Lete ( or Λητή) was an ancient city in

Mygdonia Mygdonia (; ) was an ancient territory, part of ancient Thrace, later conquered by Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon, which comprised the plains around Therma (Thessalonica) together with the valleys of Klisali and Besikia, including the ar ...

Macedon Macedonia ( ; , ), also called Macedon ( ), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal ...

and Roman Catholic

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

in the Roman province of Macedonia.

History

Lete is known by its coins and inscriptions, mentioned in

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

(III, xiii), the

Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo; 61 – ), better known in English as Pliny the Younger ( ), was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and e ...

(IV, x, 17),

Harpocration __NOTOC__ Valerius Harpocration ( or , ''gen''. Ἁρποκρατίωνος) was a Greek grammarian of Alexandria, probably working in the 2nd century AD. He is possibly the Harpocration mentioned by Julius Capitolinus (''Life of Verus'', 2) as ...

Stephanus Byzantius Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...

and Suidas in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages in Nicephorus Bryennius (IV, xix). The spelling "Lite" is incorrect and comes from

iotacism Iotacism (, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to the letter iota, the orig ...

. According to Theagenes's ''Macedonica'' the town was named after the Greek goddess

Leto In ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion, Leto (; ) is a childhood goddess, the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe (Titaness), Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother of Apollo and Artemis.Hesiod, ''Theogony' ...

, who was worshipped in a sanctuary near Lete. Marsyas of Philippi mentions it many times in book 6 of Makedonika (). In its

necropolis A necropolis (: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'' (). The term usually implies a separate burial site at a distan ...

were found the

Derveni papyrus The Derveni papyrus is an Ancient Greek papyrus roll that was discovered in 1962 at the archaeological site of Derveni, near Thessaloniki, in Central Macedonia. A philosophical treatise, the text is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, a ...

and the Derveni krater. Lete appears in some ''

Notitiæ episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the mostl ...

'' of a late period as

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

of the

Archbishopric of Thessalonica The Metropolis of Thessaloniki () is a Greek Orthodox metropolitan see based in the city of Thessaloniki in Central Macedonia, Greece. It is part of the so-called "New Lands", belonging to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constan ...

, later united to the See of Rentina. Lete and Rentina even had Greek (Orthodox) bishops until the eighteenth century. Lete became the small village of Aivati/Ajvatovo situated a little north of

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

. Bulgarian revolutionary

Andon Dimitrov Andon Dimitrov ( Bulgarian and ; January 1867 – 13 March 1933) was a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary. He was among the founders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). Biography Dimitrov was born to a rich Bulgarian f ...

was born there in 1867. The site of Lete is the near the modern Liti.

Sources

* Catholic titular sees in Europe Geography of ancient Mygdonia Leto Populated places in ancient Macedonia Former populated places in Greece Populated places in Thessaloniki (regional unit) Oraiokastro {{AncientMygdonia-geo-stub