Abdera

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Location of the city of Abdera in Greece (ancient)
Temple on the Acropolis of the city of Abdera
House of the ancient city of Abdera
West gate of the ancient city of Abdera

Abdera ( polytonic : ancient Greek Ἄβδηρα monotonic: Άβδηρα, modern Greek pronounced: Avdira ) was an important ancient Thracian town on Cape Balustra 16 km northeast of the mouth of Nestos in the Aegean Sea . It was the home of the philosophers Democritus and Protagoras , but lost its importance in Roman times . The modern city and municipality of Avdira was named after her. Another city with this name existed in ancient times on the southern Spanish coast.

history

Heracles is often mentioned as the mythical founder of Abdera ; the name Abdera is derived from the hero Abderos . Heracles is said to have built the city on the spot where Abderos was torn by the man-eating horses of Diomedes . The historically tangible first founding of Abdera took place - according to the dating of the chronicle of the church father Eusebius of Caesarea - around 656 BC. BC by colonists from the Ionian city ​​of Klazomenai led by Timesias . However, the first settlers of the city did not live long in the Greek colony , as these settled in the early 6th century BC. Was destroyed by the Thracian tribes living there . An archaic one, dating from around 650–600 BC. The necropolis of Abdera, which dates back to BC, was uncovered by excavations. Around 544 BC BC many residents of Teos left their city because they could not successfully oppose Harpagos , the general of Cyrus II , and did not want to submit to him. They sailed to Thrace and re-founded Abdera. According to epigraphic knowledge, there was a close connection between Abdera and Teos; and Abdera also took over many of the civil and religious institutions customary in Teos.

From about 512 BC. The city was under Persian rule and served this people as a base for operations in Thrace. When Xerxes I invaded Greece, Abdera seems to have been flourishing and powerful, and it was one of the cities that costly food for the great king and his army on their march to Greece. On his flight after the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), Xerxes made a stopover in Abdera and reciprocated for the hospitality of its inhabitants by presenting a tiara and a golden scimitar. After the defeat of the Persians in the Persian Wars , Abdera joined forces in 478 BC. BC to the first Attic League . Thucydides mentions that at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War , the city formed the westernmost frontier of the Odrysen Empire .

The wealth and importance of Abdera, especially in the late 6th and 5th centuries BC. Were based on agriculture in the fertile cultivation areas of the alluvial plain, the precious metal deposits in the neighboring mountains and the trade that the city carried out with the Thracian hinterland. Abdera's prosperity in classical times can be traced back to the fact that it began around the middle of the 6th century BC. The artistically beautiful silver coins minted in BC and the high annual tax of 10 to 15 talents that it had to pay as a member of the Attic League. The griffin is depicted on the coins issued by Abdera .

Tetrobol from Abdera, Magistrate Protes
Front of the Tetrobol from Abdera, c. 411 to 385 BC. Chr.

408 BC The general Thrasybulus subjected Abdera to the direct hegemony of Athens. 376 BC The city suffered a heavy defeat against the powerful Thracian tribe of the Triballer and its territory was devastated. Meanwhile, the general Chabrias, who appeared with an Athenian force, freed the Abderites from the threatening danger. Because of this blow, the city permanently lost its former importance. According to archaeological evidence, it was built around 350 BC. Brought under Macedonian rule by King Philip II and re-founded. In the Hellenistic period it came into the hands of Lysimachus , the Seleucids , Ptolemies and again the Macedonians. After the defeat of Philip V in the battle of Kynoskephalai (197 BC), Abdera was declared free by the Romans . Nevertheless, the Roman praetor Lucius Hortensius and King Eumenes II of Pergamon conquered 170 BC. The city and devastated it. When the Romans took over the Macedonian kingdom after their decisive victory in the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC. B.C., they declared Abdera to be autonomous again. As a free city, it was mentioned by Pliny in the 1st century AD . But it lost further importance in the Roman Empire and was more and more run down. In the 6th century AD, a small settlement was established above Abdera.

Abdera is now a titular bishopric of the Catholic Church .

Excavations

Archaeological excavations have been taking place in the ruins of Abdera since the 1950s. The Archaeological Museum and today's city center are about three kilometers from the ruins.

In addition to the archaic necropolis, larger sections of the ancient city wall were uncovered, as well as parts of the city that belong to the archaic and classical periods. Around 350 BC There was a shift of the urban area in a southerly direction, whereby it was now laid out according to the Hippodamian system . There were extensive insulae of the Hellenistic and Roman era. The foundations of a large building in the southwest of the ancient city are believed to belong to a Roman bath. A western city gate with two towers was also discovered, to which a central street of the city led. The remains of a theater were also found.

Abderitism

Although Abdera the hometown of the famous, the atomistic school of Abdera attributed to the Greek philosopher Leucippus (though it will Miletus attributed to him), Democritus , Protagoras and Anaxarchus was and the poet Anacreon of Teos moved here, inhabitants of the city had a similar reputation as the Shield citizens . Anyone who was called an "abderite" was considered a simple-minded person in ancient times. Ancient naturalists saw the reason for this in the prevailing climatic conditions in Abdera and in the occurrence of a certain variety of hellebore . According to this view of the Abderites, small towns or the bourgeoisie are also referred to as Abderitism . In allusion to this, Christoph Martin Wieland localizes his satirical novel The Abderites (1774) in Abdera. His novel depicts the typified folly of the Abderites as a basic human constant, which, to be found in all places at all times, is at the same time cosmopolitan. In his utopian novel The Islands of Wisdom , published in 1922, Alexander Moszkowski defends the alleged stupidity of the Abderites as one of our times superior reason:

“We believe it is settled that Abdera was a hotbed of stupidity, and the known evidence is sufficient for us. Hence, it is reasonable to mistake the Abderites for idiots. I only need to shift my perspective a little and things will turn into the opposite ... if the Abderites really were as they are portrayed, then they represent a higher class of people and we have every reason to envy them. "

- Alexander Moszkowski : The islands of wisdom

literature

Web links

Commons : Abdera  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Abdera  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 2, 5, 8; Pseudo- Skymnos , Periegesis 666; Strabon , Geographika 7, p. 331; Stephanos of Byzantium , Ethnika , s. Abdera .
  2. ↑ Herodotus . Histories 1, 168.
  3. ↑ Herodotus, Historien 1, 168; Skymnos, Periegesis 665; Strabon, Geographika 14, 644.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Louisa Loukopoulou: Abdera. In: Roger S. Bagnall et al. (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Ancient History , Vol. 1, pp. 1 f.
  5. ↑ Herodotus, Histories 6, 46.
  6. ↑ Herodotus, Histories 7, 120.
  7. ^ Thucydides, Peloponnesian War 2, 97.
  8. ^ Gustav Hirschfeld: Abdera 1) . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 22.
  9. ^ Diodor , Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 13, 72.
  10. ↑ Diodor, Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 15, 36, 2 ff.
  11. ↑ a b c Demetrios I. Lazarides:  Abdera Thrace, Greece . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
  12. ↑ Titus Livius , Ab urbe condita 43, 4; Diodor, Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 30, 6.
  13. ↑ Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 4, 42.
  14. ^ Gundolf Keil : Abdera, School of. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 2.
  15. ↑ See Cicero's saying "Hic Abdera" in: Epistulae ad Atticum , 4,16,6 meaning "This is where stupidity is at home"
  16. ↑ Quoted from the online edition in the Gutenberg Archives.

Coordinates: 40 ° 56 '  N , 24 ° 59'  E