The settlement
The naturally fortified mound of Rentina is located
approximately 75km northeast of Thessalonica, south of the Richios River and
next to the ancient Via Egnatia. Excavations carried out on the hill and its
environs have revealed traces of human presence since Neolithic times; on the
basis of their construction and associated finds, the building walls and abutments
unearthed in the southwest section of the castle date to the Hellenistic period.
Rentina lies close to the settlement of Arethousa, which went into decline from
the 6th century onwards. According to one interpretation, Rentina
may take its name from the nearby staging post (mutatio) called Peridipidis
(genitive: Peripidinis).
The fortifications at Rentina are
reasonably well preserved, as are the impressive remains of a settlement that
may well be Artemision
Castle, referred to by
Procopius in his work On Buildings as
having acquired fortifications in the time of Justinian. Nevertheless, research
findings to date indicate that the first fortifications, which included water
cisterns capable of supporting a small guard, should be dated to the mid-4th
century. Under Justinian the wall was reinforced with towers and equipped with
a large cistern on the level ground in the citadel.
In mid-Byzantine times the wall
was rebuilt to serve as fortifications for a settlement founded in the first
half-decade of the 10th century, when it was seat of the Diocese of
Lete and Rentina. At that time a church was built over the ruins of the then
defunct cistern on the citadel, together with accommodation for the bishop and
his retinue. By the end of the same century several houses had been erected in
the lower town, following the line of the old wall and on stepped terraces. A
third wall then surrounded the settlement from the most vulnerable section to
the west, where a tower was built. Wood remains from the interior of this have
been carbon dated to around 980 AD.
After 1204 the settlement was
surrendered to the rulers of the Frankish Kingdom of Thessalonica. As indicated
by the large number of contemporary coins found in excavations, they appear to
have installed a permanent guard, with the obvious aim of controlling the Plain
of Thessalonica and the Strymonic
Gulf. In 1242 John
Vatatzes took the castle while marching on Thessalonica, since, as George
Acropolites would have it, the Franks abandoned their position without a fight.
News of the inhabitants of Rentina in the 13th and 14th
century is contained in legal documents held by monasteries on Mount Athos, where
mention is made of lands, mills and houses in the area. In the first half-decade
of the 14th century a small cruciform church was built inside the
eastern enclosure, possibly in connection with an infant and child cemetery. In
the mid-14th century the Metropolitan of Thessalonica granted the vacant
bishopric of Rentina to the Bishop of Platamonas, who was indicted for suspect
ordainments but acquitted at the synod of 1363. From around the same period it appears that
the inhabitants gradually abandoned the settlement, which passed successively into
the hands of Serbs, Greeks and then Turks. The arrival of Turkish Yuruks in the
area probably led the greater part of the population to seek the safety of
larger centres, the most prominent of which was Volvi. The few coins excavated
from that time up until the mid-16th century are illustrative of the
decline of the once flourishing settlement at Rentina, confirming the existence
of a small-scale farm on the same site.
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