EDessa, also called Edessa, a city of Macedonia, in the district of Emathia, twenty-eight miles west of Pella, which is celebrated in the ancient history of this kingdom as being the point from which the powerful family of the Temenides commenced their career of conquest, and from which they did not desist till they had subdued the whole of the neighbouring country. (Herodot. viii. 137, 138; Justin. vii. 1.) It continued long the royal residence; and even after it had ceased to be so, it still remained the burial place of the race of Temenus, and, as Diodorus says, the hearth of their empire. Here were interred Philip and Eurydice, king and queen of Macedonia; and it was intended that the body of Alexander, which was interred at Memphis in Egypt, should be placed in these vaults. (Diodor. xix. 52; Pausan. i. 6.) It was here that Philip was assassinated by Pausanias, at the marriage of his daughter Cleopatra with Alexander king of Epirus. (Diodor. xvi. 92.)
It is supposed to be the modern city of Vodina, on the river Vistritza, where Dr Clarke says there are sepulchres cut in the rock, which the superstitious inhabitants have never plundered, because they are afraid to go near them.