Editing Philippi (section)

=== Byzantine era and decline ===

Already weakened by the [[Slavic peoples|Slavic]] invasions at the end of the 6th century – which ruined the agrarian economy of Macedonia – and probably also by the [[Plague of Justinian]] in 547, the city was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake around 619, from which it never recovered. There was a small amount of activity there in the 7th century, but the city was now hardly more than a village.

The [[Byzantine Empire]] possibly maintained a garrison there, but in 838 the [[Bulgarians]] under ''[[kavhan]]'' [[Isbul]] took the city and celebrated their victory with a [[Presian Inscription|monumental inscription]] on the [[stylobate]] in Basilica B, now partially in ruins. The site of Philippi was so strategically sound that the Byzantines attempted to recapture it around 850. Several seals of civil servants and other Byzantine officials, dated to the first half of the 9th century, prove the presence of Byzantine armies in the city.

Around 969, Emperor [[Nicephorus II Phocas]] rebuilt the fortifications on the acropolis and in part of the city. These gradually helped to weaken Bulgar power and to strengthen the Byzantine presence in the area. In 1077 Bishop Basil Kartzimopoulos rebuilt part of the defenses inside the city. The city began to prosper once more, as witnessed by the Arab geographer [[Al Idrisi]], who mentions it as a centre of business and wine production around 1150.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}}<ref>Estreicher, S. K. (2013). A Brief History of Wine in Spain. ''European Review'', ''21''(2), 209–239.</ref>

After a brief occupation by the [[Franks]] after the [[Fourth Crusade]] and the capture of Constantinople in 1204, the city was captured by the [[Serbs]]. Still, it remained a notable fortification on the route of the ancient ''[[Via Egnatia]]''; in 1354, the pretender to the [[Byzantine]] throne, [[Matthew Cantacuzenus]], was captured there by the Serbs.

The city was abandoned at an unknown date. When the French traveller [[Pierre Belon]] visited the area in the 1540s there remained nothing but ruins, used by the Turks as a quarry. The name of the city survived – at first in a Turkish village on the nearby plain, Philibedjik (Filibecik, "Little Filibe" in Turkish), which has since disappeared, and then in a Greek village in the mountains.