Abdera Άβδηρα | |
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 Remains of the ancient city of Abdera. | |
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  Abdera | |
| Coordinates:40°56′N24°58′E / 40.933°N 24.967°E /40.933; 24.967 | |
| Country | Greece |
| Geographic region | Thrace |
| Administrative region | Eastern Macedonia and Thrace |
| Regional unit | Xanthi |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Georgios Tsitiridis[1] (since 2014) |
| Area | |
• Municipality | 352.0 km2 (135.9 sq mi) |
| • Municipal unit | 162.0 km2 (62.5 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 41 m (135 ft) |
| Population (2021)[2] | |
• Municipality | 17,610 |
| • Density | 50.03/km2 (129.6/sq mi) |
| • Municipal unit | 2,799 |
| • Municipal unit density | 17.28/km2 (44.75/sq mi) |
| • Community | 1,172 |
| Demonym(s) | Abderite,Abderian |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (EET) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC+3 (EEST) |
| Vehicle registration | AH |
Abdera (Greek:Άβδηρα) is amunicipality in theXanthi regional unit ofThrace,Greece. Inclassical antiquity, it was a majorGreekpolis on theThracian coast.
The ancient polis is to be distinguished from the municipality, which was named in its honor. The polis lay 17 km east-northeast of the mouth of theNestos River, almost directly opposite the island ofThasos. It was a colony placed in previously unsettled Thracian territory, not then a part of Hellas, during the age ofGreek colonization. The city that developed from it became of major importance in ancient Greece. After the 4th century AD it declined, contracted to itsacropolis, and was abandoned, never to be reoccupied except by archaeologists.
During theEarly Middle Ages, a new settlement emerged near the ancient city. It was called Polystylon (Greek:Πολύστυλον),[3] and later considered as the New Abdera (Greek:Νέα Άβδηρα). In 2011 the modern municipality of Abdera wassynoecized from three previous municipalities comprising a number of modern settlements. The ancient site remains in it as a ruin. The municipality of Abdera has 17,610 inhabitants (2021). The seat of the municipality is the townGenisea.[4]
The nameAbdera is ofPhoenician origin and was shared in antiquity byAbdera, Spain and a town nearCarthage inNorth Africa.[5][a] It was variouslyHellenized asἌβδηρα (Ábdēra),Αὔδηρα (Aúdēra),[7]Ἄβδαρα (Ábdara),[8]Ἄβδηρον (Ábdēron),[7] andἌβδηρος (Ábdēros),[9] before beingLatinized asAbdera.[7]Greek legend attributed the name to an eponymousAbderus who fell nearby and was memorialized byHercules's founding of a city at the location.[10]
The present-day town is writtenAvdira (Άβδηρα) and pronounced[ˈavðira] inmodern Greek.
ThePhoenicians apparently began the settlement of Abdera at some point before the mid-7th century[5] and the town long maintained Phoenician standards in its coinage.
