HADRIANO´POLIS
HADRIANO´POLIS (
Αδσιανούπολις), a town of Illyricum, founded by Hadrian, and situated on the road from Apollonia to Nicopolis, about midway between those two towns. (
Pent. Tab.) It was repaired by Justinian, and called JUSTINOPOLIS (Procop.
de Aed. 4.1), and became one of the cities of the government of old Epeirus and the see of a bishop (Hierocles).
The small theatre and other vestiges in the plain below
Libókhovo mark the position of this city. Ten or twelve miles lower down the river are the ruins of a fortress or small town of the Byzantine age, called
Drynópoli, which name has been taken for a corruption of the old city, though it really is derived from the river on which the place is situated, still called
Dhrýno or
Drýno. These remains are of a later age than the theatre, which belongs to Paganism.
The probability is, that when Hadrianopolis fell in ruins Drynopolis was built on a different site, and became the see of the bishop. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. i. p. 76.)
[
E.B.J]
