Listed 43 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE Region GREECE" .
AVDIRA (Small town) XANTHI
Especially significant is the route of Avdera through Byzantine and
post-Byzantine times. The town was renamed to Polystylon (because of the many
columns), it was the base of the Bishopric it was significant navigational town.
In the later years the inhabitants of Byzantine Polystylon abandoned
the coastal area and moved to the inland where the present village was established
(in about 1720). The first settling spread around the church where today there
are the beautiful traditional houses as well as the restored school in which the
traditional museum of Avdera is housed.
The archaeological excavation which started in the region in 1950
by the significant archeologist Dimitrios Lazaridis brought to light several parts
of the ancient city of Avdera.
The walls, the Acropolis of ancient theatre, the classic and Hellenistic cemetery,
Byzantine Acropolis "Polystylon" and the Episcopal temple.
Many of the most valuable findings are exhibited in the newly established
Archaeological museum
of Avdera where the visitor can admire the great History and Spirit of Avdera.
Last sopping in the route of Municipality
of Avdera and we reach the Minor
Asia catastrophe and the exchange of population. The villages of Myrodato,
New Kessani, Pezoula
and Giona, are inhabited
by refugees of east Thrace
and east Romilia who were expelled from their countries and headed for the inland
of Thrace where with hard
work and many difficulties established the present villages. Also the village
of Mandra is inhabited by
refugees who came from the Serdivan Town. Typical feature of the refugees historical
route are the rare heirloom, the books and other items of great value which with
great belief and adoration they delivered on the day of the expulsion.
This text (extract) is cited October 2003 from the Municipality
of Avdera tourist pamphlet.
TOPIRO (Municipality) XANTHI
The newly established Municipality of Topeiros owes its name to a
city which existed on the Egnatia Road, during the Roman Ages, in the same area
in which the Municipality extends today.
Approaching the bridge over the Nestos river, in the area between
the villages of Toxotes and
Paradeisos, 14 km west of
Xanthi, you can see the remains
of the ancient city of Topeiros,
where monuments of old Christian and Byzantine ages mostly parts of Churches and
Monasteries, have been found and conserved.
It was established in the 1st A.C. and it was the Bishop’s Seat
form the 5th to 8th century. Recent clear evidence for the Bishopric of Topeiros
comes from the 1st early Byzantine Age, specifically from 4th and 5th century.
As a consequence, Bishop’s names are reported in the records of the Third
and Forth Ecumenical Synods. At the end of the 4th century Topeiros
gained distinction from Trianoupoli’s
Metropolitan Bishop, under whose domination remained for at least 900 years.
During the 2nd century A.C. the city of Topeiros
had its own coins (Proof of self rule and wealth). With the division of the Roman
Empire into East and West, the area of Xanthi with the city Topeiros
as capital, belongs to the East Empire and it is its western boundary.
In 549 A.C. during the Justinian Empire the city was conquered by
the Slavs, who totally destroyed it. 2 years later, Justinian rebuilt it and surrounded
it with stronger walls.
The city had a historical presence until 812 A.C. when it was destroyed
by the Bulgarian Tsar "Croumo".
This text (extract) is cited October 2003 from the Municipality
of Topeiros tourist pamphlet.
SAMOTHRAKI (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
When Charisander was archon at Athens, the Romans elected four military tribunes with consular power, Servius Sulpicius, Lucius Papirius, Titus Quinctius; and the Eleians celebrated the one hundred first Olympiad, in which Damon of Thurii won the stadium race. During their term of office, in Thrace the Triballians, suffering from a famine, moved in full force into territory beyond their borders and obtained food from the land not their own. More than thirty thousand invaded the adjacent part of Thrace and ravaged with impunity the territory of Abdera; and after seizing a large quantity of booty they were making their way homeward in a contemptuous and disorderly fashion when the inhabitants of Abdera took the field in full force against them and slew more than two thousand of them as they straggled in disorder homewards.
This extract is from: Diodorus Siculus, Library (ed. C. H. Oldfather, 1989). Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
After the battle of Philippi. They were under the leadeship of Hortensius, son of the homonyme orator. This event constituted the beginning of the Roman dominion.
SAMOTHRAKI (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
After having plundered and destroyed the island, they slaughtered hundreds of inhabitants (who were almost 4.000) and they sold others as slaves.
SAMOTHRAKI (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
In 360 359 B.C., colonists from Thasos, led by the exiled Athenian (from Aphidnae deme) politician and rhetor, Kallistratos, founded a city on this site which they called Krenides springs from the abundant springs at the foot of the hill where the ancient settlement was made.