The Greek settlement was begun as a failed colony fromKlazomenai, traditionally dated to 654 BC. (Evidence in 7th-century-BCGreek pottery tends to support the traditional date but the exact timing remains uncertain.)[11]Herodotus reports that the leader of the colony had beenTimesios but, within his generation, theThracians had expelled the colonists. Timesios was subsequently honored as alocal protective spirit by the later Abderans from Teos.[12] Others recount various legends about this colony.Plutarch andAelian relate that Timesios grew insufferable to his colonists because of his desire to do everything by himself; when one of their children let him know how they all really felt, he quit the settlement in disgust; modern scholars have tried to split the difference between the two accounts of early Abdera's failure by giving the latter as the reason for Timesios's having left Klazomenai.[13]
Strabo describes Abdera as "a Thracian city"[14] at the time ofAnacreon and the migration of people fromTeos to that area. The successful colonisation occurred in 544 BC, when the majority of the people ofTeos (including the poetAnacreon) migrated to Abdera to escape thePersian invasion of their homeland.[15][16] The chief coin type, agriffon, is identical with that of Teos; the rich silver coinage is noted for the beauty and variety of its reverse types.[17]
In 513 and 512 BC, the Persians, underDarius conquered Abdera, by which time the city seems to have become a place of considerable importance, and is mentioned as one of the cities which had the expensive honour of entertaining the great king on his march into Greece.[18] In 492 BC, after theIonian Revolt, the Persians again conquered Abdera, again underDarius I but led by his generalMardonius. On his flight after theBattle of Salamis, Xerxes stopped at Abdera and acknowledged the hospitality of its inhabitants by presenting them with a tiara and scimitar of gold.[19]Thucydides[20] mentions Abdera as the westernmost limit of theOdrysian kingdom when at its height at the beginning of thePeloponnesian War. It later became part of theDelian League and fought on the side of Athens in the Peloponnesian War.[21]
Abdera was a wealthy city, the third richest in the League, due to its status as a prime port for trade with the interior of Thrace and theOdrysian kingdom.[11] In 408 BC, Abdera was reduced under the power of Athens byThrasybulus, then one of the Athenian generals in that quarter.[22]
A valuable prize, the city was repeatedly sacked: by theTriballi in 376 BC,Philip II of Macedon in 350 BC; later byLysimachos of Thrace,[16] theSeleucids, thePtolemies, and again by the Macedonians. In 170 BC the Roman armies and those ofEumenes II of Pergamon besieged and sacked it.
The town seems to have declined in importance after the middle of the 4th century BC.[17] Cicero ridicules the city as a byword for stupidity in his letters toAtticus, writing of a debate in the Senate, "Here was Abdera, but I wasn't silent" ("Hic, Abdera non tacente me").[23] ThePhilogelos, a Greek-language joke book compiled in the 4th century AD, has a chapter dedicated to jokes about Abderans, who are stereotyped as stupid, superstitious, and literal-minded.[24] Nevertheless, the city counted among its citizens the philosophersDemocritus,Protagoras[16] andAnaxarchus, historian and philosopherHecataeus of Abdera, and the lyric poetAnacreon.Pliny the Elder speaks of Abdera as being in his time a free city.[25]
Abdera had flourished especially in ancient times mainly for two reasons: because of the large area of their territory and their highly strategic position. The city controlled two great road passages (one of Nestos river and other through the mountains north of Xanthi). Furthermore, from their ports passed the sea road, which from Troas led to the Thracian and then the Macedonian coast.[26]
The ruins of the town may still be seen on Cape Balastra (40°56'1.02"N 24°58'21.81"E); they cover seven small hills, and extend from an eastern to a western harbor; on the southwestern hills are the remains of the medieval settlement of Polystylon (Greek:Πολύστυλον). Since the 9th century,Byzantine Polystylon was anepiscopal see, under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan bishop ofPhilippi. By the end of the 14th century it fell under theOttoman rule.[3]
Avdira as a modern administrative unit (community) was established in 1924, and consisted of the villages Avdira,Myrodato (Kalfalar),Pezoula,Giona, Veloni andMandra, but Myrodato and Mandra became separate communities in 1928.[27] The municipality Avdira was formed in 1997 by the merger of the former communities Avdira, Mandra, Myrodato andNea Kessani.[4] At the 2011 local government reform it merged with the former municipalitiesSelero andVistonida, and the townGenisea became its seat.[4][28]
The municipality has an area of 352.047 km2, the municipal unit 161.958 km2.[29] The municipal unit Avdira is subdivided into the communities Avdira, Mandra, Myrodato and Nea Kessani. The community Avdira consists of the settlements Avdira, Giona, Lefkippos, Pezoula and Skala.
Landmarks of Abdera include theArchaeological Museum of Abdera, theKütüklü Baba Tekke, andAgios Ioannis Beach (alsoParalia Avdiron) near the village Lefkippos.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Abdera".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 33. Endnotes:
Administrative division of theEastern Macedonia and Thrace Region | ||
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| Regional unit ofDrama |  | |
| Regional unit ofEvros | ||
| Regional unit ofKavala | ||
| Regional unit ofRhodope | ||
| Regional unit ofThasos | ||
| Regional unit ofXanthi | ||
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| National | |
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| Geographic | |
