Listed 100 (total found 158) sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "TURKEY Country EUROPE" .
HARRAN (Town) TURKEY
Harran (Akkadian Harranu, "intersecting roads"; Latin Carrhae): town in
northern Mesopotamia, famous
for its temple of the moon god Sin. From the third millennium BCE
until medieval times, Harran is mentioned as an important trade center in northern
Mesopotamia, situated on the road from the Mediterranean Sea to the heart of Assyria.
It is also mentioned as provincial capital in the Assyrian empire (until the late
seventh century BCE) and sanctuary of the moon god Sin, well into the third century
CE. Other gods venerated in Harran were Sin's consort Nikkal, the Syrian goddess
Atargatis and the Arabian goddess Allat ("Mrs. God"). In the Bible, it is mentioned
as one of the towns where Abraham stayed on his voyage from Ur to the promised
land. The well where his grandson Jacob met Rachel is still shown today.
Although the town is mentioned as early as 2000 BCE, the city became
famous at the end of the seventh century, when the Babylonian king Nabopolassar
defeated an Assyrian force on the banks of the Euphrates, south of Harran (25
July 616). In these years, the Assyrian empire was disintegrating, and the Babylonians
and the Median leader Cyaxares were unitedly attacking the ancient empire. In
614, they captured Assur, and two years later, Nineveh was destroyed. The end
of the two Assyrian capitals, however, was not the end of the war, however. A
new king, Assur-uballit, set up a kingdom in Harran and defied the Babylonians.
But he was no match for Nabopolassar, who, according to the Fall of
Nineveh Chronicle, 'marched to Assyria victoriously' in the fifteenth and sixteenth
year of his reign (612-609). Assur-uballit was forced to leave Harran, but convinced
the Egyptians that they had to support his hopeless cause. A large army under
command of pharaoh Necho (610-595) advanced to the north. In June 609, Necho and
Assur-uballit tried to recapture Harran and they close to victory, but they had
to lift their siege of Harran in August. This was the end of Assyria, its last
capital now being part of the Babylonian empire.
The first half of the sixth century, Babylon was ruled by king Nebuchadnezzar
(604-562). This was the age of Babylonian glory and splendor. However, not everything
was fine, and in 555 a coup d' etat took place, which led to the accession of
king Nabonidus, an old man, who may in fact have been nothing more than a puppet
for the real ruler, his son Belsassar. Nabonidus shocked the religious authorities
of Babylon by his dedication to Sin of Harran. A Babylonian king was expected
to venerate the supreme god Marduk and take part in the Akitu festival. Nabonidus
would have none of it. Instead, he left Babylon and started to live in the Arabian
desert. At the same time, he rebuilt the temple of Sin at Harran. Meanwhile, the
Babylonians felt betrayed and started to sympathize with king Cyrus of Persia,
who had already defeated the Medians and Lydians. When he announced to restore
the cult of Marduk, the Babylonians sided with him (October 539).
Harran was now part of the Achaemenid empire, which was replaced two
centuries later by that of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great. The conqueror
may have visited Harran in the late summer of 331. After Alexander's death in
323, Harran was part of the empire of the Seleucids, the Macedonian dynasty ruling
in Asia. They settled Macedonian veterans at Harran, which remained a recognizable
entity after the Seleucid empire had been replaced by that of the Parthians.
In 53 BCE, the Roman general Crassus invaded Parthia. The descendants
of the Macedonians sided with him, but nonetheless, he was defeated by a Parthian
commander who is called Surena in the Greek and Latin sources, and must have been
a member of the Parthian Suren clan. The battle of Harran -or Carrhae as the Romans
called it- was the beginning of a series of border wars that were to last for
almost three centuries.
In this period, Harran belonged to a small kingdom called Osrhoene,
which was part of the larger Parthian empire and had nearby Edessa
as its capital. The Roman emperor Lucius Verus (161-169) tried to conquer this
kingdom and nearby Nisibis and was successful, but an epidemic broke out and made
annexation impossible. However, a victory monument was erected in Ephesus,
and Harran is shown as one of the subject towns.
The Roman emperor Septimius Severus finally added Osrhoene to his
realms in 195. The conic domed houses of ancient Harran, which have remained unchanged
until the present day, can be seen on the arch of Septimius Severus on the Forum
Romanum. His successor Caracalla gave Harran the status of colonia (214) and visited
the city in April 217, because he wanted to visit the temple of Sin. Instead,
he was murdered by the prefect of the Praetorian guard, Macrinus, who was to be
the new emperor. The Roman emperor Julian sacrificed to Sin in 363, at the beginning
of his ill-fated campaign against the Sassanid Persians. From now on, the region
was a battle zone between the Romans and Sassanids. It remained Roman (or Byzantine)
until 639, when the city was captured by the Muslim armies.
