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IRAKLIA (Ancient city) SKYTHIA
On a hill, divided in two, that dominates the right side of the Danube,
ca. 51 km N-NW of ConstanTa, a fortified center probably founded at the time of
the expedition of Alexander the Great on the Danube. Because the site dominates
not only the route between the Wallachian plain and Scythia Minor but also the
natural road that leads from the Danube to the port of Tomi on the Black Sea,
the hill was of great strategic importance in the life of Scythia Minor (Dobrogen)
from Hellenistic times until the 5th-6th c.
Excavations have brought to light evidence of habitation as early
as Neolithic times. In the Bronze Age, on the hill called Sofia in Cernavoda arose
the first habitation site. It was defended by one or more ditches. Its domestic
implements and ceramics testify to diverse cultural currents, that have been identified
as Cernavodian culture. During the late phase of the Iron Age (4th c. B.C.) a
habitation center developed that had Hellenistic necropoleis. The funerary material
contains as many local products of the Getaean type as imported objects from the
Greek world on the coast of the Black Sea: Histria, Tomi, and Kallatis. The local
ceramics assume forms that are directly linked with the Greek products. Thus the
hill, always important because of its position as a crossroads, became involved
with the Hellenistic Macedonian world through the commercial expansion of the
Greek colonies on the coast of the Black Sea, and perhaps also through their territorial
expansion.
During the Roman period Axiopolis was already a center of a certain
importance because of the ease of reaching Tomi by the Roman road that followed
the right bank of the Danube along a bypath rebuilt several times. Being part
of the customs system and used for the quartering of the naval military forces
that defended the line of the lower Danube, Axiopolis was the seat of a Collegium
nautae universi Danubii. Nothing, however, is known of the arrangement of the
Roman civitas of this period. The first indications of fortification are, very
probably, from the 5th-6th c. To this period may be dated at least one of the
great ramparts in earth and stone that join Axiopolis to Tomi. The hill where
the inhabited zone of the 5th-6th c. arose is rectangular in form with an incline
toward the N. On this side is found a line of first defense formed by a wail that
has been rebuilt several times. On the S flank are two other citadels, incorporating
remains of other earlier fortifications, which have also been rebuilt repeatedly
until the 9th-lOth c. Axiopolis' greatest flowering was in the 6th c. and corresponds
to a general well-being in all of Scythia Minor. To the same period belongs the
basilica near the S gate.
D. Adamesteanu, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited July 2003 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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