Philippopolis
- A city of Thrace on the Hebrus, now Philippopoli, Liv. 39, 53, 13 sq.; Tac. A. 3, 38; Plin. 4, 11, 18, § 41; Amm.26, 10, 4; 6.—
- II A city of Palestine, perh. the ruins of Ghereyah, Aur. Vict. Caes. 28, 1.
PHILIPPO´POLIS
1.(Φιλιππόπολις,Ptol. 3.11.12; Plb. 5.100; Steph. B. s. v.), a town of Thrace, founded by Philip of Macedon, on the site of a previously existing town, called Eumolpias or Poneropolis. (Ammian. 26.10.4; Plin. Nat. 4.11. s. 18.) From its situation on a hill with three peaks or summits, it was also called Trimontium. (Plin. l. c.; Ptol. l. c.) It lay on the SE. side of the Hebrus. The Thracians, however, regained possession of it (Polyb. l. c.;Liv. 39.53), and it remained in their hands till they were subdued by the Romans. Its size maybe inferred from the fact of the Goths having slaughtered 100,000 persons in it (Ammian. 31.5.17), though doubtless many persons from the environs had taken refuge there. The assumption that it likewise bore the name of Hadrianopolis, rests only on an interpolation in Ptolemy. It is still called Philippopoli, and continues to be one of the most considerable towns of Thrace. (Tac. Ann. 3.38; Itin. Ant. p. 136; Hierool. p. 635.) [T.H.D]
2.A city of Arabia, near Bostra, founded by the Roman emperor Philippus, who reigned A.D. 244--249, and who was a native of Bostra. (Aurel. Vict. de Caes. 28; Cedrenus, p. 257, ed. Paris., vol. 1. p. 451, ed. Bonn; Zonar. 12.19.) Some writers suppose that Philippopolis was only a later name of Bostra, and it must be admitted that the words of Cedrenus and Zonaras are ambiguous; but they are mentioned as two different places in the Councils. (Labbei, Concil. vol. viii. pp. 644, 675; Wesseling, ad Hierocl. p. 722.)
(Φιλιππόπολις). Now Philippopoli; an important town in Thrace, founded by Philip of Macedon, was situated in a large plain, southeast of the Hebrus, on a hill with three summits, whence it was sometimes called Trimontium. Under the Roman Empire it was the capital of the province of Thracia.
Market town at the N end of the mountains of the Hauran, on the road from Damascus to Dionysias (Soueida) and Bostra, the home of the emperor Philip the Arab (A.D. 244-49), who made it into a city.
The town was the usual large quadrilateral, and the cardo (the main axis of traffic) and the decumanus (on a steep slope) are well preserved. A tetrapylon marked their crossing. Large public baths and the piers and arches of an aqueduct are visible in the SE district, while the columns of the portico of a hexastyle temple stand to the W, on the N side of the decumanus. The Philippeion, the temple of the imperial family, is a little farther S, and nearby is a theater built of basalt, partly against the hill. All the arcades of the exterior facade, the scaenae frons, and the greater part of the hemicycle are preserved. The entrances, corridors, vomitoria, and stairways are well arranged.
Polychrome mosaic pavements have been found in the houses, depicting individuals or vast allegorical or mythological tableaus. They date from the middle of the 3d c. A.D. and some of them are now in the Damascus museum and in the Soueida museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHYH. C. Butler, AAES Pt. II, Architecture and other Arts (1903) MPI; R. E. Brünnow & A. v. Domaszewski, Die Provincia Arabia III (1909) MPI; M. Dunand, Syria 7 (1926) I; E. Frézouls, “Les théâtres romains de Syrie,” Annales archéologiques de Syrie 2 (1952) I; P. Coupel & id., Le Théâtre de Philippopolis en Arabie (1956) = Bibliothèque archéologique et Historique 63 (1956); E. Will, “Une nouvelle mosaïque de Chahba-Philippopolis,” Annales archéologiques de Syrie 3 (1953) I.
J.-P. REY-COQUAISA city on the right bank of the Maritza river in the great lagoon between the Balkan and Rhodopian mountains at the junction of the Belgrade-Istanbul and Danube-Aegean roads. The city was founded in 342 B.C. by Philip II of Macedon over a prior Thracian center (Pulpudava). Conquered again by the Thracians after the fall of the Macedonians, the city remained under Thracian control until it was conquered by the Romans, who made it the capital of the province of Thrace, the metropolis and seat of the provincial assembly; in 248 it became a colony. It was provided with a circuit wall by Marcus Aurelius. Captured temporarily and sacked by the Goths in 251, it became an episcopal seat in the 4th c. It was occupied by the Huns and restored during the reign of Justinian.
