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The religious topography of Philippi in the second and third centuries

• Τσώχος, Χαράλαμπος

The city of Philippi and the area around it enjoyed considerable prosperity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, owing both to its geographical position on the Via Egnatia and to its port at Neapolis. The inhabitants -natives, veterans of the Roman legions, Greeks, Romans, and Thracians- came into contact with merchants, new settlers, and troops, with the result that, apart from economic prosperity, the conditions became ripe for a variety of religions to emerge. The fact that some 35 deities have been recorded, without considering their various epithets, indicates the wide spectrum of religions that prevailed in the city and the surrounding area in the period under examination.Within the walls, there were two distinct areas, the “official” area of the Roman and commercial agora {forum Macellum) and the Acropolis, with its rock paintings and rock sanctuaries. It is worth noting that, apart from the sanctuary of the Egyptian gods, no other sanctuary or deity has been firmly documented.A third area, outside the walls, completes the picture of Philippi’s religious topography. The cults of Dionysos and the Hero Horseman, with their respective sanctuaries at Drama and Kipia, characterise the religious scene in eastern Macedonia. A study of the epigraphical material shows that these sanctuaries were not exclusively rural, but also attracted the interest of the city-dwellers.Despite the intense religious activity in the wider area of the city, it did not become a religious centre of wide-ranging influence nor attract large numbers of the faithful -as, for instance, did the sanctuaries of Dion and Samothrace- but retained its local character.The city’s importance for the entire research programme lies in the fact that religious phenomena, like the Rosalia, for instance, appeared there and were subsequently assimilated, phenomena that are also found in other areas remote from Philippi, thus prompting comparisons relating to religion both in the limited context of the Roman province of Macedonia and in the wider space of the Roman Empire.

• History and Archaeology
• Philosophy, Ethics and Religion

• Αρχαιολογία
• Θρησκεία

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