Stagira is a Greek village lying on a picturesque plateau on the Chalcidicepeninsula, and standing at the foot of the Argirolofos hill. The village is chiefly known for being the birthplace of Aristotle, and a beautiful statue of him stands in the village. However, Aristotle was actually born a few kilometres north from the village, in the ancient city of Stageira (near the city now called Olympias).
In Byzantine times, Stagira was called Siderokafsia (which means blast furnace). The sultan's mint was located here in the 16th century and many ruins of furnaces can be found close to the village.
The present-day village has approximately 500 inhabitants, but including the neighbouring village of Stratoniki, with which Stagira virtually merges, the population increases to around 1500. The central church was built in 1814.
Philosophers, born at Stagira, a Grecian colony in the Thracian peninsulaChalcidice, 384 B.C.; died at Chalcis, in Euboea, 322 B.C. His father, Nicomachus, was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia.
This position, we have reason to believe, was held under various predecessors of Amyntas by Aristotle's ancestors, so that the profession of medicine was in a sense hereditary in the family.
In 344 Hermias having been murdered in a rebellion of his subjects, Aristotle went with his family to Mytilene and thence, one or two years later, he was summoned to his native Stagira by King Philip of Macedon, to become the tutor of Alexander, who was then in his thirteenth year.
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