On the opposite coast of Thrace the Thasians held Stryme, Galepsus, Osyme, Daton, Scaptesyle
AVDIRA (Ancient city) XANTHI
Teos also is situated on a peninsula; and it has a harbor. Anacreon the melic poet was from Teos; in whose time the Teians abandoned their city and migrated to, Abdera, a Thracian city, being unable to bear the insolence of the Persians; and hence the verse in reference to Abdera. (Strabo 14,1,30)
FILIPPI (Ancient city) KAVALA
While these things were going on, the Thasians settled the place called Crenides,8 which the king afterward named Philippi for himself and made a populous settlement.
THASSOS (Ancient city) THASSOS
KAVALA (Town) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
Ancient Neapolis,
the port of Philippi
where apostle Paul first landed on European soil, became the Byzantine town of
Christoupolis, the last stronghold against a host of aggressors; the city was
fortified by Andronikos II Palaeologos only to be pillaged in the 14th century
by irregular bands of Ottoman Turks. From the 15th century, under its new name,
Kavala, this strategically located city once again flowered both economically
and culturally.
Kavala from the 16th to the 19th century
In the middle of the 16th century, the French naturalist Pierre Bellon
described Kavala's walls, baths, places of worship and aqueduct, built during
the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and the reason for the changed face of the
city (which had previously been reduced to a way station after the Turks destroyed
it in 1391).
Because of the etymology of the word, Bellon believed that Kavala
was founded on the site of the city of Boukefala (Bucephala) and that it was initially
(around 1520-1530) inhabited by Jews of Hungarian origin, who were eventually
surrounded by both Greeks and Muslims.
In the 17th century Evliyia Celebi postulated that the word derived
from Kavalos, son of Philip II, while the French philhellene Charles Sonnini observed
in 1780 that the rock on which the city's houses still cluster resembles a horse
('caballo' in Spanish).
By the end of the 18th century, Kavala had developed into a center
of French commerce
with close ties with Marseille and Constantinople.
It already consisted of five neighborhoods with 900 houses (most of them Turkish).
Outside the fortified peninsula, cotton warehouses were built, which together
with the inns and the customs house gradually came to constitute the city's business
district.
Kavala in the 19th century
While business activities were beginning to spread beyond the city
walls, the administrative center (the Turkish governor's residence) continued
to be located within the fortified hilly peninsula. Between two and three thousand
people were packed into this area, which measured less than 25 acres. Initially,
this was where the small Greek community of Panayia (on the site of the Byzantine
town of Christoupolis) was located.
The future regent of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, was born in the old city.
During his heyday, in 1812, he built the poorhouse where the ancient Parthenon
temple had stood; also called the 'tebelhane' (inn for the lazy), it was later
converted into a muslim theological school.
The Greek business community, which from the mid-19th century had
begun to show considerable growth, built new churches (Ayios Ioannis, 1865-1867),
schools (e.g. the Parthenagogeio or Girls School), hospitals (e.g. the Evangelismos),
and some splendid mansions.
The very profitable tobacco
business had already started to attract a constantly rising number of Christians.
Kavala in the early 20th century
At the turn of the century Kavala was growing by leaps and bounds.
Tobacco exports
were at their peak (circa 10,000 tons annually), reaching a value of almost two
million pounds sterling. The tobacco warehouses were brimming with seasonal laborers
from all over eastern Macedonia.
The Greek population, which constituted the majority of the town's
inhabitants, was thriving. Charitable and pro-education societies of men and women,
clubs, hospitals, athletic associations, printing presses and Greek schools of
every level were founded and prospered in a city that was bursting with life and
nationalist hopes. The newspaper "Flag" was the mouthpiece for advocates
of a free Macedonia.
With the Greek vice consulate as headquarters, prosperous Kavala took
part in the Macedonian
Struggle, both by organizing Greek guerrilla bands and by acting as a post
for the transport and distribution of military supplies and arms.
Kavala after the liberation
Kavala was liberated and incorporated into the Greek state on 6 June
1913, after seven months of Bulgarian occupation.
The city spread out impressively along the waterfront, where most
of the tobacco warehouses were located. Within one century its population had
grown tenfold and its economic prosperity was more than evident.
The change in the flow of trade
at the end of the 19th century and the isolation of the port of Kavala from the
railroad
network had not affected the export traffic. The town's modernization and
wealth, which soon easily absorbed some 25,000 refugees from Thrace and Asia
Minor, was disrupted only by the destruction dealt by the Bulgarian occupations
during the First and Second World Wars.
By kind permission of:Ekdotike Athenon
This text is cited Nov 2003 from the Macedonian Heritage URL below, which contains images.
THASSOS (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
Island in the northern Aegean
Sea, along the coast of Thracia.
