Road station

Edessa

Έδεσσα

Edessa, still called Edessa today, lies in northern Greece at the eastern mouth of the pass from Lower to Upper Macedonia, on the Via Egnatia. Its name probably comes from a Phrygian word for water, after its famous waterfalls, and was carried to a Seleucid city in Syria. Ancient writers wrongly took it for Aegae, the old royal seat, founded where King Caranus followed a flock of goats through rain and fog. Romans settled here in numbers, and its Christian inscriptions are the earliest in Macedonia. The map's forty-five miles on to Pella simply repeat the figure before it.

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