Plotinopolis () is an ancient city founded in

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

by the Roman emperor

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

and named after his wife, Pompeia Plotina. In the 6th/7th centuries, it was replaced by the nearby city of Didymoteichon.

History

20130518_Septimius_Severus_Archeological_Museum_Komotini_Thrace_Greece

In the early 2nd century, the Roman emperor

created a new city on the banks of the Hebrus River, between two surrounding hills, near modern Turkish Uzunköprü and much older Greek

Didymoteicho Didymoteicho ( ) is a town located on the eastern edge of the Evros (regional unit), Evros regional unit of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, in northeastern Greece. It is the seat of the municipality of the same name. The town (pop. 8,681 in 2021 ...

(Demotika), and named it Plotinopolis, after his wife Pompeia Plotina. A solid gold bust of Emperor

Septimius Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; ; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through cursus honorum, the ...

found on the site of Plotinopolis in 1965 is now in the museum at Komotini. The city would later be one of the most important towns in Thrace, having its own assembly, part of the late

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

of Haemimontus, and had an episcopal see (

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 Metropolis of Adrianople). The first bishop of the city, Hierophilus, is mentioned in the 430s. In the 6th century, Emperor

Justinian I Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

improved the fortifications of Plotinopolis. It was probably at that time that the nearby rocky and more defensible hill was also fortified. It seems that already in the 7th century, the latter had become the core of the settlement, which was thereafter named Didymoteichon ("twin wall"). The name "Plotinopolis" survived in the ecclesiastical registers until the 9th century, before there too it was replaced by Didymoteichon.

Catholic titular diocese

The diocese of Plotinopolis was established 1933 as a Latin Catholic

titular bishopric 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 archbish ...

. It only had a single incumbent: Pavlo Vasylyk (1991.01.16 – 1993.04.20), while

auxiliary bishop An auxiliary bishop is a bishop assigned to assist the diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese. Auxiliary bishops can also be titular bishops of sees that no longer exist as territorial jurisdictions. ...

of Ivano-Frankivsk of the Ukrainians.

References

{{reflist Catholic titular sees in Europe Roman towns and cities in Greece Former populated places in Greece Roman Thrace 2nd-century establishments in the Roman Empire