Enez

Enez, known to the Greeks as Ainos, stands near the mouth of the Hebrus, where the river reaches the Aegean Sea. Its fortified height rose above a landscape of marshes and lagoons, and its harbour connected the Thracian interior with the sea. Salt from the nearby pans and fishing added to the wealth of a port whose rulers also looked towards the islands offshore.

During the Byzantine civil wars of the fourteenth century, Ainos changed hands among rival claimants and their allies. Later it came under the Genoese Gattilusio family, whose lords held possessions in the northern Aegean. In January 1456 Sultan Mehmed II moved against Ainos by land and sea; the town surrendered, and its salt pans and island dependencies passed to the Ottomans. The port continued to provide a maritime outlet for the country along the Hebrus and the city of Adrianople upstream.