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Short outline of Thessaloniki's history
Prof. Alexandra YEROLYMPOS
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[ This chapter has been taken from: Alexandra YEROLYMPOS, "Urban Transformations in the Balkans (1820-1920)", University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1996,pp. 88-101 ]
Thessaloniki was founded by Cassander in 316 B.C. According to the tradition in Strabo "...king Cassander named the city after his own wife Thessaloniki, daughter of Philip son of Amyntas, after dismantling the small towns in Croussis and in the Thermaic Gulf, about 26 in number, and bringing them together in a single joint settlement".
The fourth century B.C. is regarded as marking the beginning of the Helenistic Age. Following the conquest of Alexander the Great, the penetration of Hellenism into the far distant lands of the East gave great impetus in the development of the ancient world. Existing cities flourished and new urban centers distinguished. In the Macedonian State the conquests eastwards, and also northwards, created an extended and wealty hinterland in search of a regular natural outlet to the sea, with easy and safe communication with the interior of the Balkan Peninsula.
The splendid geographic location of Thessaloniki, between the coasts of the Termaic Gulf and the gentle slopes of mountain Chortiatis, the Kissus of the ancients, most suitably unites the hinterland to the sea and facilities commerce and communications. Built as an amphitheatre, the city quickly attracted inhabitants and became the centre of Macedonian commerce.
Thessaloniki is perhaps the only coastal city of contemporany Greece that has never lost its commercial importance since its formation and until today. A great city, with a ring of walls crowned by a spacious acropolis, Thessaloniki became, under Roman sovereignty (168 B.C.) the capital of an autonomous district-region, and later (146 B.C.) of a Roman province. Named a "free city", it preserved its ancient political organization and the right to mint coinage.
By this period the street plan of the city, of the major roads at least, had already been definitively laid out and its traces may be looked for in the contemporary street plan. It appears that Via Egnatia for example -named the "Boulevard" by the Byzantines and the "Broad" street by the Turks- its parallel to the north, and also the road running at right angles to the two of them -wich links the harbor to the government building- were the principal arteries of the ancient city. In these few streets one can detect the customary regularity of the Hellenistic city-plan.
Moreover, other minor roads ot the historic centre are also the same roads of the Byzantine or perhaps even of the ancient city. Named capital of Illyrikon and seat of Caesar Gallerius during the fourth century, Thessaloniki was adorned with important civic buildings and spaces: the Forum, the Rotunda, the Arch of Gallerius, the Royal Palace. Constantine the Great built an artificial harbor (324 A.D.) and Theodosius commissioned his Persian general Hosmisdas to built the powerful city walls, which are preserved until today.
Having played and important role in the Eastern Empire, Thessaloniki's space has been marked by ten centuries of Byzantine architecture and urbanism. Its golden age though appears to be the 14th century, when in spite of the decline of the Byzantine Empire, the city emerged as a major intellectual and artistic centre. In 1423 Thessaloniki surrendered to the Venetians and in 1430 to the Turks.
Thessaloniki lived under Ottoman rule for almost five centuries. Abandoned by the population at first, it soon recovered, and was colonized by Jewish fugitives from Spain. By the middle of the 17th century it was again a densely populated city. Mosques and synagogues, Dervish monasteries, Turkish baths and caravanserais were added in an urban fabric that was gradually losing Byzantine characteristics. In the beginning of the 18th century the city had regained its importance as a major crossroad of the Balkans and it had reassumed its commercial activities.
This curious marriage between continuity and change, this restless turmoil of Hellenistic, Roman, Early Christian, Byzantine, Ottoman, Jewish cultures and influences would last until the beginning of the 20th century. At that particular time, as the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating and the new BalKan States were being formulated, Thessaloniki's geographical and commercial importance would attract all belligerent neighboring states which sought to possess it during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. The city was finally integrated in the neo-Hellenic State at the end of the first Balkan War in 1912. The population figures oscillate form 200.000 in the 10th century to 65.000 in the 17th century and 158.000 in 1913. Today is approximately 1.000.000.
On the afternoon of 5 August 1917 the most devastating fire that Thessaloniki has ever known broke out on the northwestern edge of the city. By the time the fire finally went out the following evening, the city presented a dreadful picture. All central areas, including the busy commercial sector, had been totally destroyed. Heaps of smoking rubble were all that were left of large modern shops and traditional bazaars, hotels, banks and warehouses, the post and the telegraph offices, the city hall, the water and gas boards, European consulates, three important Byzantine churches, ten mosques, sixteen synagogues, the Chief Rabbi's residence, denominational, foreign and other private schools, newspaper offices an the homes of 70.000 people. A zone of 128 hectares had ceased to exist.
The fire of 1917 forced Thessaloniki to make a clean break with the long centuries of its historic growth and evolution.
The Greek government grasped the opportunity offered by the fire and went ahead with modernizing the city. An international Commission for the New Plan of Thessaloniki was set up which produced a radical intervention in the city's historical evolution process, known as the Hebrard plan. Today, modern Thessaloniki, in spite of its anarchical, unplanned growth since the War, still continues to draw the constituent elements of its design from the city plan, which was worked out after the Great Fire of 1917.
[ This chapter has been taken from: Alexandra YEROLYMPOS, "Urban Transformations in the Balkans (1820-1920)", University Studio Press, Thessaloniki 1996,pp. 88-101 ]
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