Map of the Roman Empire - Odessus
Odessus
N-3 on the Map
Ancient Odessus Greek city founded in 560 BC known today as Varna.
Odessus - Now Varna; a Greek town in Thracia (in the later Moesia Inferior), on the Pontus Euxinus. It was founded by the Milesians, and carried on an extensive commerce. - Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.
Odessus The region of ancient Thrace was populated by Thracians since 1000 BC. Miletians founded the apoikia (trading colony) of Odessos towards the end of the 7th century BC (the earliest Greek archaeological material is dated 600-575 BC), or, according to Pseudo-Scymnus, in the time of Astyages (here, usually 572-570 BC is suggested), within an earlier Thracian settlement. The name Odessos, first attested by Strabo, was pre-Greek, perhaps of Carian origin. A member of the Pontic Pentapolis, Odessos was a mixed Greco-Thracian community—contact zone between the Ionians and the Thracians (Getae, Crobyzi, Terizi) of the hinterland. Excavations at nearby Thracian sites have shown uninterrupted occupation from the 7th to the 4th century and close commercial relations with the colony. The Greek alphabet has been applied to inscriptions in Thracian since at least the 5th century BCE; the Hellenistic city worshipped a Thracian great god whose cult survived well into the Roman period. - Wikipedia
Odessus
ODESSUS (Strab. vii. p.319; Scymn. 748; Diod. 19.73, 20.112; Appian, App. Ill.
30; Arrian, Per. p. 24; Anon. Per. p. 13; Ptol. 3.10.8, 8.11.6; Steph. B. sub
voce Mela, 2.2.5; Plin. Nat. 4.18; Ovid, Trist. 1.9. 37: the reading ?d?s?p????,
Scyl. p. 29, is simply a corruption for ?d?s?? p????, for the name was written
both with the single and the double o; the latter form occurs on the autonomous
coins, the former on those of the Empire: ?d?ss??, Hierocl.; Procop. de Aed.
4.11; Odissos, Ammian. 22.8.43), a town on the W. coast of the Euxine, at the
mouth of the river Panysus, 24 M. P. (Anton. Itin.), or 34 M. P. (Peut. Tab.),
from Dionysopolis, and 360 stadia from tie E. termination of Haemus (Emineh
Burnu). Odessus was founded by the Milesians (Strab. l.c.; Plin. l.c.), if
credit may be given to the author of the poem which goes under the name of
Scymnus (l.c.), as early as the reign of Astyages, or B.C. 594--560. (Clinton,
F. H.; Raoul-Rochette, Col. Gr. vol. iii. p. 786.) From the inscriptions in
Böckh (Inscr. Nos. 2056, a, b, c), it would seem to have been under a democratic
form of government, and to have presided over the union of five Greek cities on
this coast, consisting of Odessus, Tomi, Callatis, Mesambria, and Apollonia.
When the Bulgarians swept over the Danubian provinces in A.D. 679 they are found
occupying Varna (????a, Theophan. p. 298; Niceph. p. 23; Cedren. vol. i. p.
440), which is described as being near Odessus. (St. Martin, ap. Le Beau, Bas
Empire, vol. xi. p. 447; Schafarik, Slav. Alt. vol. ii. p. 217.) The autonomous
coins of Odessus exhibit “types” referring to the worship of Serapis, the god
imported by Ptolemy into Alexandreia, from the shores of Pontus. The series of
imperial coins ranges from Trajan to Salonina, the wife of Gallienus.
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography (1854) William Smith, LLD, Ed.