Archaeologists excavating in Varna have discovered a Roman statue from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD.

During antiquity, Varna was an ancient Greek colony known as Odessos, situated on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the Gulf of Varna. Odessos was founded in the 6th century BC by Miletian Greeks on the site of a previous Thracian settlement.

Around AD 15, the city was annexed by the Romans and incorporated into the Roman province of Moesia (later Moesia Inferior), becoming a prominent Roman centre renowned for its public baths (thermae).

Odessos continued to thrive into the Byzantine period, referred to as the "holiest city," (sacratissima civitas) in 6th-century imperial documents for the abundance of basilicas and a monophysite monastery.