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Tomis

Tomis (also called Tomi) was a Greek colony in the province of Scythia on the Black Sea's shore, founded around 500 BC for commercial exchanges with local Dacian populations.

The creation of the city is assumed to a Getae queen according to Jordanes (after Cassiodorus) in De origine actibusque Getarum (The origin and deeds of the Goths):

"After achieving this victory (against Cyrus the Great) and winning so much booty from her enemies, Queen Tomyris crossed over into that part of Moesia which is now called Lesser Scythia - a name borrowed from Great Scythia -, and built on the Moesian shore of the Black Sea the city of Tomi, named after herself."

In 29 BC the Romans captured the region from the Odryses, and annexed it as far as the Danube, under the name of Limes Scythicus.

In AD 8, here Ovid was banished by Augustus and died there eight years later, celebrating the town of Tomis in his poems.

The city was afterwards included in the Province of Moesia, and, from the time of Diocletian, in Scythia Minor, of which it was the metropolis.

It then belonged to Byzantines, Bulgarians, Turks and then to Romanians since 1878. Today, this city is called Constanţa and it is located in Romania.

Last updated: 07-31-2005 22:01:38
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