Cults of Thessalonica (Macedonica III)

Abstract

The site of ancient Thessalonica has been continuously inhabited as an important city ever since its foundation by the forceful Macedonian king, Cassander, in the last years of the fourth century before Christ. Yet few ancient cities of equal importance have been the subject of so little investigation in modern times. Up to now, the inscriptions found in Salonica have all been chance discoveries, almost invariably due to such causes as the demolition of the old city walls during the last decades of the nineteenth and the early years of this century, the remodelling or removal of older buildings and other construction inevitable in the life of a large port and center of population. For these reasons it must be emphasized that the several hundred pagan Greek inscriptions of Thessalonica whose texts are now known (many of the stones once seen have been lost or destroyed) are in fact a quite fortuitous body of evidence. The following pages, therefore, cannot pretend to be a balanced and complete study of the religious cults of pagan Thessalonica. That is a task for the future when circumstances will, we must hope, permit a continuous and accurate study of the existing ancient remains, as well as of those new discoveries which may confidently be anticipated. Here I have only attempted to put together what can now be said about the cults of the Roman city.