Our first stop of the day was a rise just outside of town where we could see a small part of the ancient Via Egnatia, the original Roman road that connected this part of northern Greece eventually with the rest of the Roman empire. In the picture below, the ancient road coming west out of Neapolis (modern Kavala) emerges from the trees at the bottom of the photo, just left of center. It is neat to think that Paul and his companions walked this very same road as he climbed toward Philippi and the advancement of the Gospel into Macedonia.
We then got on the bus and proceeded a few miles NW to the ancient site of Philippi. Our first view showed us that the acropolis ("high, defensible point of the city"--left side of photo below) stood out from the surrounding plain and would have been visible from quite a distance. The main Roman city stood at the base of that tell.
The site of Philippi is important for two big reasons: it was where Paul visited, wrote letters to, got jailed and then miraculously freed, etc., BUT it was also the location of one of the most significant battles of the Roman world: the Battle of Philippi where in 42 BC Marc Antony and Octavian (the future Caesar Augustus) defeated Cassius and Brutus (the assassinators of Julius Caesar). This major battle during the Roman civil wars helped bring the young Octavian to a position of greater power, which eventually led him to defeat his once-ally Marc Antony later in 31 BC at the Battle of Actium. These events all led to the establishment of the emperors in Rome and the transformation of the Roman state from one led by the Senate to one led by single-man emperors. Which of course is how things are when young Jesus of Nazareth is born in humble Bethlehem. Most people don't realize that Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor and thus that the whole system of emperors was still pretty radically new when Jesus enters the world.
Yes, Roman history is sweet! And it tells us a lot about the world in which the Gospel first goes forth and early church must survive and move forward. Anyway, the big battle in 42 BC took place on the plain to the west and south of the city site, somewhere near where the above picture was taken (the pic looks north).
Archaeologists have uncovered a number of interesting remains here in Philippi, including the main Roman forum, the edges of some temples, the commercial agora, a Byzantine basilica, some ancient latrines :-), etc. The forum is a neat place to walk with all its strewn pillars and marble monuments, and also because it becomes just a tiny bit easier to imagine Paul and company walking these streets, getting in trouble for healing the demon-possessed girl, and then getting thrown into prison after getting hauled before the magistrate (politarchos).
Of particular note is a 4th century church they have partially excavated, because this makes it one of the (if not the) earliest-found church in all of Greece! They can date it to the early part fo the 300s because of the Greek inscription found inside mentioning a certain Bishop Porphyrios, and they know when he lived.
"Porphyrios the bishop made this adornment of the Basilica of (St.) Paul in Christ."
Reading inscriptions like this, it's fun to decipher these little clues to the past and unlock their secrets -- they're like my little Indiana Jones moments. :-)
They've also identified a structure as the "so-called Pauline prison" just up the very tall hill at our backs, but it's very unlikely that is the place -- most agree that the prison would have probably been near or at the top of the acropolis. We would have explored these places further, but for the first time on our whole trip, a rain storm popped up right before lunch and we cut the afternoon explorations short. Actually, it was more like a tropical typhoon -- it poured down! We kept wondering we couldn't have gotten a little bit of this while we were down in the Negev... :-)
We thus ate our lunch while trying to wring ourselves dry, and then we boarded the bus once more to finish our drive to Thessaloniki. The landscapes of Greece really do inspire the mind, and as one of the people near me commented, "It's easy to see how people thought that gods lived here in this land."
Our one stop on the way was to see a monumental lion statue called the "Lion of Amphipolis" at the ancient city of Amphipolis. It's really huge! Ancient travelers would have been properly impressed, I'm sure -- we were!
We finally made it to Thessaloniki and found our way to our hotel, the Grand Hotel Palace. When we finally arrived, our wonderful Greek guide announces that everyone can see our great hotel on the left -- which was nothing but an empty, dirt lot with some garbage in it! Then she said, "Oh, I mean on the right! Oh, I am so funny." (in the best Greek accent) And there it was! Pretty fancy-looking really. We had an afternoon lecture on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and then settled into yet another 4-course meal. Mmmm...I don't think I've ever eaten better in my whole life than this last week.
Tomorrow: Thessaloniki and then down to a resort at the foot of Mt. Olympus! Can't wait!
On a final note, I'm happy to say that a picture I took of our group has made it's way onto the Wheaton College Image of the Week site! Click here (or at least you can for the next few days) for a Sea of Galilee moment -- still one of my favorite from this whole trip.
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