Philippopolis (Thracia)

Philippopolis

Φιλιππούπολη
Philippopolis Shown within Europe
Location	Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Region	Thrace
Coordinates	42°08′36″N 24°44′56″E / 42.143333°N 24.748889°E / 42.143333; 24.748889Coordinates: 42°08′36″N 24°44′56″E / 42.143333°N 24.748889°E / 42.143333; 24.748889
Type	Ancient Thracian, Greek and Roman Settlement
Area	Wall circuit: ca.78 ha (190 acres) Occupied: 78 ha (190 acres)+
History
Founded	4th century BC
Periods	Hellenistic Greece
Site notes
Excavation dates	1960-
Website	Site

Philippopolis is one of the ancient names of the city of Plovdiv by which it was known for the most of its recorded history. In 342 BC Philip II of Macedon conquered the Thracian town of Eumolpias and gave it his name. Later, Philippopolis became part of the Roman empire and capital of the Roman province Thracia. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, Philippopolis had a population of 100,000 people in the Roman period.

The city was originally a Thracian settlement, later being invaded by Persians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Goths, Huns, Bulgarians, Slav-Vikings, Crusaders and Turks.

The earliest signs of habitation on the territory of Philippopolis date as far back as the 6th millennium BC when the first settlements were established. Archaeologists have discovered fine pottery and objects of everyday life on Nebet Tepe from as early as the Chalcolithic, showing that at the end of the 4th millennium BC, there already was an established settlement there. Thracian necropolises dating back to the 2nd-3rd millennium BC have been discovered, while the Thracian town Eumolpias was established between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC.

The town was a fort of the independent local Thracian tribe Bessi. In 516 BC during the rule of Darius the Great, Thrace was included in the Persian empire. In 492 BC the Persian general Mardonius subjected Thrace again, and it became nominally a vassal of Persia until 479 BC and the early rule of Xerxes I. The town was included in the Odrysian kingdom (460 BC-46 AD), a Thracian tribal union. The town was conquered by Philip II of Macedon and the Odrysian king was deposed in 342 BC. Ten years after the Macedonian invasion the Thracian kings started to exercise power again after the Odrysian Seuthes III had re-established their kingdom under Macedonian suzerainty as a result of a somehow successful revolt against Alexander the Great's rule resulting in neither victory, nor defeat, but stalemate. The Odrysian kingdom gradually overcome the Macedonian suzerainty, while the city was destroyed by the Celts as part of the Celtic settlement of Eastern Europe, most likely in the 270s BC. In 183 BC Philip V of Macedon conquered the city, but shortly after the Thracians re-conquered it.