Bisaltia

BISA´LTIA (Βισαλτία), a district in Macedonia, extending from the river Strymon and the lake Cercinitis, on the E., to Crestonica on the W. (Hdt. 7.115.) It is called Bisaltica by Livy (Liv. 45.29). The inhabitants, called Bisaltae (Βισάλται), were a Thracian people. At the time of the invasion of Xerxes, B.C. 480, Bisaltia and Crestonica were governed by a Thracian prince, who was independent of Macedonia (Hdt. 8.116); but before the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, Bisaltia had been annexed to the Macedonian kingdom. (Thuc. 2.99.) Some of the Bisaltae settled in the peninsula of Mt. Athos. (Thuc. 4.109.) The most important COIN OF THIE BISALTAE.

town in Bisaltia was the Greek city of Argilus. [ARGILJUS.] In this district there was a river Bisaltes (Βισάλτης), which Leake conjectures to be the river which joins the Strymon a little be-low the bridge of Neokhório, or Amphipolis; while Tafel supposes it to be the same as the Rechius of Procopius (de Aedif. 4.3), which discharges into the sea the waters of the lake Bolbe. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 3. p. 228; Tafel, in Pauly's Realencycl. vol. 1. p. 1115.) The annexed coin, which is one of great antiquity, bears en the obverse the legend ΒΙΣΑΛΤΙΚΟΝ.