The Lion of Amphipolis, the Sacred Symbol of the Macedonians

On the banks of the Strimon River, about two kilometers south of the acropolis of the ancient Greek city of Amphipolis, in Greek Macedonia, stands today the monument known as the Lion of Amphipolis, whose enormous dimensions are not well appreciated in images. Although its discovery is relatively recent, it constitutes a symbol of Macedonia and, by extension, modern Greece.

The initial findings of fragments of the sculpture were made by Greek soldiers during the First Balkan War, between 1912 and 1913. When dredging the bed of the Strimon River to build the modern bridge, the base stone of the monument appeared, which had been used in a Roman or later dam.

Later, during the First World War in 1916, British soldiers fortifying the bridge over the river discovered fragments of the statue, but a sudden Bulgarian attack forced them to leave them in place.

In the early 1930s, more large fragments appeared during the drainage works of the nearby Lake Kerkini, once again in the vicinity of an ancient bridge.

From 1936, under the direction of the French and American archaeological schools in Athens, systematic excavations were carried out, allowing the discovery of hundreds of scattered pieces.

The Greek sculptor Andreas Panagiotakes took on the challenge of joining all these pieces using plaster molds, for which he conducted a study of the Lion of Chaeronea, a monument of similar typology commemorating the fallen of the Sacred Band of Thebes, discovered and reconstructed in its original location in 1902.

His meticulous work, combined with fortuitous discoveries of missing parts, allowed the faithful reconstruction of this gigantic marble lion, 4 meters in height (over 8 meters including the pedestal).

In total, more than 500 fragments were recovered, 126 of which belong to the pedestal. By the fall of 1937, the reconstruction work had been completed.

The Lion of Amphipolis is larger and more voluminous than the one in Chaeronea (which reaches 6 meters in height with its base), and only the head has a width of 2 meters.

Until a few years ago, the consensus among scholars was that the gigantic lion had originally been erected as a funerary monument for Laomedon of Mytilene in the 4th century BC. Laomedon was one of Alexander the Great’s generals, appointed satrap of Syria after his death.

But excavations in the mound of Kasta Hill, where the Amphipolis Tomb was discovered in 2012, revealed fragments of the back of the sculpture at its peak, as well as the foundations of the first pedestal. This suggests that the lion crowned the funerary monument, the largest discovered so far in Greece.

In 2015, the archaeologists in charge of the excavation confirmed that the Amphipolis Tomb had been built by order of Alexander the Great as a tribute to Hephaestion, so the lion would have been erected in his honor.

However, not all specialists agree, and some believe that the Kasta mound, which is natural and not artificial, could not have supported the approximately 500 tons that the lion with its pedestal weighs.

The symbolic importance of lions as funerary monuments in antiquity is attested to by this epigram from Antipater of Sidon in the 2nd century BC:

Tell me, lion, whose tomb have you violated, devourer of oxen? Who deserved your respect and courage? — Telephias, the son of Theodoros, stood out above all, at least in my judgment. I am not here without reason; I bear a symbol of the strength of a man; for, indeed, the lion was a threat to those who were hostile

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on January 12, 2024. Puedes leer la versión en español en El León de Anfípolis, el símbolo sagrado de los macedonios