Amphipolis

It was central and it was strong.

As strong as Aigai, far stronger than Pydna, and more central than either for a monarch whose long arm reached from Amphipolis to Pegasai.

It was also in direct communication with the sea, distant about fifteen miles by the marshes and the Lydias.

In short, with no claims to beauty or grandeur or healthiness, Pella formed a strong central useful capital, thoroughly characteristic of a common-sense monarchy whose right was might.

So far we have been dealing solely with Macedon, but there were large districts and many cities to the east of the Axios which had been founded or colonized by Hellenes and in which they were the dominant, if not the more numerous part of the population.

These colonies fringed the whole coast of the Euxine Sea, the Chersonese, Thrace, and Chalcidice, and as the extension of Macedonian power by Philip brought him into collision with many of them, it will be well to give a short account of the country lying between the Axios and Amphipolis.

The promontory of Chalcidice, with its three fingers or peninsulas, seemed formed by nature to be the maritime province of the inland country behind it.

Macedon might seem to have a natural right to it, and we can hardly wonder that Philip was not content until he had won it.

But he was a general briefly in 424.

So during the first stage of the Polynesian War, He failed to arrive in time to prevent the fall of the city of Amphipolis, and as a result of that, he was exiled by the people.

So in this time that he's writing about now, in 415, when the Sicilian expedition is being organized, he's not in Athens.

He's hiding in his estate, essentially, in Thrace.

But Brasidas proved to be a thorn in the side of the Athenians.

He secretly moved his forces through Thessaly and, with the help of the Macedonians, he opened a second front, inciting rebellions and defections among Athenian allies in the northern Aegean, most notably the colony of Amphipolis, the center of Athenian power in Thrace, where most of the timber for their ships came from.

In the south, Sparta's ally, the Boeotian League, rallied under Theban leadership.

Pagondas of Thebes, a fiery and persuasive nobleman, used his rhetoric to reorganize the Boeotian forces and launch an attack on Plataea.

Losing Amphipolis was a serious blow for the Athenians, who now found themselves fighting a two-front war of attrition that they could not win.

Making matters worse, their manpower was impacted by the plague that struck Athens repeatedly between 430 and 426, killing up to a quarter of the population, including Pericles himself.

To have any chance against the Peloponnesian armies, Hippocrates and Demosthenes realized they needed to deal a quick knockout blow to Sparta's Peloponnesian alliance.

And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying.

Strange indeed would be my conduct, O men of Athens, if I, who when I was ordered by the generals whom you chose to command me at Potidaea, and Amphipolis, and Delium, remained where they placed me, like any other man, facing death, if now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfil the philosopher's mission of searching into himself, and other men— I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear.

That would indeed be strange, and I might be justly arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods, if I disobeyed the oracle because I was afraid of death, fancying that I was wise when I was not wise.

for the fear of death is indeed a pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown, and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Anyways.

It's Amphipolis, right? Am I right, sir? Yes, thank you.

Yes, I know polis is there.

Polis, talking about a city of metropolitan, something like that.

Paul's gonna tell us about the problem there in Thessalonica in his initial contact with the people there.

It says there in Acts 17.1. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where was a synagogue of the Jews.

Whenever Paul gets near a synagogue, hold your breath.

And verse two, Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures.

The internal machinery driving it, however, is essentially an elaborate coping mechanism fueled by intense professional humiliation.

Thucydides actually served as an Athenian general early in the conflict, but he was swiftly sent into exile after failing to protect the strategic city of Amphipolis from Spartan capture.

Rather than simply accepting his forced retirement, he used his banishment to observe, travel and write aggressively.

He transformed his personal military disgrace into a universal theory, treating the war as a stark lesson in human nature driven entirely by fear, honour and self-interest.

Because of this, Hippocrates evolved to become much more than a single medical professional.

His name transformed into a permanent verification badge for credible, data-driven medicine, ensuring that basic diagnostics survive the shifting of global empires.

The intellectual current inevitably circled back to the pressure cooker of wartime Athens and the northern military zone of Amphipolis, the operational theatre of Thucydides.

His documentation of state behaviour and power dynamics remains high-tier required reading for any strategist looking to min-max their geopolitical position, and following his cold ledger of the war laid the mechanics of collapse bare.

Hear the word of the Lord.

Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and setting before them that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, This Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you, is that Christ.

And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a great multitude of the God-fearing Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

Many of the things that Paul will talk with the Thessalonians about in that letter that he mails to them is the persecution that Christians are enduring throughout the world, even the Thessalonians themselves.

So we see that persecution come upon Paul and Silas here, And yet these Thessalonian Christians endure, even though they are brand new to the faith, having just heard the gospel, yet they hold fast to Christ, even in the midst of the antagonism that comes against them for believing that Jesus is the Christ, as Paul preached to them.

So starting off here in this chapter with Paul and Silas traveling through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and then they come to Thessalonica.

Now, in a lot of your Bible maps that you look at, if you look in the back of your Bible and you got those maps, one of those maps will undoubtedly be a, it will show you Paul's missionary journeys.