Orestias (Greek:Ὀρεστιάς), later refounded byHadrian asAdrianople (Greek: Άδριανούπολις), was anancient Greek settlement next to theEvros river inThrace, near or at the site of present-dayEdirne, and close to the current border betweenTurkey andGreece.[1]
Legends claim that Orestias was founded byOrestes, the son ofAgamemnon andClytemnestra.[1]Orestias or Orestia is thought to have been the same town as Uscudama (other variants: Uskudama, Uskadama, Uskodama) or Odrysa (other variants: Odrysia, Odrysos, Odrysus) which was the firstOdrysian capital.[2]
Orestias took its name by the Greeks, at least from the timePhilip II of Macedon took over the town. TheRoman emperor Hadrian expanded the town into acity, gave it a strongfortification and renamed it to Hadrianopolis (Greek: Άδριανούπολις). However the name Orestias was still used by many writers at theByzantine era, along withAdrianoupolis.[1][3][4]During theOttoman period the name of Adrianou(polis) was paraphrased by the Turks and eventually became Edirne.
In 1920 when the Greeks took over most ofEastern Thrace including Edirne, they restored the city's Roman name (Adrianoupolis) and not its old Greek name (Orestias), which was given to its suburbKaraağaç, in remembrance of the ancient Thracian town.
Orestiada (or Nea Orestias or New Orestias) is a modern Greek town founded in 1923 on a site 17 km (11 mi) to the south of Orestias, to houseGreek refugees who had to abandon the latter border town, which was given to Turkey (along with two villages) by theTreaty of Lausanne.
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