At that time, the cult of Sin still existed. Another late-antique
religion of Harran was Sabianism. Its adherents worshipped Sin, Mars, and Shamal,
the lord of the spirits. Women and men had equal rights, and everyone lived ascetic,
refraining from several kinds of meat and groceries. After the arrival of the
Islam, they probably went to live in the marshes of the lower Tigris and Euphrates,
and are still known as Mandaeans.
The ancient city walls surrounding Harran, 4 kilometer long and 3
kilometer wide, have been repaired throughout the ages (a.o. by the Byzantine
emperor Justinian in the sixth century), and large parts are still standing. The
position of no less than 187 towers has been identified. Of the six gates (Aleppo
gate, Anatolian, Arslanli, Mosul, Baghdad, and Rakka gate), only the first one
has remained. The site of the ancient temple of Sin has been used as a castle;
its ruin can still be visited.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
KARIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Caria: the southwest of modern Turkey,
incorporated in c.545 BCE the ancient Achaemenid empire as the satrapy Karka.
Its capital was Halicarnassus
(modern Bodrum), which had been originally been founded by the Greeks. In Antiquity,
the Carians were famous mercenaries.
Early history
Caria and the Carians are mentioned for the first time in the cuneiform
texts of the Old Assyrian and Hethite Empires, i.e., between c.1800 and c.1200.
The country was called Karkissa. They are absent from the Egyptian texts of this
period.
After a gap of some four centuries in which they are mentioned only
once, the first to mention the Carians is the legendary Greek poet Homer. In the
so-called Catalogue of ships, he tells that they lived in Miletus,
on the Mycale peninsula,
and along the river Meander. In the Trojan war, they had, according to the poet,
sided with the Trojans (Homer, Iliad, 2.867ff). This is a remarkable piece of
information, because in Homer's days, Miletus was considered a Greek town; the
fact that it is called Carian indicates that the catalogue of ships contains some
very old information. In the fifth century, the Greeks thought that the Carians
had arrived in Caria from the islands of the Ionian
Sea, whereas the Carians claimed to be indigenous. Homer confirms their story.
It is also confirmed by modern linguistics: the Carian language belongs
to the Hittite-Luwian subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It is related
to Lycian and Lydian, the languages spoken to the southeast and north of Caria.
Had the Carians arrived in their country from the west, their language would have
been closer to Greek.
It seems that the Greeks settled on the coast in the dark ages between
c.1200 and c.800, where they and the Carians mixed. The Roman author Vitruvius
mentions fights at Mycale (On architecture 4.1.3-5). According to the Greek researcher
Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE), the inhabitants of Miletus spoke
Greek with a Carian accent (Histories 1.142). Herodotus himself is also a good
example of the close ties between the Carians and Greeks: his father is called
Lyxes, which is the Greek rendering of a good Carian name, Lukhsu. Because of
his descent and birth place, Herodotus is one of our most important sources.
Caria is, like Greece,
a country of mountains and valleys, poor in agricultural and other resources -
in comparison with Egypt and Babylonia a backward country. Hilltops were fortified
and there were several villages in the valleys, but there were hardly any cities.
Because of their disparate country, the Carians were divided; when they learned
to read and write, every village used its own version of the Phoenician alphabet.
What united the Carians, however, was their religion. One of their
ritual centers was Mylasa, where they venerated a male supreme god, called 'the
Carian Zeus' by Herodotus. Unlike his Greek colleague, this Zeus was an army god.
One of the Carian goddesses was Hecate, who was responsible for road crossings
and became notorious in Greece as the source of witchcraft. Herodotus calls her
Athena and tells that her priestess got a beard when a disaster was appending
(Histories 8.104). On mount Latmos
near Miletus, the Carians venerated Endymion, who had been the lover of the Moon
and had procreated as many children as there are days in the year. Endymion was
sleeping eternally, a story that the Greeks told about Zeus' father Kronos.
Pharaoh's mercenaries
Like the Swiss, the Gurkha's, and other mountain people, the Carians
were forced to become mercenaries. Their country was too poor to maintain a large
population, and younger sons went overseas to build a new future. They were military
specialists and it is no coincidence that Herodotus writes that the Greeks had
been indebted to the Carians for three military inventions: making shields with
handles, putting devices on shields, and fitting crests on helmets (Histories
1.175). Because of this last invention, the Persians called the Carians 'cocks'.
The first reference to Carian mercenaries can be found in the Bible:
in 2 Kings 11.4, we read about Carians in Judah. (This may look strange, but it
fits the picture: according to 2 Samuel 8.18, king David had a guard of Cretans.)
