According to
Strabo, its name signifies "the town of Selys;" In honour of
Eudoxia, the wife of the emperor
Arcadius, its name was changed to
Eudoxiopolis or
Eudoxioupolis (Εὐδοξιούπολις), which it bore for a considerable time. It was still its official name in the seventh century, but the modern name shows that it subsequently resumed its original designation. Respecting the history of Selymbria, only detached and fragmentary notices occur in the Greek writers. In Latin authors, it is merely named; although
Pliny the Elder reports that it was said to have been the birthplace of Prodicus, a disciple of
Hippocrates. It was here that
Xenophon met
Medosades, the envoy of
Seuthes II, whose forces afterwards encamped in its neighbourhood. When
Alcibiades was commanding for the
Athenians in the Propontis (410 BC), the people of Selymbria refused to admit his army into the town, but gave him money, probably in order to induce him to abstain from forcing an entrance. Some time after this, however, he gained possession of the place through the treachery of some of the townspeople, and, having levied a contribution upon its inhabitants, left a garrison in it. Selymbria is mentioned by
Demosthenes in 351 BC, as in alliance with the Athenians; it was blockaded by him about 343 BC; but others consider that this mention of Selymbria is one of the numerous proofs that the documents inserted in that speech are not authentic. Polyidos (Πολύιδος) of Selymbria won with a
dithyramb a contest at Athens.
Athenaeus in the
Deipnosophistae wrote that Cleisophus (Κλείσοφος) of Selymbria fell in love with a statue of
Parian marble while he was at
Samos. Works of
Favorinus includes the "
Letters of Selymbrians" (Σηλυμβρίων ἐπιστολαί). Selymbria had a small, but significant mint, researched by
Edith Schönert-Geiß. ==Ecclesiastical history==