Antigonea , also
transliterated as
Antigonia and
Antigoneia, was an
ancient Greek city in
Chaonia,
Epirus, and the chief inland city of the ancient
Chaonians. It was founded in the 3rd century BC by
Pyrrhus of Epirus, who named it after one of his wives,
Antigone, daughter of
Berenice I and step-daughter of
Ptolemy I of Egypt. In 198 BC the Romans defeated the Macedonian armies of
Philip V. The inhabitants of Antigoneia had sided with the Macedonians and so when the Romans were victorious over the Macedonians in 167BC they decided to punish those who had fought against them. The Romans set fire to 70 towns in Epirus including Antigoneia and the town was not rebuilt. A newly discovered church, on the floor of which there is a mosaic of
Saint Christopher and a Greek emblem, testifying to the city’s existence in the
palaeo-Christian period, was the last building constructed in ancient Antigonea. It was destroyed during Slav assaults in the 6th century AD.