Terpni () is a small town in the Serres regional unit,

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Since the 2011 local government reform it is a municipal unit of the municipality of

Visaltia Visaltia (, ) is a municipality in the Serres regional unit, Greece. The seat of the municipality is in Nigrita. Municipality The municipality Visaltia was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municip ...

, whose seat is in

Nigrita Nigrita () is a city and a municipality in the Serres (regional unit), Serres regional unit, Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Visaltia, of which it is the seat and a munic ...

. It has a population of 1,593 inhabitants (2021 census) and until 1928 was named Tserpista.

History

A few kilometers southwest of Terpni, on the hill named Palaiokastro, are preserved the ruins of an ancient settlement identified with the Roman waystation (''

mutatio In the Roman Empire, a ''mansio'' (from the Latin word ''mansus,'' the perfect passive participle of ''manere'' "to remain" or "to stay") was an official stopping place on a Roman road, or ''via'', maintained by the central government for the use ...

'') Graero, known from the Roman itineraries. From a Greek inscription of Roman imperial times, we are informed that this settlement had the size of a city (''

polis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...

'') with all its known architectural monuments (

bouleuterion Bouleuterion (, ''bouleutērion''), also translated as and was a building in ancient Greece which housed the council of citizens (, ''boulē'') of a democratic city state. These representatives assembled at the bouleuterion to confer and de ...

, gymnasium, etc.).D. C. Samsaris, La vallée du Bas-Strymon á l’ époque impériale (Contribution épigraphique á la topographie, l’ onomastique, l’ histoire et aux cultes de la province romaine de Macédoine), Δωδώνη 18(1989), τεύχ. 1, σ. 222-223, αρ. 17
The Packard Humanities Institute (Samsaris, Bas-Strymon 17, # PH150654)
Δ. Κ. Σαμσάρης, Ανέκδοτη επιγραφή των αυτοκρατορικών χρόνων από την Τερπνή Νιγρίτας, "Μακεδονικά" 20 (1980) 1-8

References

Populated places in Serres (regional unit) Visaltia Archaeological sites in Macedonia (Greece) Roman sites in Greece {{CMacedonia-geo-stub

History

See also

References