Heraclea Sintica

Heraclea Sintica, also known as Heraclea Strymonike, was an ancient Greek city located near what is now the village of Rupite in south-western Bulgaria [1]. Heraclea Sintica was founded sometime between 356 and 339 BC by Philip II of Macedon with Macedonian settlers from Heraclea in Mygdonia [1]. This settlement may have replaced a previous Thracian tribal center called Sintia as the Roman historian Livy emphasized that Heraclea lay within the territories of the Sintoi [1]. These people were evidently chased away at the city's foundation, however, as Appian included the Sintoi with the Dardanians and Enetoi as tribes outside the province of Macedonia [1]. Moreover, there is a conspicuous absence of Thracian names among inscriptions from Heraclea which also suggests that the Sintoi had been driven out of the Strymon Valley and that they did not intermix with the colonizers [1]. Demetrius, son of Philip V of Macedon, was slain at Heraclea Sintica [1].