Alexander the Great, Philip's son, would turn it into the first true empire the Western world would ever know, before dying of fever or poisoning in Babylon at the age of thirty-two. Alexander's baby son was murdered soon afterward and his generals divided his empire into weak pieces, but over the centuries, Alexander's pioneering ambition to unite the world into one realm would be an inspiration for the likes of Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, and, more benevolently, the churches of Rome and Byzantium.

At the time of Philip's assassination, Aigai was no longer the capital of Macedonia, although the royal family returned there for weddings and burials. The capital had moved to nearby Pella, where Alexander the Great was born and was tutored by Aristotle. If you visit Pella now, it seems a field of stones in the middle of nowhere. It stood at the edge of the sea, but the land has long since silted up.

King Archelaus moved his capital here in 400 B.C. to make a statement of his political will to be closer to southern Greece. The charm of the city that he built is still evident in the walls of buildings that reveal the bright, lavish colors of faux marble and advanced plasterwork. After the Romans defeated the Macedonians in 168 B.C., they sacked the city, which struggled forward again as a commercial center until it was suddenly and mysteriously deserted.

At Pella, where you're bound to be among just a handful of visitors, you should not fail to stop by the little museum, which is one of the best in Greece for the quality of its artifacts. The splendor of the gold in Vergina is echoed here; the label in its case reads that the gold myrtle leaf wreath from a grave at nearby Agreosykia may have been made for Philip II. It looks, in any case, more than regal. The pottery here is lovelier than I can recall seeing anywhere: urns beautifully decorated, one with extraordinary gold tracing. The rare Hellenic mosaics that have survived well preserved, at Pella, have a vigorous design and a deft achievement of action that surpass the artistry of the Roman. With me at Philippi was a friend, Anna Missirian. We were two people among the ruins—just us, overlooking the rubble of a spacious city anchored in history.

Brutus: Why comest thou?

Ghost: To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

Remember? Here is where Marc Antony defeated Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar, who committed suicide after the battle. By then this city that Philip II had founded and named after himself belonged to Rome, and the gold mines nearby were exhausted. But to judge how much this region was an El Dorado of Europe, bear in mind that a major reason Philip brought it into being was to house a colony of goldsmiths.

Now the ruins of Philippi are witness to the succession of great empires in this part of the world. Some of the remains are Greek, some Roman, and many Byzantine. We who live much farther west tend to ignore the glory of the Byzantine empire, which lasted from 395 to 1453, longer than any other the Western world has known, including Rome. We think of Byzantium as that exquisite city, sacked by the Crusaders in 1204, which Yeats celebrated in poetry. (To this day, the French word to express splendor is byzance.) But the city which became Constantinople and Istanbul and was annexed to yet another empire—that of the Turks—was the capital of a vast portion of Asia Minor and Europe. Byzantium was the Christian political successor to Rome.