Diocletianopolis

Hisarya is a small but very famous town in southern Bulgaria, 42 km north of Plovdiv. It is located on a sunny plain, a transition from the southern slopes of Sredna Gora to the Thracian Valley, at an altitude of 346 m above sea level. Its climate is transitional-continental, with mild winters. Its greatest wealth are the 22 mineral healing springs of different qualities and temperatures, and the water of all of them is of a very pleasant taste.

The favorable climatic conditions and mineral springs suggest a thousand-year long history. On the territory of today’s town, traces of a Neolithic settlement were revealed, as well as of a Thracian one, which came within the scope of the Odrysian Kingdom. After the establishment of the Roman province of Thrace in AD 46, a large Roman town arose on the site of these settlements around the mineral springs. Its status of a town was granted by decree of Emperor Diocletian in 293. Its name became most likely Diocletianopolis, although it is mentioned in the chronicles as Augusta as well. Data from a Latin inscription found in Hisarya testify that in 135–136, in the days of Emperor Hadrian, the area around the mineral springs was declared an Imperial domain (Augustae) with its own borders. It was of a special status and subjected to the emperor personally.

The first fortress was built during the Roman Age. What we see today, however, is mostly from the Byzantine Age, 5th – 6th century. At this time, the Roman town of Diocletianopolis reached its zenith. Hierocles in his Synecdemus (528) records that Diocletianopolis was then the third largest town in the province of Thrace after Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and Beroe (Stara Zagora). Notitiae Episcopatuum from the 7th – 10th centuries, which reflect an earlier period in the history of the Empire, indicate Diocletianopolis as one of the primary episcopal seats subordinated to the Metropolitan of Philippopolis.

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