AMPHIPOLIS. - City of eastern Macedonia (today the village of Neokhori [on], about 5 km from the Aegean Sea, on the river Strymon (today Struma), which surrounds it on two sides: hence the name "city girt (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 often in Olynth., Philipp. and other speeches), it was from 437 B.C. an Athenian colony, from 424 Spartan, from 346 Macedonian; then, under the Romans, the capital of "Macedonia prima"
and crossed by the Via Egnatia. It was the birthplace of the critic Zoilus and an important numismatic center: its first coins date from 422-21 B.C.
St. Paul passed through A. and Apollonia (v.) on his way with Silas from Philippi to Thessalonica in the year, it seems, 51 A.D. (Act. 17, 1).
We do not know whether the Christian community of A. dates back to St. Paul. Of A. was St. Mocius, priest, martyr under Diocletian, and the holy martyrs (date unknown) Auctus, Taurius and Thessalonike. In the Byzantine age it is called Chrysopolis (not Christopolis, corresponding to Neapolis or Cavalla) and is an episcopal see; but only two of its bishops (Andrew, at the Trullan Council, 602, and an anonymous one in the time of St. Theodore Studites, 808) are attested with certainty.
Bibliography3 works
Antonino Romeo