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 to furnish material for repairing the city walls; an imperfect inscription from it is preserved in the British Museum. The other arch, popularly called the arch of Constantine, but with greater probability assigned to the reign of Galerius ( 305–311), is built of brick and partly faced with sculptured marble. A third example of Roman architecture&mdash;the remains of a white marble portico supposed to have formed the entrance to the hippodrome&mdash;is known by the Judaeo-Spanish designation of Las Incantadas, from the eight Caryatides in the upper part of the structure. There are also numerous fragments of Roman inscriptions and statuary. The conspicuous mosques of Salonica are nearly all of an early Christian origin; the remarkable preservation of their mural decorations makes them very important for the history of Byzantine architecture. The principal are those dedicated to St Sophia, St George and St Demetrius.

History.—Thessalonica was built on the site of the older Greek city of Therma, so called in allusion to the hot-springs of the neighbourhood. It was founded in 315 by Cassander, who gave it the name of his wife, a sister of Alexander the Great. It was a military and commercial station on a main line of communication between Rome and the East, and had reached its zenith before the seat of empire was transferred to Constantinople. It became famous in connexion with the early history of Christianity through the two epistles addressed by St Paul to the community which he founded here; and in the later defence of the ancient civilization against the barbarian inroads it played a considerable part. In 390 7000 citizens who had been guilty of insurrection were massacred in the hippodrome by command of Theodosius. Constantine repaired the port, and probably enriched the town with some of its buildings. During the iconoclastic reigns of terror it stood on the defensive, and succeeded in saving the artistic treasures of its churches: in the 9th century Joseph, one of its bishops, died in chains for his defence of image-worship. In the 7th century the Macedonian Slavs strove to capture the city, but failed even when it was thrown into confusion by a terrible earthquake. It was the attempt made to transfer the whole Bulgarian trade to Thessalonica that in the close of the 9th century caused the invasion of the empire by Simeon of Bulgaria. In 904 the Saracens from the Cyrenaica took the place by storm; the public buildings were grievously injured, and the inhabitants to the number of 22,000 were carried off and sold as slaves throughout the countries of the Mediterranean. In 1185 the Normans of Sicily took Thessalonica after a ten days' siege, and perpetrated endless barbarities, of which Eustathius, then bishop of the see, has left an account. In 1204 Baldwin, conqueror of Constantinople, conferred the kingdom of Thessalonica on Boniface, marquis of Montferrat [sic]; but in 1222 Theodore, despot of Epirus, one of the natural enemies of the new kingdom, took the city and had himself there crowned by the patriarch of Macedonian Bulgaria. On the death of Demetrius, who had been supported in his endeavour to recover his father's throne by Pope Honorius III., the empty title of king of Salonica was adopted by several claimants. In 1266 the house of Burgundy received a grant of the titular kingdom from Baldwin II. when he was titular emperor, and it was sold by Eudes IV. to Philip of Tarentum, titular emperor of Romania, in 1320. The Venetians to whom the city was transferred by one of the Palaeologi, were in power when Murad II. appeared, and on the 1st of May 1430, in spite of the desperate resistance of the inhabitants, took the city, which had thrice previously been in the hands of the Turks. They cut to pieces the body of St Demetrius, the patron saint of Salonica, who had been the Roman proconsul of Greece, under Maximian, and was martyred in 306. In 1876 the French and German consuls at Salonica were murdered by the Turkish populace. On the 4th of September 1890 more than 2000 houses were destroyed by fire in the south-eastern quarters of the city. During the early years of the 20th century Salonica was the headquarters of the Committee of Union and Progress, the central organization of the Young Turkey Party, which carried out the constitutional revolution of 1908. Before this event the weakness of Turkey had encouraged the belief that Salonica would ultimately pass under the control of Austria-Hungary or one of the Balkan States, and this belief gave rise to many political intrigues which helped to delay the solution of the Macedonian Question.

Vilayet.—The vilayet of Salonica has an area of 13,510 sq. m. and an estimated population of 1,150,000. It is rich in minerals, including chrome, manganese, zinc, antimony, iron, argentiferous