Therma or Thermē (, ) is the unknown city incorporated into the new city of Thessaloniki by the Macedonians on its synoecism and foundation. Little is known of literary Therma, including its exact location.

Thessaloniki is the second-largest city in Greece. It surrounds the entire north of the Thermaic Gulf, named after its predecessor. Exactly where Therma was remains a mystery. There is not much room for archaeological excavation between all the modern skyscrapers, and the parklands are valued as such. However, two large habitation mounds remain available and have been extensively excavated. No literary or inscriptional fragment ties them to Therma. The pottery is Greek, but such is the case for any settlement of the times around the Aegean, regardless of known language or ethnic connections. Nearly all of Lower Macedonia was Macedonianized in classical times by the aggressive Argead dynasty, in which the original Thessaloniki, half-sister of Alexander the Great, became queen.

Literary fragments concerning Therma

Ethnicity

The question of polis

Synoecism into Thessaloniki

Archaeological sites of Therma

Mikro Emvolo

Toumba

<!--was a Greek city founded by Eretrians or Corinthians in late 7th century BC in ancient Mygdonia (which was later incorporated into Macedon), situated at the northeastern extremity of a great gulf of the Aegean Sea, the Thermaic Gulf. The city was built amidst mosquito-infested swampland, and its name derives from the Greek thérmē/thérma, "(malarial) fever". Therma was later renamed Thessalonica by Cassander. By that time the port of the previous capital of Macedonia, Pella, had begun silting up, so Cassander took advantage of the deep-water port to the northwest of Therma to expand the settlement.

The site of Therma is tentatively located 3 miles (5&nbsp;km) south of modern Thessaloniki around the suburb of modern Thermi.-->

See also

  • List of ancient Greek cities

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

  • Herodotus, the Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Books, with Introduction [https://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=Therme%2C+originally+perhaps+a+Greek+colony%2C+but+a+Macedonian+town+at+the+date+when&btnG=Search+Books] Reginald Walter Macan
  • The Letters to the Thessalonians [https://books.google.com/books?id=gzwjtKwinR4C&dq=Therme++colony&pg=PA10] by Gene L. Green
  • From Mycenae to Constantinople: The Evolution of the Ancient City [https://books.google.com/books?id=1BcLLMg6wNUC&dq=Therme++colony&pg=PA123] By Richard Allan Tomlinson
  • Hidryma Meletōn Chersonēsou tou Haimou (Thessalonikē, Greece)[https://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=Therme+corinthian+eretrian&btnG=Search+Books]
  • Ancient coinage from Therma