SCUPI
Eth.
SCUPI (
Σκοῦποι,
Ptol. 3.9.6,
8.11.5; Hierocl.; Niceph. Bryenn. 4.18; Geog. Rav. 4.15;
τὰ Σκόπια, Anna Comn. ix. p. 253;
Σκούπιον, Procop.
de Aed. 4.4; Orelli,
Inscr. 1790:
Uschküb), a town which, from its important position at the
débouché from the Illyrian into the plains of Paeonia and the Upper Axius, was in all ages the frontier town of Illyricum towards Macedonia.
There is no evidence of its ever having been possessed by the kings of Macedonia or Paeonia. Under the Romans it was ascribed to Dardania, as well in the time of Ptolemy as in the fifth century, when it was the capital of the new diocese of Dardania (Marquardt, in Becker's
Röm. Alt. iii. pt. i. p. 110). The Roman road from Stobi to Naissus passed by Scupi, which was thus brought into connection with the great SE. route from Viminacium on the Danube to Byzantium.
It was probably seldom under the complete authority of Constantinople, though after the memorable victory in which, under its walls, Basil, the “Slayer of the Bulgarians” , in the beginning of the eleventh century, avenged the defeat he had suffered from Samuel, king of Bulgaria, twenty-one years before, in the passes of Mt. Haemus, this city surrendered to the Byzantine army (Cedren p. 694).
In the reign of Michael Palaeologus it was wrested from the emperor by the Servians, and became the residence of the Kral (Cantacuzenus, p. 778.) Finally, under Sultan Bayezid, Scupi, or the “Bride of Rûmili,” received a colony of Ottoman Turks (Chalcondyles, p. 31). (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 478.)
[
E.B.J]
