Herakleia
A natural haven on the S coast of the Black Sea (Pontos Euxeinos), the first of any importance E of the Bosporus. Herakleia was a Megarian colony founded ca. 558 B.C. in Mariandynian territory on the E margin of Bithynia. It founded colonies of its own in the late 6th c. at Kallatis and Chersonnesos on the opposite shore of the Euxine, as well as emporia along the coast W towards the Bosporus. In addition, it established a small land empire by reducing the Mariandynoi to helotage and subjecting the small Greek cities of Sesamos, Tios, and Kieros. In the early 3d c. B.C. this subject territory seceded, but was restored to Herakleia ca. 278 B.C. by Nikomedes I of Bithynia. In the early 2d c. this same territory was lost to Prousias I of Bithynia, though Herakleia itself was still independent when Bithynia was annexed by Rome in 74 B.C. It proceeded to slaughter a group of Roman publicani and submitted to Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus, but was captured by Cotta and devastated in 70 B.C. In Pompey's settlement of the joint province of Bithynia-Pontus (64 B.C.), Herakleia was transferred from the Bithynian to the Pontic portion and was henceforth known as Herakleia in Pontus. A colony was established there by Julius Caesar, and the remainder of the city presented by Antony to a Galatian prince, Adiatorix, who massacred the coloni and was removed by Octavian. Under the Empire Herakleia became metropolis of the coastal cities of Pontus.
Herakleia's mythical founder Herakles was said to have reached the underworld through a cavern on Baba Burnu (Acherousia pr.), a headland 2 km NW of Ereğli. The harbor, praised by Strabo (12.542), lay close in under this headland, which protected it from NE storms. There were two moles, and the lighthouse, known from coins, presumably stood (like its modern counterpart) on the tip of Baba Burnu. The Greek city lay on the flat ground beside the harbor, with a citadel rising on the SE side. All but one short length of the walls has disappeared, as has the Roman temple seen by Ainsworth. The area of the harbor and much of the Greek city are made inaccessible by a Turkish naval base; and the citadel, similarly, by a Turkish shore battery. The modern town, on the S and W slopes of the citadel hill, contains many Roman and Byzantine inscribed and sculptured stones, but its walls are mediaeval. It is not clear whether the Roman city lay here or on the site of the original Greek colony. Farther SE another Roman temple was visited by Ainsworth and von Diest, and an aqueduct was visible to Perrot. The amphitheater (shown on coins) has not been located.
BIBLIOGRAPHYW. F. Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Armenia (1842) I 38-41; G. Perrot et al., Exploration Archéologique de la Galatie. . . (1872) 15; W. von Diest, “Von Pergamon über den Dindymos zum Pontus,” PM 20 (1889) suppl. vol. XX 79-81; K. Lehmann-Hartleben, “Die antiken Hafenanlagen des Mittelmeeres,” Klio suppl. 14 (=NF 1) (1923) 130-31; W. Hoepfner, Herakleia Pontike-Ereğli (1966 = Oesterr Ak. der Wiss. phil-hist. Klasse, Bd. 89).
D. R. WILSONOn a hill, divided in two, that dominates the right side of the Danube, ca. 51 km N-NW of Constanţa, 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 Cernavodă 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.
BIBLIOGRAPHYG. Tocilescu, “Fouilles d'Axiopolis,” Festchrift zu Otto Hirschfeld (1903) 354-59; R. Netzhammer, Aus Rumänien, I (1909) 275-94; R. Vulpe, Histoire ancienne de la Dobroudei (1935) passim; id. & I. Barnea, Din istoria Dobrogei (1968) passim; D. Berciu, Contribuţii la problemele neoliticului României in lumina noilor cercetari (1961) 9ff, 511ff; D. M. Pippidi & D. Berciu, Din istoria Dobrogei (1965) 29-66.
D. ADAMESTEANUOn the Gulf of Taranto at the mouth of the river Acris (Agri). The city was colonized from Tarentum in 433-432 B.C. Excavation, however, has shown that the acropolis (site of the Renaissance castle) was first occupied by Greek settlers at the end of the 8th c. B.C. Scattered potters' works, identified by the remains of kilns, have revealed a mixture of Greek and indigenous wares paralleled by the mixture of burial rites (cremation and inhumation in pithoi) found in the archaic necropolis. The E Greek character of much of the material of this settlement makes it possible to interpret it as an outpost of Siris. Following the Tarentine foundation, Herakleia became the meeting place of the representatives of the Italiote Greek League and remained so until the 330s B.C. One of the battles between King Pyrrhos of Epeiros and the Romans was fought in the vicinity in 280 B.C. In the 1st c. B.C., following the slave insurrection of Spartacus, the area occupied by the city was reduced once again to the acropolis, where a settlement persisted until the 5th c.
Long famous because of the discovery there of an inscribed text of the Lex Julia Municipalis and inscribed bronze tablets recording partitioning of temple properties (found in the river Acris), Herakleia has been the site of intensive archaeological investigation since 1959. The city is situated on a long low hill oriented NW-SE with the acropolis at the SE end toward the sea. The rectangular city plan was laid out at the time of the founding of the Tarentine colony. Three entire city blocks have been excavated. The city walls, traced largely from air photographs, belong to the 4th c. B.C. and were strengthened after construction. There are remains of a coroplastic industry in the form of kilns and dumps of terracotta figurine fragments and molds. The foundations of a temple of the 4th c. B.C. have also been uncovered. The excavation of the extramural Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore has resulted in the discovery of a large group of dedications, largely miniature vases and terracotta figurines. These, together with the distinguished group of later 5th c. S Italian red-figure vases from a chamber tomb excavated in 1963, are displayed in the new museum adjoining the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHYB. Neutsch et al., Archäologische Forschungen in Lukanien II Herakleia-Studien, RM suppl. vol. 11 (1967) MPI; L. Quilici, Forma Italiae, Regio III, 1 Siris-Heraclea (1967); D. Adamesteanu, Siris-Heraclea (1969); A. D. Trendall, “Archaeology in South Italy and Sicily, 1967-69,” Archaeological Reports for 1969-1970, 38.
R. R. HOLLOWAY