Who were the Greeks who lived in Romania for a thousand years?

Chapter

c. 630 – c. 550 BC

The founding

657/656 or 630 BC

The name

from Istros, the Danube

The walls

600–550 BC, earth on stone

Miletus, the city that sent ships all over the Black Sea, founded Histria in the mid-seventh century BC – so say the sources: Eusebius puts the foundation in 657/656 BC, Pseudo-Scymnus in 630 BC. It was the first urban settlement on today's Romanian territory, a port for trade with the native Getae.

The city's name comes from Istros, the Greeks' Danube: Histria means 'by the Danube'. Strabo wrote that it lies 500 stadia from the sacred mouth of the Ister. Between 600 and 550 BC the city raised earth walls on stone plinths against the Scythians; at the end of the sixth century BC it was destroyed, then rebuilt, with new temples.

In the north-east corner of the acropolis, the Sacred Area worked from the seventh century BC: a small temple for Apollo Ietros, the Healer, under the protection of Zeus Polieus. After the middle of the sixth century BC 4 temples rose, 3 of yellow limestone, with painted terracotta roofs, all facing south, about 8 by 16 metres.

Miletus had just then come to the very height of its prosperity and was the ornament of Ionia.

Herodotus, 5.28, Macaulay translation

Meanwhile Meanwhile, local potters were learning the trade: pottery, metal and glass were made on the spot from the mid-sixth century BC.

Chapter

c. 550 – 30 BC

The coin

the 8-gram drachma, c. 480 BC

The grain

Histria fed Greece

The ransom

5 talents for Zoltes, c. 200 BC

Histria joined the Delian League and passed, through a revolt of its inhabitants, from oligarchy to democracy – the change Aristotle records in the Politics. Between the Odrysian kingdom and the Scythians of Ariapeithes, the city kept its balance: Athenian ships came to collect contributions in the years of the Peloponnesian War, 431–404 BC.

Around 480 BC Histria struck the first coins on Romanian territory: cast silver drachmas, with eagle on dolphin and the city's legend. Its coins circulated through the whole region, and the city became a major grain supplier for Greece.

Hard centuries followed: the 260 BC defeat by Byzantion, the siege of the Getan Zoltes lifted for 5 talents around 200 BC, the garrison of Mithridates, then Burebista, before 30 BC. At the end of the Hellenistic age the city was subjugated, but whole.

At Massalia the oligarchy became more like a constitutional government, but at Istros ended in a democracy.

Aristotle, Politics V.6, Jowett translation

Meanwhile Meanwhile, the city was building its theatre, gymnasium and temple of the great god.

Chapter

29 BC – AD 295

The boundary

AD 100, to the Delta

The baths

a 20-kilometre aqueduct

The rebuilding

6–7 hectares after 238

In 29 BC Crassus annexed Dobrogea, and Histria came under Roman rule. Two centuries of prosperity followed: a new city wall, baths, temples, laws cut in stone. In AD 100 the governor of Moesia Inferior, Laberius Maximus, confirmed in a long inscription the Histrian boundaries, to the Danube Delta, where the city drew its income from salted fish.

Under Caracalla (211–217) the inscriptions call Histria 'the most brilliant city of the Histrians'. Thermae I, enlarged at the start of the second century, took water through a Roman aqueduct 20 kilometres long; Thermae II, from the start of the same century, covered 1,000 square metres.

Prosperity broke in 238, when the Carpi (Goths) razed the city. Histria was rebuilt on 6–7 hectares, with a stronger wall, and kept its Greek identity. The walls fell again in 295 and were rebuilt under Diocletian and Constantine.

'FINES HISTRIANORVM HOS ESSE…': these are to be the boundaries of the Histrians.

The Horothesia of Laberius Maximus, AD 100 (own translation)

Meanwhile Meanwhile, on the Tabula Peutingeriana Histria stands 11 Roman miles from Tomis and 9 from Ad Stoma.

Chapter

295 – 1914

The gulf

Halmyris, today Lake Sinoe

The bishopric

the 60 by 30 metre basilica

The dig

Pârvan, from 1914; the museum, 1982

The Halmyris gulf slowly closed with sand, and the way out to sea was gradually cut – but trade held into the sixth century, when luxurious houses with atria and colonnades rose. In the fifth and sixth centuries Histria became a bishopric: the episcopal basilica in the city centre, over 60 by 30 metres, was brought to light in 1969 by Alexandru Suceveanu.

In the seventh century the invasions of the Avars and Slavs destroyed the city, and its name was lost. Today's Lake Sinoe was once the gulf open to the sea; parts of the city lie under its murky waters, and the old port in the southern bay became dry land.

The ruins were identified in 1868 by the Frenchman Ernest Desjardins, and Vasile Pârvan started the digs in 1914 – in the very first campaign he found the Horothesia, the boundary stone. Lambrino, Condurachi, Pippidi, Alexandrescu and Suceveanu followed, and from 2010 Avram and Angelescu; the museum opened in 1982.

I say then that the silting up of the Pontus has gone on from time immemorial and still continues.

Polybius, 4.40, Loeb 1922 (own translation)

Meanwhile Meanwhile, at Sulina, another harbor was being killed by alluvium too – the story is told at length on the Sulina 1856 page.