An ancient fortified city at the western coast of the Thermaikos gulf which in the classical period was named Pydna and in medieval times was known as Kitros.

Pydna was the battleground of one of the most important battles in the world history in 168 B.C. when the last Macedonian king Perseus was defeated by the Roman consul Aemilius Paullus. That defeat signaled the complete conquest of Greece by Rome.

History

The city was founded before the classical period and it was ruled -with small intervals of Athenian intervention- by the kings of Macedonia until the arrival of the Romans.

The initial name of the city was “Kydna” which became “Pydna” and since the Roman period is recorded as “Kitros” (Citrum by Strabo) , the origin of which might have been the name of a Roman lord.

The city was prosperous in antiquity and its prosperity was continued in the roman and byzantine period, though it was pillaged repeatedly in barbarian raids: Visigoths in 396, Huns in 447 and later Avars, Slavs, and much later Saracens, Bulgars, Normans.

A diocese was created there in the 6th or 7th century.

The city flourished until 1204 when the Franks conquered Constantinople and Greece. It was given as a fief to the crusader Virich von Daum. The Franks burned the city and the orthodox cathedral and on top of it built a 3-storey tower which still dominates the site today.

The Franks were ousted relatively soon in 1222 by the Byzantines of Despotate of Epirus. Kitros suffered another major disaster in 1309 when it was pillaged by the mercenaries of the Catalan company.

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