Thucydides (460-400 BC) tells us that Arrhabaeus I, the son of Bromerus, is king of the Lyncestians, the people of Macedonia, and that Lyncestae, Elimiotae and other tribes of the highland country are subjects to Perdiccas II, son of Alexander I, who ruled Macedonia during the time of the Peloponnesian war. We also are informed that Lyncestians were at first independent people, governed as a distinct kingdom. However, after the death of Alexander I in 452, Macedon began to fall apart and Arrhabaeus I, the king of Lyncus is said to have revolted against his sovereign, king Perdiccas II of Macedon in 424 BC. At that time, Perdiccas II was an ally to Brasidas, a Spartan officer during the first decade of the Peloponnesian war, when they, with their combined armies made war upon Arrhabaeus I, king of the Lyncestians, a neighboring people of Macedonia, for Perdiccas II had a quarrel with him and wanted to subdue him. But when Perdiccas II and Brasidas with their armies arrived at the pass leading into Lyncus, Brasidas said that before appealing to arms he should like to negotiate which led to interruption of the planned invasion of the country. Somewhat later, Perdiccas II and Brasidas marshed again together for a second time to Lyncus against Arrhabaeus I. Invading the country of Arrhabaeus I and finding the Lyncestians encamped against them, they also took up a position facing them. The armies engaged in a minor battle which resulted in some loss for the Lyncestian party. Perrdiccas II then wished to go on and attack the villages of Arrhabaeus instead sitting still waiting for two or three days for the Illyrian mercenaries who were to join Perdiccas II. However, the Illyrians had actually betrayed Perdiccas II and had joined Arhabaeus I. Then, during the night the Macedonian army fled in the direction of home while Brasidas was left uninformed in danger of attack by Arrhabaeus I and the Illyrians. At the daybreak, Brasidas managed to defend himself, entering the narrow pass further between two hills which was the entrance into the territories of Arrhabaeus I, avoiding a possible defeat, and the same day he arrived at Arnisa, the first town in the dominions of Perdiccas I. The desertion of Perdiccas II from Lyncus violently angered the soldiers of Brasidas and after that Perdiccas II began to regard Brasidas as an enemy.

© Kiril Arsov, 2012

We know that N. Vulić in the early thirty's performed preliminary excavations outside the village of Gorenci with the task to find the settlement of the inhabitants to whom the necropolis at Trebenishte belonged, “Novi grobovi kod Trebeništa”, Spomenik, LXXVII, 1934. His observation is referred in whole as follows: “The signed person was this time also looking for a settlement where the inhabitants buried in the necropolis at Trebenishte, used to live. According to the testimonies of the local inhabitants, in the whole surrounding areas of the villages of Orovnik, Gorenci and Trebenishte, underground walls can be found in only one place, in front of Gorenci, approximately one kilometer away from the necropolis. The signed person had dug several ditches, leading to the subsoil. Wherever he would dig, he would really come up to walls. These must have been foundations of buildings. Unfortunately, only small parts of them had remained. In fact, there had never been more than one row of stones. The walls are without mortar or cement. Any conclusion regarding the period this settlement dated could not be made from them. Small objects, (such as chips of earth dishes) were not found at all, so that it could not be a basis for conclusion, either. Therefore, the question regarding the location of the settlement to which our necropolis belonged still cannot be answered”. In addition to that, there are some other clues about location of the city of Lyncus at the village of Gorenci. Lyncus, so called by Thucydides and Livy (59 BC – 17 AD) was situated to the east of the Dessaretii.

It occupied the shores of the Ohrid Lake in direction of the river Black Drim with the hilly surroundings up to the city of Debar where Lyncestians also used to have some access to the silver mines of Damastium, in the Valley of Radika River. From the Livy's history of the first campaign of the Romans in Macedonia, which commenced apparently with the invasion of Lyncestis, the consul Sulpicius entered that territory from the country of the Dessaretii, and encamped on the river Bevus, near Lyncus. At Octolophus, Philip V, the king of Macedon challenged the Romans when many Macedonians were killed and some were driven into bogs and were sucked down together with their horses in the bottomless mud. Even the king Philip V was in danger, galloping round the swamp until he reached his camp in safety. Doubtlessly, the whole valley of Struga alongside the river Black Drim was waterlogged land and impossible for road communication from Ohrid to Sruga. When the road “Via Egnatia” was build, it must have followed a direction alongside the slope of the hills surrounding the valley of Sruga and passing the river Black Drim at Dobovjani, the place for the Pons Servilli. We also know by Anna Comnena, daughter of Emperor Alexius I that “the river Black Drymon runs down from the lake Lychnis through some hundred channels, which we call bridges. For separate rivers amounting to one hundred in number come out of this lake as if from different sources, they never failand flow separately in this way until they join into one river near Deure”.

© Kiril Arsov, 2012

When N. Vulić searched to find the settlement for the inhabitants to whom the necropolis at Trebenishte belonged, he also unearthed on the same place at Gorenci a bathroom from the Roman Emperial Times. It was well preserved. The water basin and the water pipes leading to the Hypocaustum and in some other parts were clearly visible. On the bottom of the bathroom, one coin from the time of Emperor Vespasian was found. This may explain that Cledo as a city existed at the village of Gorenci, on the same place as the city of Lyncus, when the Itinerarium Burdigalense was created in 333 – 334 AD.

© Kiril Arsov, 2012

The only evidence of the existence of an ancient city on the site of the village of Gorenci was presented by N. Vulić in his work “Novi grobovi kod Trebeništa”, Spomenik, LXXVII, 1934. Simply, he wanted to find the settlement of the people who were buried in the necropolis at Trebenishte. He was told by the locals living in the villages of Orovnik, Gorenci and Trebenishte that only on the site in the front of the village of Gorenci, about 1 km from the necropolis at Trebenishte, remains of houses in the soil appeared. There, Vulić performed preliminary excavations and everywhere he dug he found walls or house foundations of an unknown age. On the same spot Vulić also unearthed remains of a Hypocaustum, a hot bath from the Roman imperial period, with one coin of Emperor Vespasian in it. Based on this observation and other available facts we are convinced that at the village of Gorenci existed the city of Lyncus, the capital of the Kingdom of Lyncus, later also known as the city of Cledo.

© Kiril Arsov, 2012