(an. geogr.) a town situate on the confines of Emathia, a district of Macedonia, (Ptolemy); and therefore Herodotus allots it to Bottiza, a maritime district on the Sinus Thermaicus. It was the royal residence, situate on an eminence, verging to the south-west, encompassed with impassable marshes summer and winter: in which, next the town, a citadel like an island rises, placed on a bank or dam, a prodigious work, both supporting the wall and securing it from any hurt by means of the circumfluent water. At a distance, it seems close to the town, but is separated from it by the Ludias, running by the walls, and joined to it by a bridge, (Livy): distant from the sea 120 stadia, the Ludias being so far navigable, (Strabo). Mela calls the town Pelle, though most Greek authors write Pella. The birth-place of Philip, who enlarged it; and afterwards of Alexander, (Strabo, Mela). Continued to be the royal residence down to Perseus, (Livy). Called Pella Colonia, (Pliny); Colonia Julia Augusta, (Coin). It afterwards came to decline, with but few and mean inhabitants, (Lucian). It is now called Τα Παλαιά, the Little Palace, (Holstenius). Pellaeus, both the gentilissimus name and the epithet, (Lucian, Juvenal, Martial).—Another Pella, (Polybius, Pliny); a town of the Decapolis, on the other side the Jordan; abounding in water, like its cognominal town in Macedonia; built by the Macedonians, (Strabo); by Seleucus, (Eusebius); anciently called Butii, (Stephanus); Apamea, (Strabo); situate 35 miles to the north-east of Gerasa, (Ptolemy). Thither the Christians, just before the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, were divinely admonished to fly, (Eusebius). It was the utmost boundary of the Paræa, or Transjordan country, to the north, (Josephus).