Legends claim that Orestias was founded by
Orestes, the son of
Agamemnon and
Clytemnestra. Orestias took its name by the Greeks, at least from the time
Philip II of Macedon took over the town. The
Roman emperor Hadrian expanded the town into a
city, gave it a strong
fortification and renamed it to Hadrianopolis (
Greek: Άδριανούπολις). However the name Orestias was still used by many writers at the
Byzantine era, along with
Adrianoupolis. It was the capital of the
Byzantine theme of Macedonia. During the
Ottoman period the name of Adrianou(polis) was paraphrased by the Turks and eventually became Edirne. In 1920 when the Greeks took over most of
Eastern Thrace including Edirne, they restored the city's Roman name (Adrianoupolis) and not its old Greek name (Orestias), which was given to its suburb
Karaağaç, in remembrance of the ancient Thracian town.
Orestiada (or Nea Orestias or New Orestias) is a modern Greek town founded in 1923 on a site to the south of Orestias, to house
Greek refugees who had to abandon the latter border town, which was given to Turkey (along with two villages) by the
Treaty of Lausanne. == See also ==