Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Philippi

PHILIPPI, a city of ancient Macedonia, on a steep hill near the river Gangites (now the Angista), overlooking an extensive plain and at no great distance from the coast of the Ægean, on the highway between Neapolis (Kavalla) and Thessalonica. Originally called Crenides, or “Fountains,” it took the name by which it has become famous from Philip of Macedon, who made himself master of the neighbouring gold-mines of the Hill of Dionysus, and fortified the city as one of his frontier-towns. Octavius and Antony having in 42 B.C. gained a great victory over Brutus and Cassius in the plain of Philippi, the place received a Roman colony, Colonia Julia Philippensis, which was probably increased after the battle of Actium (Col. Aug. Julia Phil.}. The inhabitants received the Jus Italicum, and Philippi was one of the cities specially designated as “first cities” ([ Greek ], Acts xvi. 1 2 ; see Marquardt, Rom. Staatsvenvafamy, vol. i. p. 187). It was the scene of a striking incident in the life of St Paul, and it was to his converts here that he addressed the epistle noticed below. The site of the city, now altogether uninhabited, is marked by a number of ruins the substructions of an amphitheatre, parts of a great temple of Claudius, &c. which have furnished a variety of interesting inscriptions. At a little distance to the east is a huge stone monument, known to the Turks as Dikelitash and to the Greeks as the Manger of Bucephalus.

See Clarke's Travels, iii. ; Hacket, i Bible Union Quarterly, I860 ; Heuzey, Mission arch, en Macedoine, and C. 1. L., iii. 1.