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Abdera was an ancient

Carthaginian The term Carthaginian ( la, Carthaginiensis ) usually refers to a citizen of Ancient Carthage. It can also refer to: * Carthaginian (ship), a three-masted schooner built in 1921 * Insurgent privateers; nineteenth-century South American privateers, ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

port on a hill above the modern

Adra The Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA or ADRA International) is a humanitarian agency operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the purpose of providing individual and community development and disaster relief. I ...

on the southeastern

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

coast of

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. It was located between Malaca (now

Málaga Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...

) and

Carthago Nova Cartagena () is a Spanish city and a major naval station on the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Iberia. As of January 2018, it has a population of 218,943 inhabitants, being the region's second-largest municipality and the country's sixth-la ...

(now Cartagena) in the district inhabited by the

Bastuli The Bastetani or Bastuli were an ancient Iberian (pre-Roman) people of the Iberian peninsula (the Roman Hispania). They are believed to have spoken the Iberian language. The relationship between the Iberian Bastetani and the Tartessian Mastieni ...

Name

Abdera shares its name with a city in Thrace and another in North Africa. Its coins bore the inscription ( xpu, 𐤏𐤁𐤃𐤓𐤕). The first element in the name appears to be the Punic word for "servant" or "slave"; the second element seems shared by the Phoenician names for Gadir (now Cadiz) and Cythera but of unclear meaning. It appears in Greek sources as ''tà Ábdēra'' ( grc-gre, τὰ Ἄβδηρα) and ''Aúdēra'' (), ''Ábdara'' (), and ''tò Ábdēron'' ().Ephor. apud Steph. B.

History

Abdera was founded by the

Carthaginians The Punic people, or western Phoenicians, were a Semitic people in the Western Mediterranean who migrated from Tyre, Phoenicia to North Africa during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' – the Latin equivalent of the ...

as a trading station and, after a period of decline, became one of the more important towns in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

Hispania Baetica Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic ...

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

seems to have made the place a

Roman colony A Roman (plural ) was originally a Roman outpost established in conquered territory to secure it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It is also the origin of the modern term ''colony''. Characteri ...

Coins

The most ancient coins bear its name with the head of Melqart and a

tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...

. Coins from the time of Tiberius show the town's main temple with two erect tunas as its columns. Early Roman coins were bilingual with Latin inscriptions on one side stating the name of the emperor and the town and with Punic text on the other side simply stating the name of the town.

Name

History

Coins

Notes

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Further reading