Philippi was one of the most important cities of the ancient world in the northern Aegean — a place where Greek, Roman and early Christian history are layered on a single plain in eastern Macedonia, about fifteen kilometres inland from the port of Kavala. It was founded in 356 BC by King Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, who seized the earlier settlement of Krinides for its gold-bearing hills and its command of the route between the Aegean and the interior, and gave the city his own name. Recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, Philippi preserves a rare, continuous record of urban life from the Macedonian and Roman eras into the earliest centuries of Christianity in Europe.
The city's fame rests on three great chapters. In 42 BC the plain of Philippi was the setting for the decisive Battle of Philippi, where Mark Antony and Octavian defeated Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar, and sealed the fate of the Roman Republic. Refounded as a Roman colony astride the Via Egnatia — the great highway linking the Adriatic to Byzantium — Philippi grew into a prosperous provincial city, and much of what you walk through today is its Roman heart: the forum, the theatre, the baths and the paved line of the Via Egnatia itself. Then, in the first century AD, the Apostle Paul came to Philippi and founded what is remembered as the first Christian community on European soil, baptising Lydia, a seller of purple. In later centuries the city filled with grand early Christian churches, and the ruins of its basilicas and octagon still rise across the site.
The archaeological site lies beside the modern village of Krinides, in the plain below a low acropolis hill crowned with medieval towers, and it is easily reached as a day-trip from Kavala or Thessaloniki. The great theatre, built into the slope of the hill by Philip II and remodelled by the Romans, still hosts summer performances; below it spread the forum, the basilicas, the octagon church and the Roman baths, with the cistern traditionally revered as the Prison of St Paul close by. The ground is open and largely unshaded, so early-morning or late-afternoon hourly slots are far kinder than the middle of the day. Because entry is timed by the hour, we handle the ticketing in your own language and reserve the slot you want, so you can give your energy to the ruins instead of the queue.
