Pella

Pella, in Lower Macedonia beside the Thermaic Gulf, became the Macedonian capital under Archelaus I around 400 BC; Aigai remained the royal burial ground. Philip II was born here in 382 BC and Alexander the Great in 356 BC.

The Argead kings claimed descent from Heracles and ultimately Zeus and acted as high priests and patrons of the kingdom's cults. Temples of Aphrodite, Cybele and Demeter stood in the city, whose pebble mosaics show Dionysus riding a leopard. Pella remained the seat of Philip V and Perseus in their wars with Rome.

After the defeat at Pydna the Romans sacked Pella in 168 BC. An earthquake around 90 BC destroyed much of it, though the Via Egnatia kept the rebuilt town alive. It became a colony between 45 and 30 BC and shrank in Byzantine times to a fortified village.