Pélla, once capital of the kingdom of Macedon, lies 40km/25mi west of Salonica on the road to Édessa.
About 410 B.C. King Achelaos of Macedon transferred his capital from Aigai (see Édessa and Vérgina) to what was then the north coast of the Thermaic Gulf and founded the city of Pélla, in which the Attic tragedian Euripides spent the last years
of his life and Alexander the Great was born in 356 B.C. The city seems to have had two acropolises, one on the site of the present-day village of Palaiá Pélla (1km/.75mi north of the main road) and the other to the west of this, where walls probably belonging to the palace were found (Site II). From there the town extended south as far as the former island of Phakos, to the south of the road. Following the destruction of the town by the Romans after the battle of Pydna (196 B.C.), of which Pliny gives an account, Pélla disappeared from sight and was rediscovered only in 1957 by Makaronas and Petsas. The excavations carried out since then have been highly productive.
Coming from Salonica, we see on the right of the road, immediately after the turning for Palaiá Pélla (bus stop), the remains of a number of large buildings, between which are streets intersecting at right angles. Dating from about 300 B.C., they are laid out round colonnaded courtyards and apparently served some public function. Particularly notable is one on the right (Block 1), with an Ionic peristyle and fine mosaics, which have been left in situ. Numbers of such mosaics, composed of black, white and yellow pebbles, were found on the site. One of them, the Lion Hunt, shows Alexander the Great being saved by Krateros; two other major compositions are Dionysos riding on a panther and another hunting scene; and other scenes depict Theseus carrying off Helen while Deianeira flees, a fight with Amazons, a pair of Centaurs, etc.
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