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Abdera

Greek city on the Thracian coast, founded by the Teians, on Xerxes' road, 545-479 BCE

Abdera was a Greek city on the coast of Thrace east of the Nestus river. Herodotus says the people of Teos founded it when they fled Harpagus's siege about 545. It lay on Xerxes' road in 480, and one of its citizens made the best-known joke of the march.

In the game: Abdera is named in the Athos level's Chronicle and chatter, through the man of Abdera who thanked the gods that the King ate only once a day.

Founded in flight

Ancient account

When Harpagus took the wall of Teos with a mound, Herodotus says, the Teians took to their ships and sailed to Thrace, where they founded Abdera. An earlier settler, Timesius of Clazomenae, had tried and been driven out by the Thracians, and the Teians honoured him as a hero.

Herodotus 1.168

One dinner a day

Ancient account

The cities on Xerxes' road had to feed his army. Herodotus says Megacreon of Abdera told his people to go to their temples with their wives and thank the gods that Xerxes ate only one meal a day; had he ordered breakfast too, they would have had to flee or be ruined.

Herodotus 7.118-120

The King's guest-friends

Ancient account

On his retreat from Greece, Herodotus says, Xerxes came to Abdera, made guest-friendship with its people and gave them a golden akinakes and a gold-spangled tiara. The Abderites said it was there he first loosened his belt in safety; Herodotus does not believe it.

Herodotus 8.120

Coins of the griffin

In the record

Abdera struck silver coins with a griffin, the badge of its mother city Teos, from about 540. The city later became known as the home of the philosophers Democritus and Protagoras.

Head, Historia Numorum, Thrace; Diogenes Laertius 9.34, 9.50