Thasos owed its name to the mythological hero Thasus, a son of the
Phoenician king Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, Cilix , Phoenix and Europa. It
is while running after his sister Europa, abducted by Zeus to become the mother
of the Cretan king Minos, that Thasus eventually settled in the island to which
he gave his name.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
ALEXANDROUPOLI (Town) EVROS
AVDIRA (Ancient city) XANTHI
The Mythology and history chose Hercules and Timisios as the founders
of the town of Avdera. The truth is only one, Avdera has been traveling to the
eternity since 556 B.C. dressed with the light of civilization.
The first to come to the region were the Clazomenians in 656/652 B.C.
Under the leadership of Timesios, they founded their own city and fortified it
with strong walls. This colony gradually declined and Avdera was refounded by
Teian settlers in 545 B.C.
Given that Teian settlement was located on a site, which was advantageous
for trade with the Thracian hinterland and more over featured two harbours and
a rich arable land, it shortly turned out to be one of the most flourishing cities
in the northern Aegean. Typical feature of the city's great commercial activity
was the looming activity of minting. In the city there was a royal mint where
coins of the Great Alexander were produced. The finding of the coins of Avdera,
bearing the emblem of a griffin, in places as remote as Egypt,
Syria and Mesopotamia,
manifests the scale and the dynamics of the city trade.
In the flourishing city of Avdera, which had been greatly influenced
by the cultural life of Ionia,
well-known poets, sophists and philosophers were born and lived. Democritos, the
great materialist philosopher, who founded the atom theory, the sophist Protagoras,
the spirit teacher Leukippos, Anaxarchos, Hecataeos the grammarian, Vion the mathematician
are some of the significant spirit men of Avdera.
This text (extract) is cited October 2003 from the Municipality
of Avdera tourist pamphlet.
MARONIA (Ancient city) RODOPI
The remains of ancient Maroneia lie at the southeast of Komotini,
on a plain well protected from the north winds by Ismaros
mountain. The area has already been inhabited since the neolithic age (3rd mil-lenium
BC). To this period and more precisely to the 2nd millenium BC belong at least
seven settlements. The archaeological data speak for the domination of this area
by Thracian tribes - they also managed to reach Troy
- during these years. Homer provides the first information on Maroneia and also
mentions the town as birthplace of the priest Maron, who lived in the sacred grove
of Apollo in the town Ismaros.
In the 7th century BC a wide colonization of the coastal Thrace took place. The
location of the first settlement of emigrants from Chios
island remains as yet unknown. However, according to Professor Bakalaki's opinion
this colony must be identified with the acropolis on the top of Ismaros mountain,
east of Maroneia.
Besides the elegant coins of the 6th century BC we have no other information
or document concerning the life of Maroneia in antiquity. During the Persian Wars
Maroneia shared the fate of the other Thracian towns and was occupied by the invaders.
After the defeat of the Persians the town became a member of the Athenian Alliance.
The 4th century BC was the period of flourishing and prosperity for Maroneia.
The archaeological excavations that started in 1969 in Maroneia and
continue until today brought to light important finds, significant for the town's
history. Of equal importance are also the remnants of the Byzantine era in the
area that prove beyond doubt that Thrace has always been a most valuable cultural
spring.
Text : Maroneia M. Sarla - Pendazou and V. Pendazos
SAMOTHRAKI (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
The Ephesians under Androclus made war on Leogorus, the son of Procles, who reigned in Samos after his father, and after conquering them in a battle drove the Samians out of their island, accusing them of conspiring with the Carians against the Ionians. The Samians fled and some of them made their home in an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name of the island was changed from Dardania to Samothrace.
The Samians fled and some of them made their home in an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name of the island was changed from Dardania to Samothrace.
THASSOS (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
THASSOS (Ancient city) THASSOS
Since Athens supplied the largest number of warships in the fleet
of the Delian League, the balance of power in the League came firmly into the
hands of the Athenian assembly, whose members decided how Athenian ships were
to be employed. Members of the League had no effective recourse if they disagreed
with decisions made for the League as a whole under Athenian leadership. Athens,
for instance, could compel the League to send its ships to force reluctant allies
to go on paying dues if they stopped making their annual payments. The most egregious
instance of such compulsion was the case of the city-state of the island of Thasos
which, in 465 B.C, unilaterally withdrew from the Delian League after a dispute
with Athens over gold mines on the neighboring mainland. To compel the Thasians
to keep their sworn agreement to stay in the League, the Athenians led the fleet
of the Delian League, including ships from other member states, against Thasos.
The attack turned into a protracted siege, which finally ended after three years'
campaigns in 463 B.C. with the island's surrender. As punishment, the League forced
Thasos to pull down its defensive walls, give up its navy, and pay enormous dues
and fines. As Thucydides observed, rebellious allies like the Thasians "lost
their independence," making the Athenians as the League's leaders "no
longer as popular as they used to be."
This text is from: Thomas Martin's An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, Yale University Press. Cited November 2004 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
THASSOS (Island) MAKEDONIA EAST & THRACE
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