Aigai

Aegae or Aigai (Ancient Greek: , Aigaí, Latinized: Aegae, Greek: , romanized: Aiges) was the original capital of Macedon, the ancient Greek kingdom of the Argead Makedones in Lower Macedonia. Aigai was located in the Haliacmon valley on the foothills of the Pierian Mountains, between the modern towns of Vergina and Palatitsia, overlooking the central Macedonian plain, in northern Greece. Alexander the Great was proclaimed king of Macedon at Aigai when his father Philip II was assassinated at the city's theatre. The city was abandoned in the 3rd century AD and was rediscovered in the 19th. Three major archaeological missions have been carried out at Aigai. The first was led by Léon Heuzey of the French School at Athens in the 1860s; Manolis Andronikos led excavations over a century later and made many important discoveries, including the tomb of Philip II of Macedon and the Golden Larnax bearing the Vergina Sun; and Angeliki Kottaridi led restoration efforts in the 2000s. Today it is the site of an archaeological site and two museums. In 1996, the archaeological site of Aigai was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List because of its monumental significance in Western civilization and exceptional architecture.

The name Aigai is etymologically related to the word for 'goat' (Ancient Greek: , romanized: aíx), and is translated as 'goat town'. Diodorus Siculus claimed the city was so named after Perdiccas I received an instruction by the Pythia at the Oracle of Delphi to establish his city at a place where "white-horned goats rest at dawn". This version, supported by Thucydides, was the 'official' founding myth in the 5th century BC. In the Epitome of the Philippic History, Justin gives a different account whereby Edessa was the older name of Aegae before it was captured by Caranus of Macedon. As a result, Edessa was historically thought to have been site of Aegae. Aigai also appears in the historical record as Aegeae/Aigeai and Aegaea/Aigaia . The name is in the plural, a typical feature of ancient Greek toponyms such as Athens (, Athenai) and Thebes (, Thebai). In modern Greek the name is Aiges (, Greek pronunciation: [ees]), showing a typical first declension transition from ancient plural ending -ai to the modern -es.

In the 7th century BC, the Temenids' dominance led to the Macedonians expanding and subduing local populations until the end of the 6th century BC, and establishing the dynasty at Aigai. Ancient sources give conflicting accounts of the origins of the Argead dynasty. Alexander I is the first truly historic figure and, based on the line of succession, the beginnings of the Macedonian dynasty have been traditionally dated to 750 BC. Herodotus says that the Argead dynasty was an ancient Greek royal house led by Perdiccas I who fled from Argos in about 650 BC. The Macedonians perceived the state founded by the Argeads as a typical ancient Greek city-state (Polis), with Aegae as an urban centre ruling over the surrounding countryside , not basically different from Athens or Sparta; to what degree this perceiption was historically accurate is not clear. Archaeologic evidence shows that Aigai developed as an organized collection of villages, spatially representing the aristocratic structure of tribes centred on the power of the king. It remained so throughout its history. Indeed, Aigai never became a large city and most of its inhabitants lived in surrounding villages. The walled asty (acropolis) was built at the centre of Aigai. From Aigai the Macedonians spread to the central part of Macedonia and displaced the local population of Pierians. From 513 to 480 BC Aigai was part of the Persian Empire, but Amyntas I managed to keep its relative independence, avo

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).