Kallatis
1. Name
Callatis was founded on the north-western shore of the Black Sea, on an isthmus between the sea and a lake. Powerful earthquakes have sent much of the ancient city’s eastern part beneath the waters. It is assumed that the city was originally called Acerbatis or Cerbatis. Known forms of the toponym are Kallatis and Callatis, as written in Greek and Latin manuscripts and stone carvings. From the late 14th century, in Italian portulans and documents referring to inshore navigation, the names Pangalia, Pankalia, Mangala and derivatives are attested, later coalescing into the current Romanian name of Mangalia.
2. Foundation - Helenistic period
Callatis was founded as a colony of Herаklea Pontica, with the first mention of it relating to a revolt against the Thracian King Lysimachos in 313BC. After the revolt had failed, part of Callatis’ approximately 1000 inhabitants left the besieged city by sea to settle in Chersonesus near modern-day Sevastopol in the Crimea in what was the kingdom of Bosporus. The remaining citizens began trading and governing themselves jointly with the local populace. In 260BC Callatis and Histria waged an unsuccessful war on Byzantium for economic dominance over the neighbouring city of Tomis (Constanţa). From the latter half of the 4th century BC Callatis made significant social, economic and cultural advances which endured for the rest of the Hellenic period. As the many amphoras, ceramics and coins imply, the city traded with its hinterland and also by sea with, inter alia, Heraclea Pontica, Sinope, Athens, Rhodes, and Thassos. The minting of bronze, silver and gold coinage began in the late 4th century BC, continuing until the middle of the 1st century AD. Coins bore Greek inscriptions and the image of thе city’s patron god Heracles, as well as those of Dionysus, Apollo, Demeter, Cybele and other deities.
3. Roman period and Middle Ages
In 72 BC Callatis fell to the legions of Marcus Lucullus but did not succumb until 29-28 BC, when it was included into the Roman Empire despite an earlier pact and alliance as witnessed by a stone inscription. For a short time in the middle of the 1st century BC, the city fell to the Getae’s King Byrebistas. As the Goths sacked the city, coins minted there depicted Roman emperors up to Philip the Arab (244-249). From this juncture Callatis entered a decline, and the share of its Greek population began to fall.
Though the city was the seat of a bishop by the late 6th century, Avar and Slav migrations and raids had brought about the demise of its ancient civilisation.
Callatis was gradually deserted and reduced to an insignificant harbour. Between the late 13th and 15th centuries, the town was an intermediate station for mainly Genovese wheat trade. Contemporary documents such as portulans, inshore navigation manuals, registers and contracts mention the name Pangalia which has subsequently altered to today’s Romanian Mangalia.
4. Daily life
Ancient Callatis was governed, as were other Pontic colonies, by a council of citizens (boule) and a council of magistrates.
The town had fortification walls, the first of which was erected by the middle of the 4th century BC. The second wall was built partly upon the first during the Roman period in the late 2nd century and had three gates and four square towers. Along the wall ran an earth mound and a moat. The ruins of the well-built harbour are today submerged under the sea.
Several necropolises were located outside the city walls and served for interring Greeks, Romans and local people. Some were buried in stone tombs, others in timber sarcophagi or simply interred, and yet others were cremated. Excavations have uncovered diverse objects which accompanied the dead and which testify to the ethnic mix of the population. In 1959, a Scythian burial yielded part of a papyrus inscribed in Greek, which remains the only one of its type in this part of Europe.
The ancient city was bisected by its main street, along which large public and private buildings were erected. This is evident from the many marble columns, friezes, capitals and stone foundations excavated within the town wall as well as outside of it, to the east. Clay pipes have been found too, suggesting the existence of a water supply system in the city.
After the adoption of Christianity, around the 3rd century, basilicas began to be erected after the Byzantine model.
Despite the archaeological findings, including artefacts, material evidence and inscriptions (many of which are kept in the local museum), the city’s history has still to be completely clarified.http://blacksea.ehw.gr/Forms/fLemmaBody.aspx?lemmaid=12385
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalia
