Thessaloniki is a historic city in Greece and the Balkans. In the long historical course was found in possession of various peoples and has been a place of cultural convergence of many ethnicities. Between 1912 and the end of the First Balkan War Thessaloniki is the second largest city of the modern Greek state and today is the largest city and capital of Macedonia region of Central Macedonia, with a population of 900,000 inhabitants .
The establishment coincides with the beginning of the Hellenistic era, the assumption that universal empire of Alexander the Great from the successors and the sovereignty of the Greek culture in most of the known, for the then Western world. The heir of the kingdom of Macedonia and husband of the step sister of Alexander, Cassander, founded the city together with other smaller towns around the Thermaic Gulf, and gave the name of his wife, daughter of Philip II, Thessaloniki.
In the 2 century BC the city went under the Roman rule like the rest of Greece and the Hellenistic Asia Minor territories, and was originally one of the four seats of administration of the provinces of Macedonia and later became the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. In the beginning of the transition from the Roman Empire in the Christian Empire of the East by transferring the capital from Constantine the Great to the East, was due to important strategic position, one of the candidate cities, which were proposed as substitutes of Rome. Despite that, however, Byzantium was preferred as the new capital city, Thessaloniki had political and cultural role as well.
