Thessaloniki is named after the tragic queen, Thessalonike, daughter of Philip II and half sister of Alexander The Great. The name means,"victory in Thessaly". Philip gave this name to his daughter as on the day of her birth, he won a great victory in Thessaly. The city was founded by Cassander, son of Antipatros, and king of Macedon some years after the death of Alexander. It is situated at the top of The Chalcadician peninsula on a bay in the Thermaic Gulf.

Cassander chose the spot well. It had been a small village called, "Thermae" and was strategically placed between Macedon and Thrace on the overland route to Asia. In Roman times it was at the crossroads of the two main roads from north to south and east to west. It was these two roads, which are today modern highways, that made Thessaloniki become the great and prosperous city it has been since ancient times.

The city sits on a bay surrounded by hills gazing out to the sea which makes it an important seaport and trade center where the products of The East and The West meet both by water and land. This advantageous position has served Thessaloniki well over the years.

In 168 BCE, the Roman conquerors made Thessaloniki the capital of The Roman Province of Macedon and built extensively in their thriving city making it a great commercial emporium as well as a politically prominent capitol city. It was known for its polyglot population of wealthy merchants from all over the empire and their palatial homes.

So prominent did Thessaloniki become that the emperor Galerius made it his imperial seat in the year 300 CE and with the founding of The Byzantine Empire, in 395 CE, it was proclaimed to be coregent with Constantinople.

Thus the little village of Thermae which had been inhabited since neolitihic times grew and changed over the years to become what is now the second city of Greece. It stretches seven and a half miles along the edge of The Thermaic Gulf and remains what Cassander had intended 2319 years ago, a thriving trade center, a prosperous port, and a world class city.

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- Hood write-up by Kallistos Alexandros
- Map by Alerissa Nestor