The excavations of 2010 in the ancient city of Hadrianopolis were located in the sector area opened at the habitation quarter of the Roman and Late Roman period. The excavation of this season enabled to define the chronological phases and topographical evolution of the cities structures, as well as to understand their role within the urban habitation area.
The excavations revealed that the constructions of the Hadrian time, followed later by those of Justinian, were undertaken in a previously inhabited space. At least since the time of the Macedonian Wars, monumental structures had been built in the area.
The deepest stratigraphical levels excavated in areas around the Roman thermae, represent habitation layers of Hellenistic period (3-1 Centuries BC.). The excavation uncovered the foundation walls of a Hellenistic monument and two of the in antis columns in its façade. To the north-east side of the theatre, traces of a structure built in opus quadratum were identified, from which only the frontal section (5, 20 m long) and its eastern and western sides were uncovered. Materials of the second half of the 1st Century AD were found in a pit, which relates probably to the construction of the building; among them were distinguished some fine pottery fragments of the Tiberian period, and a fragment from a ceramic plate of Hayes 6, dated around AD. 80.
At this time, the village, probably a vicus must have undergone a number of important interventions, regarding the monumentalization process of site’s main buildings. A rounded structures found below the levels of the theatre’s orchestra seem to date to this period of time.
The excavation of this season, along with the previously obtained remote sensing results (2007-2008), have aided in defining the limits of the habitation quarter as well as the urban characteristics of the city during the empire. The urban center was of rectangular plan (300 × 400m), with streets laid out perpendicularly to each-other, at a different orientation from the structures of the 1st Century AD.
The theatre and thermae seems to be centrally located, though, the latter deviates slightly to the south. Large buildings organized around an opened peristyle courtyards occupied the center zone of the city; the public structure with some kind of thermal function was a building of this type.
This urban plan appears to have been in use until the 4-5th Centuries AD. Another phase of construction seems to develop at the 6th Century AD. A new building, probably a three-aisled church, was constructed at this time, following a different orientation from that of the Hadrianic city. The thermal complex was also adapted into a Christian basilica.
The irregular constructions within the ancient habitation space are evidence for the last phases of settlement’s occupation. A series of walls encircling probably small agriculture properties, were constructed above the destruction layers of the previous time. It seems that the ruralization process of the city had begun sometimes before the arrival of Slavic population (at the end of 6th and beginning of the 7th Century).