Loggos

The site called Loggos is the surviving lower quarter of ancient Edessa in central Macedonia, a rare remnant of a city that otherwise retreated uphill long ago. In antiquity and the early Byzantine period, Edessa comprised two distinct parts: the acropolis, perched on the great rock where the modern town now stands, and this lower settlement at its foot. Loggos is essentially all that remains of the ancient and medieval urban fabric, and even that survives only as ruins. The city prospered in Hellenistic and Roman times, and its defences, on both levels, were rebuilt in the 3rd century as Gothic raids began troubling the Balkans. The acropolis fortifications, later known as the castle of Vodena, were among the strongest in Macedonia, though nothing of them stands today. Loggos received its final reinforcement in the 5th or 6th century, during the Hun invasions, but was abandoned by the early 7th century, whether through flood, earthquake, or the threat of Avar and Slav attacks. The inhabitants moved to the rock, forming a medieval fortress-town. The Ottomans took Edessa in 1385, and an earthquake in 1395 finished off the acropolis and the medieval city alike.