Celetrum

Celetrum or Keletron was a town of Orestis region in Upper Macedonia, situated on a peninsula which is surrounded by the waters of a lake, and has only a single entrance over a narrow isthmus which connects it with the continent. Celetrum has been identified with the Celaenidium or Kelainidion (Κελαινίδιον) of Hierocles. The town also bore the name of Diocletianopolis (Διοκλητιανούπολις) and Justinianopolis (Ἰουστινιανούπολις). In the first campaign of the Romans in the Second Macedonian War, in 200 BCE, the consul Sulpicius, after having invested this place, which submitted to him, returned to Dassaretia, and from thence regained Apollonia, the place from which he had departed on this expedition. The position is so remarkable that there is no difficulty in identifying it with the modern town of Kastoria. The lake, which bears the same name, is about six miles long and four broad (10 by 6 km). The peninsula is nearly four miles (6 km) in circumference, and the outer point is not far from the centre of the lake. The later fortification of Kastoria consists only of a wall across the western extremity of the isthmus, which was built in the time of the Byzantine Empire, and has a wet ditch, making the peninsula an island.