Odessus
Odessus, located in present-day Varna, Bulgaria, was an ancient Greek colony founded around 600/575 BC by settlers from Miletus in Ionia. Positioned at the head of the Gulf of Varna, it thrived due to its strategic location near the river Panysus, which connects Lake Devna to the Black Sea. The name "Odessus" is thought to signify "waters." Archaeological evidence reveals that the early colony imported pottery from various parts of the Greek world, indicating a robust trade network. By the third century, the city showed significant prosperity, as evidenced by exquisite gold jewelry and inscriptions featuring local Thracian names.
Odessus became part of the Pontic Pentapolis, a league of Greek cities along the Black Sea coast, and later forged connections with the kingdom of Pontus. The city experienced periods of conflict, surrendering to the Roman general Lucullus in 72 BC and facing destruction around 50 BC during attacks by Dacians. Under Roman rule, it was incorporated into the provinces of Moesia and later Moesia Secunda, benefiting from shifts in power dynamics in the region. The city issued coins that honored various deities and reflected its diverse religious practices, including Greco-Roman and Thracian worship. Archaeological findings, such as a shipwreck with amphoras, further illuminate the historical significance of Odessus as a vibrant ancient port city.
Subject Terms
Odessus
Odessos (Varna, Bulgaria)
A Greek colony on the west coast of the Euxine (Black) Sea, founded by settlers from Miletus in Ionia (western Asia Minor) c 600/575 BC. Odessus stood at the head of a bay (the Gulf of Varna) at the point where the river Panysus (Provadiyska) passes out of Lake Devna into the sea; the name of the town has been interpreted as signifying `waters.’ Pottery of the colony's early years, as excavations reveal, was imported from many parts of the Greek world. Inscriptions show Thracian names among its citizens from the third century, when local prosperity is illustrated by finds of splendid gold jewelry.
The city became a member of the League (koinon) of Greek cities along the same coast known as the Pontic Pentapolis (Pontus=Euxine Sea). In due course, too, it formed close links with the kingdom of Pontus (northern Asia Minor). In 72 BC Odessus surrendered to the Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus and c 50 was destroyed, perhaps by the Dacian king Burebista. Attached, during the Roman Principate, to the province of Moesia and then Lower Moesia—in which it was the coastal terminal of a road traversing the whole province—it benefited from the fall of its rival Marcianopolis (Rekna Devnia) to the Goths (238). In the later empire Odessus belonged to the province of Moesia Secunda.
The first coins of the city, in c 200 BC, had honored `the Great God of the Odessians.’ Then follows an isolated, apparently unique, piece of Augustus (27 BC–AD 14), which seems to have been issued to celebrate the reorganization of the Pentapolis as a Hexapolis, of which Odessus assumed the presidency (later relinquished to Tomis [ConstanŢa]). A subsequent imperial monetary series, from Trajan (AD 98–117) to Gallienus (253–68), depicts Hades, Asclepius, Demeter and Nemesis, and a temple of Tyche (Fortune). Statuettes of the second and third centuries AD reveal the existence not only of Greco-Roman cults but also of the worship of Isis and Thracian deities (a shrine of the Thracian rider-god had apparently been destroyed by Burebista). Off the nearby shore (at Lazurny Bereg), a ship containing three hundred amphoras has been found.