Alexandre Baralis: Apollonia Pontica in the Archaic and Classical Periods

Founded in the last decade of the 6th century BC by settlers from Miletus, in Southern Ionia, Apollonia is not the oldest Greek city on the Black Sea. However, it was both the first port that sailors encountered along the Pontic coast of Thrace and one of the two best anchorages in the entire region. This paradox is just one of the many questions surrounding the history of the city, about which ancient sources are, paradoxically, rather silent. The Bulgarian French research program launched in 2010 as part of the Joint Archaeological Mission has since explored the rural areas near the city, before extending its study to the Medni Rid mountain range, which marked the border between Apollonia and the Thracian tribe of the Astes during the Classical period. The data obtained not only makes it possible to trace the very origins of the city, but also invites us to reconsider the notion of territory in a colonial Greek context by revealing its highly evolutionary nature, directly subject to the various political and military vicissitudes encountered by the city. This area is par excellence the theatre of highly mobile economic and social strategies that reflects an overseas world much more dynamic than long assumed. Combined with the results of the Franco-Romanian archaeological mission in Orgame, near the Danube, this study demonstrates the great diversity of strategies implemented in the Black Sea by the various Milesian communities. Speaker: Dr. Alexandre Baralis (École française d’Athènes) Weniger lesen