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KALLATIS (Ancient city) ROMANIA
(Kallatis). A town of Moesia, on the Black Sea, originally a colony of Miletus, and afterwards of Heraclea.
A Greek colony on the left bank of the Black Sea ca. 43 km S of ConstanTa
in a fertile area where cereal grains were grown. Ancient sources (Prudent. c.
Symm. 761-64) indicate the Megaran origin of the colony and the date of its foundation.
Colonists from Heraklea Pontica founded the Doric city in the 6th c. B.C. On the
spot where Kallatis developed there must have been an earlier center of Getaean
origin (Plin. HN 4.18.5), the name of which is preserved in the form of Acervetis
or Carbatis. Some scholars date the foundation of the city to the middle of the
7th c. B.C., but the earliest archaeological indications found thus far go back
only to the 4th c. B.C. There has been, however, a lack of systematic excavation
and the modern center of Mangalia is superimposed on the perimeter of the ancient
city. Several stretches of fortifications are preserved on the N side of the city,
but they date to the 2d-3d c.
Several necropoleis (4th-2d c.) have large tumuli containing chambered
tombs. They contain rich grave gifts including well-preserved clay statuettes
of the Tanagra type. The necropoleis occupy such a large area around the colony
that they may be considered, as at Histria, to have belonged to indigenous or
Greek settlements in the environs of the city. From inscriptions it is known that
in addition to public buildings intended for meetings of the various public bodies,
the city also had a theater, which has not yet been identified.
In the 4th c. B.C. the city struck coins that bore the head of Herakles
and the symbols of his power, as well as an ear of grain or barley. These coins
clearly indicate that the city supplied grain, put aside for Athens in the name
of the whole League, not only from the Bosphoran kingdoms but also from the other
colonies rich in cereals and in possession of their own vast territories or dominating
the local populations of those territories.
During the expansion of Macedonian power the city suffered the same
fate as all the other colonies of the Pontus Sinistrus. They were subject to heavy
contributions required by Lysimachos from which they could escape only at the
end of the reign of the Diadochi. Both in 313 and in 310 B.C., the city posed
the major resistance to the troops of Lysimachos.
In the 3d and 2d c. there was pressure from the indigenous peoples
of the area, with repercussions that involved all the colonies of Pontus Sinistrus
and of N Pontus. The inscriptions and the ancient text, such as Polybios (Hist.
5.6; 4.45.7-8), indicate the changed conditions of life here and in other colonies.
They were obliged by native rulers to put themselves under the protection of their
naval forces. For this protection they had to pay sums that were rather large
for cities already weakened by wars, domestic struggles, and the uncertainty of
the harvests. In Kallatis we now know of a number of Scythian tribes under the
command of a whole series of princes mentioned on a series of coins. But even
under these conditions Kallatis was able to maintain a high economic and cultural
level, as is documented by numerous inscriptions found in the city or in other
cultural or religious centers of the metropolitan Greek world.
When the city joined in the struggles of Mithridates against the
Romans and in the consequent Roman siege, the period of its splendor waned. The
foedus Kallatianum signaled the passage of the city from a free state to an ordinary
Roman civitas. The conquest by Burebistas of all the colonies of the Pontus Sinistrus
was a further blow. Later the city became part of Moesia Inferior, and under Diocletian,
of Scythia Minor.
After the invasion of the Costoboci, Kallatis fortified itself ca.
172; but the subsequent invasions, which lasted throughout Moesia until the time
of Trebonianus Gallus, weakened the city more and more. A period of revival is
evident only during the era of Diocletian and his successors. In the Byzantine
age, under Anastasius, the fortifications and other public buildings were reconstructed.
The same buildings were reconstructed under Justinian (Procop. De aed. 4.11).
To the 4th-6th c. belongs a Christian basilica of Syrian type which
indicates the relations of the city with that distant region at a very difficult
time not only for the city itself, but for the whole area. After this period,
following more invasions, it began to decline, as did all the other coastal and
internal cities.
D. Adamesteanu, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Sep 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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