The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-12-20

WNW Special )-Eew cities which
 have been storm centers in the present European war have had more tumultuous history than Saloniki, now the focal point of war events with the entente allies in possession. A con densed yet graphic recital of the pow CTS and peoples which have held sway over the seaport is given in commit nication to the National Geographic so- ciety from H. c. Dwight, a part of which has been Issued as a bulletin in the war geography series of the society. MT. Dwight says:
 Compared to it's two great neighbors, Athens and Constantinople, Saloniki is relatively a modern city. Pounded orig inally as an Ionian colony. the place was first known as Therme or Therma, from the hot springs which still exist in that eastern district of the bay. It fell into the hands of the Persians in 512 B. C., when Darius overran Seythia and Thrace; and xerxes reassembled his own forces there preparatory to his in- vasion of Greece.
 During the great days of the Mace donian empire the city played no mo- table role, for Philip and Alexander the Great held their court at Pella, in the hills beyond the Vardar. The present town was founded about 315 B. C.. by King Kassander of Macedon, and named after his wife, Thessalonike, half sister to Alexander the Great. The adjoining peninsula of Kassandra takes its name from the King himself, who founded another city on it's shore.
 Under the Romans, SalonilSi grew greatly in importance. Made a free city, the capital of the surrounding region, it became the home of many Roman colonists, and not a few famous names associate themselves with the town. Cicero lived there for time in exile, St. Paul was another temporary resident, whose epistles to the Thessalonians we still preserve.
 "The Emperor Nero decorated the city with a colonnade, a few of whose bat tered carytides were visible there un- LII d lcW yCdiS d5Sj diioOA eAAC PASeeA SS>aN~ name of Las Encantadas-the enchanted women. They are now in the Louvre. Trajan erected a rotunda in honor of the Cabiri; for they, with Aphrodite of the Baths, were patrons of pagan Sa- loniki. Galerius, one of the associates of Diocletian in the purple, made Sa- loniki his headquarters. Licnius, CO., Emperor with Constantine the Great, died or was put to death there in 324 by his successful rival Theodosius the Great also lived there in 3So in order to keep his eyes on the Goths.
 After his retirement to Milan, 10000 of the Thessalonians were butchered in the circus, in punishment for insulting the Emperors lieutenant. St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. thundered from the pull pit against the imperial murderer and Theodosius eventually made most hu- miliating public penance.
 During the Byzantine period Saloniki became the second city of the empire. It's situation made it the commercial capital of the Balkan peninsula, and 1t rivalled COnStantlnOple as a port. or traI- fife between eastern Europe and AIexan- dria. But it's wealth and it's compara- tive remoteness also made it frequent object of attack. Avars, Goths and Huns came time and again to it's gates. The Saracens captured and sacked it in 9O4. The Normans descended upon it in 1lS5.
 And 1t is not undressing to recall that among the most assiduous of these redoubtable visitors were the Serbs, and especially the Buigars. These neighbors owed much to Salonik, from whom they took their faith, and incidentally their alphabet; for it was from Saloniki that St. Cyril and St. Methodius went forth to convert and to civilize the hardy moun- taineers of the Balkans. The hardy noun taineers, however, lost no opportunity to take more merchantable loot from Sa- loniki. though the city itself they never took for long.
 After the conquest of Constantinople in 12N by the Franks and venetians of the Fourth Crusade, Saloniki fell to the lot of Boniface. Marquis of Montferrat. who made it the capital of an imaginary Kingdom. In 1222 King Demetrius. son of Boniface. was driven out with his Lom-