HISTORY OF SALONIKA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1461, 19 October 1915, Page 2

HISTORY OF SALONIKA.

The historic city of Salonika, formerly Thessalonica, where the allies have landed, was at first called Therma, under which name it is mentioned in connection with the march of Xerxes through Greece. It was rebuilt by Cassander, King of Macedonia, about 313 8.C., who renamed it Thessalonica, in honour of his wife, half sister to Alexander the Great. During the Roman-Macedonian wars the city figured as the principal station of the Macedonian fleet. After the close of the civil wars its prosperity rapidly increased, and for three centuries it was the first city in Greece. It was also one of the early seats of a Christian church. During the Barbarian invasions it proved the great bulwark of the Eastern Empire. Salonika was a military and commercial station on a main line of communication between Rome and the East, and had reached its zenith before the seat ot the Empire was transferred to Constantinople. Under its old name of Thessalonica Salonika became famous in connection with the early history of Christianity, through the two epistles addressed by St. Paul to the community which be founded there. In the year 390, 7000 citizens who had been guilty of insurrection were massacred in the hippodrome by the command of Theodosius. During the iconoclastic reigns of terror it stood on the defensive and succeeded in saving tha artistic treasures of its churches. In the ninth century Joseph, one of its bishops, died in chains for his defence of image worship. After being taken and retaken by the Turks on no fewer than four occasions, Salonika passed into the hands of Greece on the occasion of the late Balkan wars.