Frourio Komotini

The Byzantine walls of Komotini are all that survives of a fortress-city raised in the early fourteenth century, probably around 1304-1305, after the destruction of nearby Mosynopolis, the chief Byzantine town of the Rhodope, which fell to the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan I in 1206. The prevailing older theory, championed by the local professor Stilpon Kyriakidis, held that the castle dated to the late fourth century, based on an inscription reading "Theodosius' building" on a northern tower. The regular square plan, with cylindrical corner towers, does resemble a late Roman quadriburgium. Yet no source mentions Komotini before 1343, when John Kantakouzenos camped there during the civil war; Procopius omits it, as does the Tabula Peutingeriana. It seems implausible such a fortress could have survived a millennium of raids unnoticed. The walls, some 9.6 metres high with sixteen towers, were built in opus mixtum with brick bonding courses. They remained in good order until the early twentieth century, when Ottoman, Bulgarian and Greek authorities dismantled them.

Heritage data from Wikidata, compiled and verified in the Atika atlas.