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Serres

Serres was already the chief town of its district in the time of Herodotus. In its plain Xerxes left the sacred mares of the Chariot of the Sun. It became the seat of a bishop and later of a metropolitan, and played a strategic role throughout the Middle Ages. It was ravaged in 1195-96 by the Bulgarians who defeated a Byzantine army and took prisoner Isaac Comnenus, the sebastocrator. In 1205 the marauding Vlach, Johannica, besieged Serres, Hugues de Coligny was killed and the surrendered Frankish garrison was slaughtered. Boniface de Monferrat, hastening from the Morea, recaptured and refortified the town.

It resisted the attacks of Cantacuzenus but fell in 1345 to Dusan, who here promulgated his legal code (1354). Helen, his widow, retired here under the religious name of Elizabeth. Though Manuel recaptured Serres for the Byzantines in 1371, it attracted the attention of the Ottoman Turks the following year and in 1383 fell decisively into the hands of Lala Shahin. It remained Turkish (as Siruz) until 1913, when it was seized by the Bulgarians who set it on fire in their retreat. Every year, on 29 June, the city of Serres celebrates its freedom from the Bulgarians.

The place, which belonged to the Edonians of Thrace, was originally called Ennea Odoi ('Nine Ways'), for which reason, according to Herodotus (VII, 114), Xerxes on crossings its bridges buried alive nine local boys and nine girls. It was colonised as Amphipolis by the Athenians in 437 B.C. after an abortive attempt 28 years earlier. Deriving its wealth from the gold mines of Mt. Pangaion, Amphipolis was one of their most important north possessions. The historian (and general) Thucydides saved its port of Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, but, for failing to save Amphipolis as well, he was exiled for 20 years by his countrymen (Thuc. IV, 104-6; V, 26). In 421 the Athenians made an unsuccessful attempt to retake the city.

Amphipolis was seized by Philip II of Macedon in 358. After the battle of Pydna (168) it became the capital of one of the four republics provisionally set up by the Romans. St. Paul passed through Amphipolis on his way to Thessaloniki. The city was a station on the Via Egnatia and the seat of a bishop in the Early Christian period. Since 1956, excavations have been underway by the Greek Archaeological Service.

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