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Selymbria

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Selymbria (Greek: Σηλυμβρία),[1] or Selybria (Σηλυβρία),[2] or Selybrie (Σηλυβρίη),[3] was a town of ancient Thrace on the Propontis, 22 Roman miles east from Perinthus, and 44 Roman miles west from Constantinople,[4] near the southern end of the wall built by Anastasius I Dicorus for the protection of his capital.[5] Its site is located at Silivri in European Turkey.[6][7]

History

According to Strabo, its name signifies "the town of Selys;"[8] from which it has been inferred that Selys was the name of its founder, or of the leader of the colony from Megara, which founded it at an earlier period than the establishment of Byzantium, another colony of the same Greek city-state.[9] In honour of Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor Arcadius, its name was changed to Eudoxiopolis or Eudoxioupolis (Εὐδοξιούπολις),[10] which it bore for a considerable time. It was still its official name in the seventh century, but the modern name shows that it subsequently resumed its original designation.

Respecting the history of Selymbria, only detached and fragmentary notices occur in the Greek writers. In Latin authors, it is merely named;[11][12] although Pliny the Elder reports that it was said to have been the birthplace of Prodicus, a disciple of Hippocrates.[13] It was here that Xenophon met Medosades, the envoy of Seuthes II,[14] whose forces afterwards encamped in its neighbourhood.[15] When Alcibiades was commanding for the Athenians in the Propontis (410 BC), the people of Selymbria refused to admit his army into the town, but gave him money, probably in order to induce him to abstain from forcing an entrance.[16] Some time after this, however, he gained possession of the place through the treachery of some of the townspeople, and, having levied a contribution upon its inhabitants, left a garrison in it.[17] Selymbria is mentioned by Demosthenes in 351 BC, as in alliance with the Athenians;[1] and it was no doubt at that time a member of the Byzantine confederacy. According to a letter of Philip II of Macedon, quoted in the oration de Corona,[18] it was blockaded by him about 343 BC; but others consider that this mention of Selymbria is one of the numerous proofs that the documents inserted in that speech are not authentic.[19]

Polyidos (Πολύιδος) of Selymbria won with a dithyramb a contest at Athens.[20]

Athenaeus in the Deipnosophistae wrote that Cleisophus (Κλείσοφος) of Selymbria fell in love with a statue of Parian marble while he was at Samos.[21]

Works of Favorinus includes the "Letters of Selymbrians" (Σηλυμβρίων ἐπιστολαί).[22]

Selymbria had a small, but significant mint, researched by Edith Schönert-Geiß.[23]

Ecclesiastical history

In Christian times, Selymbria was the seat of a bishop.[24] In the tenth century, it became an autocephalous archbishopric and under Marcus Comnenus a metropolis without suffragan sees. The oldest known bishop is Theophilus, transferred from Apamea. Other known bishops include:

Under the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, the metropolitan of Selymbria, whose name is unknown, was one of the prelates who signed a letter to the pope on the union of the churches. In 1347, Methodius was one of the signatories at the Fifth Council of Constantinople which deposed the patriarch John XIV, the adversary of the Palamites.[26] In 1356 Selymbria assumed the administration of the metropolis of Nicomedia, due to the latter's decline after its fall to the Ottomans.[27] Philotheus, who lived about 1365, was the author of the panegyric on Saint Agathonicus, a martyr who suffered at Selymbria under Maximian, and of the panegyric on Saint Macarius, a monk of Constantinople towards the end of the thirteenth century. John Chortasmenos, who took the name Ignatius, served from 1431 to 1439.[26]

No longer a residential see, it remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.[24]

Autonomous rulers

The list of the autonomous rulers of Selymbria in the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty:[28]

  • Andronikos IV Palaiologos (1381–1385), as emperor
  • John VII Palaiologos (1385–1403), as emperor
  • Theodore II Palaiologos (1443–1448), as despot

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

A titular see in Thracia Prima, suffragan of Heraclea. Selymbria, or Selybria, the city of Selys on the Propontis, was a colony of the Megarians founded before Byzantium. It was the native place of Prodicus, a disciple of Hippocrates; there Xenophon met Medosades, the envoy of Seuthes, whose army later encamped near by. In 410 B.C. Aleibiades, who commanded in the Propontis for the Athenians, was not allowed to enter the town, but the inhabitants paid him a sum of money; somewhat later he captured it by treason and left a garrison there. In 351 B.C., Selymbria was an ally of the Athenians and in 343 was perhaps attacked by Philip. In honor of Eudoxia, wife of the Emperor Arcadius, it was called Eudoxiopolis still its official name in the seventh century, doubtless together with the older one which finally survived. In 805 it was pillaged by the Bulgarian king, Kroum. Michael III constructed a fortress the ruins of which are still existing there. The town is often mentioned by the Byzantine historians; in 1096 Godfrey of Bouillon ravaged the country. Cantacuzenus celebrated the marriage of his daughter Theodora and the sultan Orkhan with great pomp at Selymbria. The Turks captured the town in 1453. It is now Silivri, chief town of a caza in the vilayet of Adrianopolis, containing 8000 inhabitants, Turks and Greeks, mostly farmers or fishermen.

