SERES, Serres, or Siros, a town of Turkey in Europe, now at the head of a sanjak in the vilayet of Saloniki, is situated in the valley of the Strymon (Karasu), in a district so fertile as to bear among the Turks the name of Altin Ovassi or Golden Plain, and so thickly studded with villages as to have, when seen from the heights of Rhodope, the appearance of a great city with extensive gardens. The principal buildings are the Greek archiepiscopal palace, the Greek cathedral, restored since the great fire of 1879, by which it was robbed of its magnificent mosaics and woodwork, the Greek gymnasium and hospital (the former built of marble), the richly endowed Eski Jami, and the ruins of the once no less flourishing Ahmed Pasha or Aghia Sophia mosque, whose revenues used to be derived from the Crimea. On a hill above the town are the ruins of a fortress described in a Greek inscription as a “tower built by Helen in the mountainous region.” Cloth-factories and tanneries are the chief industrial establishments and lignite mines are worked in the neighbourhood with some success. The population is 30,000.

Seres is the ancient Seris, Sirae, or Sirrhae, mentioned by Herodotus in connexion with Xerxes’s retreat, and by Livy as the place where Aemilius Paulus received a deputation from Perseus. In the 14th century, when Stephen Dushan of Servia assumed the title emperor of Servia, &c., he chose Sirrhae as his capital; and it remained in the hands of the Servians till its capture by Sultan Murad. In 1396 Bayazid summoned his Christian vassals to his camp at Sirrhae.