In summer 813, during his invasion of Thrace, the Bulgarian ruler Krum captured the town, but in 879 it was a bishopric whose incumbent, Nikephoros, participated in the Ninth Council of Constantinople. A 9th-century seal attests to the presence of a "kommerkiarios" in the city. A century later, the town served as a place of exile for the general and rebel Bardas Skleros, who unsuccessfully tried to oust Byzantine Emperor Basil II. Bardas and his brother Constantine died there in March 991.