City

Mastrum

Amasra

Mastrum is a name that has lost its first letter: the city was Amastris, today Amasra on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, whose modern name still echoes a late ancient form of the original. It honoured a Persian princess, wife of the tyrant of Heraclea, who around 300 BC merged the old Greek colony of Sesamos with neighbouring towns. The map marks it with the usual pair of towers. The Roman writer Pliny the Younger admired the elegant city and its long, beautiful street, but asked the emperor Trajan to let him cover the foul, stinking sewer running beside it.

Fully based on scientific information from TP-Online (KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt). More on Wikipedia.

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