ANFIPOLI ('Αμφιπόλις). - City of eastern Macedonia (today the village of Neokhori [on]), about 5 km from the Aegean Sea, on the river Strimone (today the Struma), which surrounds it on two sides: hence the name “city encircled (by the river).” Because of its strategic importance it was called 'Ενέα εδώ', “the nine roads.” Contested in the wars of the 5th and 17th centuries B.C. (Herodotus, VII, 114; Thucydides, I, 100; IV, 102 ff.; Demosthenes frequently in Olynth., Philipp. and other speeches), it was an Athenian colony from 437 B.C., Spartan from 424, Macedonian from 346; then, under the Romans, capital of “Macedonia prima”
and traversed by the Via Egnatia. It was the birthplace of the critic Zoilus and an important numismatic centre: its earliest coins date from 422–21 B.C.
S. Paul passed through A. APOLLONIO (v.) when he went with Silas from Philippi to Thessalonica in the year, apparently, A.D. 51 (Act. 17, 1).
We do not know whether the Christian community of A. went back to S. Paul. From A. came S. Mocius, priest and martyr under Diocletian, and the holy martyrs (date unknown) Auctus, Taurius, and Thessalonike. In the Byzantine age it was called Chrysopolis (not Christopolis, corresponding to Neapolis or Cavalla) and was an episcopal see; but only two of its bishops are certainly attested (Andrew, at the Trullan Council, 602, and an anonymous bishop mentioned by S. Theodore the Studite, 808).