At a short distance SE of the current village of Porto-Lagos and NE of the village of Fanari, very close to the mouth of Lake Vistonida, the ancient city of Dikaia is usually located. Dikaia was a colony of Samos and was founded in the 6th century BC. The identification of the city is based on the topographical reports of the ancient authors and has not been confirmed by epigraphic findings. Herodotus, describing the campaign of Xerxes against Greece in 480 BC, mentions that to the east of Dicaea was Maroneia, to the west Abdira and very close was Bistonis lake. Pseudo-Scylax places Dicaea at approximately the same spot, while Strabo adds that the city was built in a bay, above which was Lake Vistonida.
According to Stephanus Byzantius, Dicaea was founded by Poseidon's son, Dicaeus, while Strabo mentions that in the area of Dicaia, Heracles neutralized the carnivorous horses of Diomedes. The existence of the city during the 6th c. BC, and indeed as an autonomous city, is attested by the minting of coins, which have been dated from the end of the 6th to the first quarter of the 5th century. p.X. Dikaia is mentioned in the Athenian tax lists from 454/453 BC. until 432/431 BC. Since then and until the Roman period there is no information about the city. Dikaia is mentioned until the 6th century. 10th century AD, while some later authors mention Dikaopolis near Avdira.
Its geographical position near a large and safe natural harbor, its coins being found in remote areas, such as in Egypt, as well as imported pottery from Attica, Corinth and Podia suggest that the city was an important commercial center of the region. The coins of Dikaia date from the end of the 6th to the first quarter of the 5th century. p.X. The minting of coins seems to have stopped with the removal of the Persians from the region and the inclusion of Dicaea in the Athenian alliance. Most of the coins of Dicaea show the head of Herakles with a lion on the obverse (main face), while the reverse (back face) is decorated with a concave square and in some cases a bull's head. Some coins bear the representation of an ox on the obverse, an octopus on the reverse and the inscription ΔIKAIA.
On a hill in the area, foundations of houses from the Hellenistic era were discovered, as well as a mortar floor and fragments of Corinthian-type ceramics.
In the area of the city cemetery, four mounds with stone and clay sarcophagi, a tomb with vases and a headless figurine of a horseman, a number of pit-shaped and slab-roofed tombs, burial vessels and cremations, many clay figurines were discovered, while on the eastern side of the neighboring hill a simple uninscribed and undecorated tombstone. The finds date the mounds to the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th century BC. A section of wall found on the western side of a neighboring hill dates back to the 4th century BC and is probably part of the city's fortifications.
A number of local vases were found in the area of the settlement, as well as important Attic, Rhodian and Corinthian pottery. Sherds of an Ionic banded goblet, Attic melanoform and Corinthian vases, Rhodian paintings, as well as sherds of ink-painted vessels from the 4th century BC were found, while in the area of the cemetery a Fikellours-type amphora, a Clazomenian amphora from the second half of the 6th century BC, was discovered . and many Attic vessels. Most of the findings are exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Komotini.
Editor: Niki Kalopaidis