Vici.org
No images available yet. Please add images related to this place.

Surroundings:

Roman BridgeEskihisar Fortress (Gebze)

Location:

  • Türkiye, Hersek
  • geo:40.723053,29.507572
  • Location ± 0-5 m.

Class:

  • City
  • invisible

Identifiers:

Annotations

Helenopolis (Greek: Ἑλενόπολις) or Drepana (Δρέπανα) was an ancient Roman and Byzantine town in Bithynia, Asia Minor, on the southern side of the Gulf of Astacus. It has been identified with the modern village of Hersek, in the district of Altınova, Yalova Province. It is traditionally considered as the birthplace of Saint Helena.

According to the 6th-century historian Procopius, Helena's son Constantine the Great renamed the city "Helenopolis" to honor her birthplace; but the name may simply have honored her without marking her birthplace. Constantine also built there a church in honour of the martyr Saint Lucian; it soon grew in importance, and Constantine lived there very often towards the end of his life.

Near it were some famous mineral springs. These mineral springs might be those of Termal near Yalova.

Justinian built there an aqueduct, baths, and other monuments. It does not seem ever to have grown, and it was slightingly called Eleinou Polis, "the wretched town".


Nearby

Kibotos

Bizantine castle

Tilbes Höyük (4 km)

Tilbes Höyük was a Chalcolithic site about 22 km northwest of the Birecik.

Ottoman Bridge (7 km)

Turkish bridge at the site of the Roman bridge.


This object was added by Olba Yolu on 2015-03-14. Last update by René Voorburg on 2015-03-15. Persistent URI: http://vici.org/vici/20189 . Download as RDF/XML, KML.
Annotation available using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. Metadata available using the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication, unless it is explicitly stated otherwise.

Vici.org partners:

Livius.org: articles on ancient history   Rijksmuseum van Oudheden