Alexander's Place

In his bitter orations against Philip II, Demosthenes painted Macedonia as a barbarous country. But archaeologists are now discovering that Alexander the Great's birthplace, Pella, the capital of Macedonia, was a city of such culture and opulence that it may have ranked with Athens itself. That possibility was long masked not only by Greek scorn for the Macedonians, but also by the fact that the Romans destroyed Pella in 168 B.C. Gradually covered by layers of dirt, ancient Pella's precise location became unknown.

In the modern village of Pella (24 miles northwest of Salonika), a Greek farmer was digging in his basement in 1957 when he stumbled on two limestone Ionic columns that turned out to be part of the spacious courtyard of a nobleman's house in ancient Pella. At what is now confirmed as Pella's site, archaeologists have since uncovered mosaic floors of exceptional beauty and size--testament to the splendor of Pella's patrician life in Alexander's time.

The mosaics represent Homeric scenes, Theseus raping Helen, warlike Amazons and two centaurs, one of them curiously a woman. But the most intriguing discovery to date is a large circular structure built about 2,300 years ago. Perhaps a shrine, it is 100 ft. in diameter and is surrounded by three smaller rotundas, each 16 ft. in diameter. No other circular complex of this style has been found anywhere in Greece.

Again by accident, a farmer digging in his vineyard unearthed the tops of several large fluted columns. Archaeologist Haralambos Makaronas, head of the Pella dig, believes the columns belong to the 5th century B.C. temple dedicated to Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, of which Roman Historian Livy speaks.

Still unknown is the location of Pella's great palace--the place where Queen Olympias gave birth to Alexander the Great, after dreaming, says Plutarch, that a "thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire."

Makaronas believes that both the royal palace and Pella's theater are buried under a hill on which the modern village stands. But diggings there will have to wait; the job would probably require the relocation of all 2,500 villagers.

Meanwhile, says Makaronas, "there is enough in Pella to occupy several generations of archaeologists."

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