Edipsos
has been one of the most important healing Spas in the Eastern
Mediterranean Sea region in the last four milleniums. Even though few travellers from other countries
have ever heard of it, the cosmopolitan atmosphere combined with the
healing spas have attracted renowned politicians, artists, writers and other
notable people like Farouk, Winston Churchill, Aristotle Onassis, Maria Callas,
Greta Garbo and Omar Sharif. But it is mentioned in the works of Aristotle
in his "Meteorology" and by Plutarch and Stravon. The town even minted
its own coins. In Roman times the area flourished and its healing waters
were visited by the emperors Hadrian, Septimus Severus and Marcus
Aurelius. The baths from the Roman period are the ones best preserved and are
known as Syllas Baths, after the Roman General. During the Byzantine era it was destroyed for being
a centre of paganism, though it was visited by the Emperors Theodosius and
Constantine the Great.
