Airesis

Airesis is a toponym that appears in ancient Greek geography. The name is attested in a limited number of sources, but its exact referent—whether a city, town, district, or frontier zone—remains uncertain. In modern scholarship, Airesis is discussed as part of efforts to map ancient settlements in the Balkan region and its neighboring areas. The etymology of the name is not securely established, and no widely accepted derivation exists.

Because the available sources are fragmentary and place-names in antiquity often shifted or overlapped, several identifications have been proposed. The proposed identifications cover a range of locations in the northern Mediterranean and adjacent regions, including areas around the northern Aegean, the wider Macedonian hinterland, and nearby Thracian zones. However, there is no scholarly consensus on its precise site.

As a result, Airesis is typically treated as a tentative reference in maps and itineraries rather than as a well-documented urban center. Its status in the literature reflects broader challenges in ancient geography, where limited textual evidence and ambiguous identifications complicate attempts to pinpoint exact locations.

In contemporary reference works, Airesis is of interest primarily to historians and archaeologists studying ancient Greek geography and the network of settlements in the broader Balkan region. There is no known modern settlement named Airesis, and the name survives mainly in scholarly discussion of classical geography.