KABYLE
(or Cabyle) Bulgaria.
On the right
bank of the river Tonzos (modern Tundza) near the
city of Yambol, a settlement of the Bronze Age (2d
millennium B.C.). The Thracian city was conquered
by the Macedonians in 342-341 (
Dem. 8.44; 10.15).
It was an economic and trade center of the state of
the Thracian king Seuthes III (323-311 B.C.) (Theopomp.
fr. 246; Harp. s.v.;
Strab. 7.320; Steph. Byz. 346.1). It
was conquered by Rome in 72 B.C. (Eutr. 6.10), and it
became a city in the Roman province of Thracia. The
territory of the city included the middle reaches of the
river Tonzos. In A.D. 378 a battle was fought between the
Romans and the West Goths nearby (Amm. Marc.
31.15.5). It was a rest stop on the road to Adrianopolis
(Edirne) and Anchialus (Pomorie). In the 4th c. it was
the seat of a bishop but disappeared in the 6th c.
In the 3d c. B.C. the city minted its own coins. There
was an agora, a temple of Artemis-Hekate-Phosphorion
and a temple of Apollo (
IG Bulg. III/2, n. 1731). In
A.D. 145 immigrants from Perinthos erected votive inscriptions to Herakles Agoraios. Excavations have uncovered a large basilica of late antique date and parts
of the defense wall. The finds from Kabyle are in the
Regional Museum of Yambol.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Oberhummer,
RE 10 (1919) col.
1455ff; D. P. Dimitrov,
Latomus 28 (1957) =
Hommages à W. Deonna 185-89; Head,
Hist. Num. 278; T.
Gerasimov, “The Alexandrine tetradrachmes of Kabyle
in Thrace,”
Centennial Volume of the American Numism.
Soc. (1958) 273; id., “Sur la numismatique de la ville
de Cabyle (bulg.),”
Bull. Inst. arch. bulg. 32 (1972)
113-19.
V. VELKOY
