The area around Edirne has been the site of no fewer than 16 major battles or sieges, from the days of the ancient Greeks. Military historian John Keegan identifies it as "the most contested spot on the globe" and attributes this to its geographical location.
According to Greek mythology, Orestes, son of kingAgamemnon, built this city as Orestias, at the confluence of the Tonsus (Toundja) and the Ardiscus (Arda) with theHebrus (Maritza). The city was (re)founded eponymously by the Roman Emperor Hadrian on the site of a previousThracian settlement known as Uskadama, Uskudama orUskodama or Uscudama . It was the capital of theBessi. Hadrian developed it, adorned it with monuments, changed its name to Hadrianopolis, and made it the capital of the Roman province of Haemimont, or Thrace. Liciniuswas defeated there by Constantine I in 323, and Valens was killed by the Goths in 378 during the Battle of Adrianople(378). In 813 the city was seized by Khan Krum of Bulgariawho moved its inhabitants to the Bulgarian lands towards the north of the Danube.
During the existence of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Crusaders were decisively defeated by the BulgarianEmperor Kaloyan in the battle of Adrianople (1205). LaterTheodoreKomnenos, Despot of Epirus, took possession of it in 1227, and three years later was defeated at Klokotnitsa by Asen, Emperor of the Bulgarians.
Following its capture by the Ottoman Sultan Murad I in 1365, Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453; until the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) which became the empire's new capital.
Under Ottoman rule Adrianople was the principal city of a vilayet (province) of the same name, both of which were later renamed as Edirne. Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, was born in Adrianople. It was here that he fell under the influence of someHurufis known as Certain accursed ones of no significance, who were burnt as heretics by