In the tenth century it became an autocephalous archbishopric and under Marcus Comnenus a metropolis without suffragan sees. It would be easy, therefore, to add to the list of its bishops given by Le Quien in "Oriens christianus", I, 1137. The oldest known is Theophilus transferred from Apamea (Socrates "Hist. eccl.", VII, xxxvi). We may mention before the Schism: Romanus, 448, 451; Sergius, 80; George, 692; Epiphanius, author of a lost work against the Iconoclasts. Simeon assisted in 879 at the Council of Constantinople which re-established Photius. Under Michael Palaeologus, the Metropolitan of Selymbria, whose name is unknown, was one of the prelates who signed a letter to the pope on the union of the Churches. In 1347 Methodius was one of the signatories at the Council of Constantinople which deposed the patriarch John Calecas, the adversary of the Palamites. The date of Ignatius, who wrote a "Life of Constantine and Helena" is unknown, perhaps about 1431. Among the bishops omitted by Le Quien must be mentioned Philotheus, who lived about 1365, the author of the panegyric on St. Agathonicus, a martyr of Nicomedia who suffered at Selymbria under Maximian, and of the panegyric on Saint (?) Macarius, a monk of Constantinople towards the end of the thirteenth century (Krumbacher, "Gesch. der byzant. Litteratur", Munich, 1897, 205).

SMITH, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Geog., s. v.; BOUTYRAS, Dict. of Hist. and Geog. (Greek), VII, 509; TOMASCHEK}, Zur Kunde der Hamus-Halbinsel (Vienna, 1887), 23.

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Demosthenes, de Rhod. lib., p. 198, ed. Reiske.
  2. Back to citation Xenophon. Anabasis. Vol. 7.2.15; Strabo. Geographica. Vol. vii p. 319. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition; Ptolemy. The Geography. Vol. 3.11.6.
  3. Back to citation Herodotus. Histories. Vol. 6.33.
  4. Back to citation Itin. Hier. p. 570, where it is called Salamembria.
  5. Back to citation Procopius, de Aed. 4.9.
  6. Back to citation Talbert, Richard, ed. (2000). Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-0-691-03169-9, with accompanying Map-by-Map Directory.
  7. Back to citation Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
  8. Back to citation Strabo. Geographica. Vol. vii p. 319. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  9. Back to citation Scymn. 714.
  10. Back to citation Hierocles. Synecdemus. Vol. p. 632.
  11. Back to citation Pomponius Mela. De situ orbis. Vol. 2.2.6.
  12. Back to citation Pliny. Naturalis Historia. Book 4.11.18.
  13. Back to citation Pliny. Naturalis Historia. Book 29.1.1.
  14. Back to citation Xenophon. Anabasis. Vol. 7.2.28.
  15. Back to citation Xenophon. Anabasis. Vol. 5.15.
  16. Back to citation Xenophon. Hellenica. Vol. 1.1.21.
  17. Back to citation Plutarch, Alc. 30; Xenophon. Hellenica. Vol. 3.10.
  18. Back to citation Demosthenes, de Corona, p. 251, ed Reiske.
  19. Back to citation See, e.g., Newman, Class. Mus. vol. i. pp. 153, 154.
  20. Back to citation Marmor Parium, Chronicle, 68.81b
  21. Back to citation Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 13.84
  22. Back to citation Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers
  23. Back to citation Price, M. Jessop (1977). "Review of Griechisches Münzwerk: Die Münzprägung von Bisanthe—Dikaia—Selymbria". The Numismatic Chronicle. 17 (137): 237–238. ISSN 0078-2696. JSTOR 42666608.
  24. Back to citation occurrence 24.0 Back to citation occurrence 24.1 Catholic Hierarchy
  25. Back to citation Michel Le Quien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus (Paris, 1740), Vol. 1, cols. 1137–1140.
  26. Back to citation occurrence 26.0 Back to citation occurrence 26.1 Talbot, Alice-Mary (1991). "Chortasmenos, John". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 431–432. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
  27. Back to citation Vryonis, Speros (1971). The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamisation from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. Berkeley: California University Press. p. 300
  28. Back to citation Jeffreys, Elizabeth; Haldon, John F; Cormack, Robin, eds. (2008). The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-19-925246-6.

Bibliography

41°04′49″N 28°16′06″E / 41.080158°N 28.26829°E

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