Traces remain of the Thracian-Macedonian (4th c. B.C.) polygonal circuit wall. It encircled the three hills (a prehistoric site) with an irregular and triangular surface area of ca. 80,000 m and was restored in the late Roman and Byzantine period in opus mixtum and rubble core. Only one gate of the original four has been preserved. The second and larger circuit wall (ca. 430,000 sq. m), in the shape of an irregular pentagon, was constructed during the reign of Marcus Aurelius as a defense against the Marcomanni (mentioned in fragmentary inscriptions). Very little of it has been preserved.
Of the ancient buildings, only the stadium, to the W and at the front of the hill between the second circuit wall in the central section of the modern city, remains. There are ruins of a temple of Aesculapius to the E, a large bath building with massive vaults on pilasters in the E section, aqueducts, and many architectural fragments belonging to various buildings that have since disappeared. The theater is supposed to have been in the S section of the city S of Taxim-tepe. It is quite probable that the city had a stadium (3d c. B.C. on the evidence of the architectural and decorative elements and according to the ancient sources). The length of the track is a little more than a stade—ca. 180 m—and the width was probably 25 to 30 m, with a capacity possibly of ca. 30,000. The orientation of the stadium was NW to SE. The W side occupied the slopes of Sahat-tepe, taking full advantage of the natural rock and slope of the land; the E side was for the most part artificially elevated with buttressing walls of brick and stone. Inscriptions document the existence of reserved seats for officials and organizers of the games. The monumental entrance to the track, set on a slightly curved line, was built of five large vaulted chambers. This monumental entrance, which must have been on three levels, was probably decorated in the three architectural orders. Herodian mentions the restoration of the Pythian games in the cities of Thrace at the behest of Caracalla in honor and memory of Alexander the Great. Coins minted by Caracalla and later by Elagabalus at Philippopolis commemorate this restoration by the provincial assembly of the Thracians. The coins represent fights, gladiators, a diskobolos, gymnasts exercising, and prizes. The games mentioned are the Pythian in honor of Apollo Pythius, the Alexandria in honor of Alexander the Great, and the Kendreiseia, local games of Thrace in honor of the Thracian deity Kendrizos. At the time of the Gothic invasions, the sources remark that the stadium was within the city.
The Byzantine chronicler Anna Comnena, who visited Philippopolis at the beginning of the 12th c., mentions a hippodrome without remarking on the stadium. That the stadium no longer existed in her time is proved by the stratigraphy of the excavations where the Byzantine coins are at a level higher than that of the stadium. Inscriptions give evidence of the participation of famous athletes at the games and of the commemoration of statues to them.
The modern city preserves traces of the old topography along with the separation of the ethnic sections and the irregular, winding course of the streets (characteristically, the houses are wood, the markets are covered, and the baths are Turkish). There is a typical lack of a real urban center.
The National Archaeological Museum in Plovdiv, second only in size to the one at Sofia, conserves the prehistoric, Thracian, Roman, and mediaeval antiquities. Particularly important are the religious reliefs, and the coin collection is noteworthy.
BIBLIOGRAPHYB. Filov, “Il restauro della fortezza di F.,” Izv. Ist. Druz. v. Sofia 4 (1915); G. Rudolif-Hille, “Die Stadt Plovdiv u. ihre Bauten,” Izv. Bulg. Arch. Inst. 8 (1935) MPI; C. Danov in RE XIX (1938); D. Zoncev, Contributions à l'histoire antique de Philippopolis (1938) PI; id., Contributions à l'histoire du stade antique de Ph. (1947) PI; L. Botušarova, “Des données topographiques sur la ville de Philippopolis de l'époque romaine d'après les trouvailles funéraires,” Izv. Bulg. Arch. Inst. 25 (1962).
Notices and reports in Annuaire de la Bibliothèque et du Musée National de Plovdiv from 1901; and in Izvestia dell'Istituto Archeologico Bulgaro, always in Bulgarian with summaries in
French and German. A. FROVA