.
I liked the beautiful round table top, with black with white /ivory decoration.
There is a plan of palace but as we can't visit it yet, because it is still being excavated, I wouldn't spend time studying it!
Room II: In this room are objects found in the agora. In particular there are lots of rather nice, 2nd century, terracotta female figures/statuettes from tombs. In case 14 are some moulds from the workshops, and vases.
Here, I also liked a lovely stele with a farewell scene of a mother and baby, a beautiful bronze arm of a statue, some fine gold wreaths and jewellery found in the cemetery,
| The Site: There
are good information boards in English. The city was built on the Hippodamean grid system, (like Messene in the Peloponnese), over an area of 485 hectares (1,240 acres). As you come into the site the remains of the House of Dionysos are on your right, with geometric pattern pebble mosaic floors still in situ. (The stag hunt and lion hunt floors are in museum). Beyond the house ahead of you is the stoa of which several Ionic columns remain. Beyond that is the agora and further beyond that, on the hill, is the palace. Neither of these are open to visitors yet. |
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Turn left past the stoa to the House of (Abduction of) Helen where, under cover of a metal roof, there are three wonderful very large mosaic floors.
The first you come to is a rather bloody deer hunt showing two young hunters about to kill an almost unbearably realistic deer. The hunter on the right raises his sword with one hand and grasps the deer's antler with the other, (note his hat which has blown off). The other hunter wields a double headed axe. A hound is biting the poor stag. The mosaic is signed by Gnossis.
The middle floor shows the abduction of Helen; a very lively scene, with a chariot being pulled by four horses, driven by Phorbas. Theseus has hold of Helen who is reaching out for her friend Dianeira. This abduction took place when Helen was a young girl, years before she was taken off to Troy by Paris.
In the far room only one small corner of the floor remains.
One complete Doric column remains from the portico and colonnade.
To the left is another floor, inferior in quality to the others we have seen. It has two borders, one with wild boars and panthers, and in the centre two Amazons, one of whom has fallen to the ground about to be struck by a Greek and the other about to defend her with an axe.