Kabyle
On the right bank of the river Tonzos (modern Tundza) near the city of Yambol, a settlement of the Bronze Age (2d millennium B.C.). The Thracian city was conquered by the Macedonians in 342-341 (Dem. 8.44; 10.15). It was an economic and trade center of the state of the Thracian king Seuthes III (323-311 B.C.) (Theopomp. fr. 246; Harp. s.v.; Strab. 7.320; Steph. Byz. 346.1). It was conquered by Rome in 72 B.C. (Eutr. 6.10), and it became a city in the Roman province of Thracia. The territory of the city included the middle reaches of the river Tonzos. In A.D. 378 a battle was fought between the Romans and the West Goths nearby (Amm. Marc. 31.15.5). It was a rest stop on the road to Adrianopolis (Edirne) and Anchialus (Pomorie). In the 4th c. it was the seat of a bishop but disappeared in the 6th c.
In the 3d c. B.C. the city minted its own coins. There was an agora, a temple of Artemis-Hekate-Phosphorion and a temple of Apollo (IG Bulg. III/2, n. 1731). In A.D. 145 immigrants from Perinthos erected votive inscriptions to Herakles Agoraios. Excavations have uncovered a large basilica of late antique date and parts of the defense wall. The finds from Kabyle are in the Regional Museum of Yambol.
BIBLIOGRAPHYE. Oberhummer, RE 10 (1919) col. 1455ff; D. P. Dimitrov, Latomus 28 (1957) = Hommages à W. Deonna 185-89; Head, Hist. Num. 278; T. Gerasimov, “The Alexandrine tetradrachmes of Kabyle in Thrace,” Centennial Volume of the American Numism. Soc. (1958) 273; id., “Sur la numismatique de la ville de Cabyle (bulg.),” Bull. Inst. arch. bulg. 32 (1972) 113-19.
V. VELKOY