Apollonia

Here he and his companions undoubtedly spent the night. Like Amphipolis, no Jewish community is known to have existed here. Whether a house church was formed during this visit is unknown, but certainly Paul revisited the city at least twice on subsequent journeys. Apollonia was an important trading node on the VE, settled by Italians in the second century BC. Following the Roman conquest, Evangelidis notes that Apollonia boomed as a hub “through which goods flowed from east to west.”¹

As with the route of the VE in this area, the exact location of ancient Apollonia is disputed. TIB 11 locates it halfway between Kokkalou and Nea Apollonia about 2 km southwest of Highway 2, which passes through the latter village. The so-called Bema of St. Paul is located some 500 m north of Highway 2 in Nea Apollonia, and Greek archaeologists have uncovered some ancient road paving in this area.² Yet, because of the previously mentioned marshes along the lakeshore in antiquity, it is more likely that the early Macedonian-era route after Rentina turned south and followed the edge of the rising ground through the area of modern Kokkalou to the ancient city. The ancient paving and bema would more likely belong to the rerouting done in the Second Century AD under Trajan which followed the shoreline after these marshes were drained. This later path accounts for the location of the medieval han and the later church along it.