The books of Kings were probably composed in the sixth century, but the information
stems from older sources; this is the only mentioning of the Carians in the dark
ages.
The Carians, however, were especially famous because they served the
Egyptian pharaoh. Our main source is, again, Herodotus. He tells us that the first
to employ these men was pharaoh Psammetichus I (664-610; Histories 2.152), probably
at the beginning of his reign. Some circumstantial evidence supports Herodotus'
words, because archaeologists have discovered several settlements in the western
part of the delta of the Nile that were founded by people from the Aegean.
These settlements can be dated in the seventh century.
The Carians remained active in Egyptian service. They are known to
have fought against the Nubians (in modern Sudan) in c.593; on their return, they
visited Assuan and left inscriptions. According to an Egyptian stela now in Cairo,
they played an important role during the coup d' etat of Amasis (570), who gave
the Carians a new base near the Egyptian capital Memphis.
When the Persian king Cambyses invaded Egypt in 525 BCE, the Carian
contingents were still there, serving king Psammetichus III. According to Herodotus
(Histories 3.11), they sacrificed children before they offered battle against
the invaders.
They managed to switch sides, however. (They were not the only ones:
even the commander of Egyptian navy, Wedjahor-Resenet, deserted his king.) In
Egyptian sources from the Persian age, we still find Carians, now serving a new
lord. One of the latest examples is an Aramaic papyrus dated to January 12, 411.
Seven years later, the Egyptians became independent again; this time, the Carians
were unable to switch sides. The collaborators must have been dismissed.
The Persian period
Meanwhile, their homeland had been subjected to the Persians. This
happened in 544 or 543. In 547, the Persian king Cyrus the Great had defeated
the powerful king of Lydia,
Croesus, who had had some influence in Caria. Next year, the Lydians revolted,
but Cyrus sent his general Harpagus, who subjected them again. This time, he also
took the Greek cities on the coast and then moved to the south, where he subdued
the Carians and the Lycians.
The Carians offered their services to their new masters. They are
mentioned in cuneiform documents from Borsippa in Babylonia and from the Persian
capital Persepolis. When
the Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid empire, he discovered
a Carian settlement in the neighborhood of modern Baghdad.
These Carians can not have been deported from their homeland, but must have formed
a military colony, because it was a very strategic place, commanding the so-called
Silk road.
Initially, the Carians seem to have retained some kind of independence.
In the Behistun inscription, which was made in 520 BCE, they are not mentioned
among the nations subject to king Darius the Great. After 499, they joined the
revolt of the Ionians against the Persians. They were twice defeated by the Persians,
but in a third battle they annihilated their enemies - not even their generals
survived. Although Darius and his successors have claimed overlordship, it seems
that the Carians were always able to keep a certain independence. The Persians
knew that they were good soldiers, and after all, their country was poor, so there
was no need to really conquer it. However, the Persians were present. In 1974,
archaeologists have found a threelingual inscription from the time Artaxerxes
IV Arses in Xanthus (in the southeast) and one of the languages was Aramaic, the
language of the Persian bureaucracy. The center of the Persian administration
in Caria was Halicarnassus.
However, after 469/466, parts of Caria were conquered by the Athenians.
They remained more or less loyal to these Greeks until 412, when they returned
to Persia. Again, they retained
some freedom.
The Hecatomnid dynasty
At the beginning of the fourth century, the Carians gained even more
independence: they were ruled by satraps of Carian descent. The first of these
was Hecatomnus of Mylasa
(391-377), who was not only satrap of Caria, but also of Miletus. He seems to
have been fascinated by Greek culture, but was loyal to the Persian king and -from
a religious point of view- always remained a Carian.
He was succeeded by his son Maussolus. When he became sole ruler,
the Achaemenid empire was in decline, but Maussolus remained loyal. For instance,
he fought for the great king against Ariobarzanes, a rebel satrap in the northwest
of modern Turkey (365). But
almost immediately after this war, he took part in the so-called Revolt of the
Satraps: Maussolus, Orontes of Armenia, Autophradates of Lydia and Datames of
northern Turkey joined forces against their king, with support of the pharaohs
of Egypt, Nectanebo I, Teos, and Nectanebo II. Although they were defeated, king
Artaxerxes III Ochus had to retain Maussolus as satrap of Caria. Even though the
Persians retained a garrison at Halicarnassus, Maussolus had in fact become independent,
and several ancient sources call him 'king'.
One of the most remarkable aspects of his reign is his strict adherence
to the ancient cults of Caria. Although it was not unusual for the dynasts of
what is now Turkey to sacrifice to the Persian supreme god Ahuramazda, or to venerate
the Greek gods, none of these religious beliefs can be attested for Maussolus.
In 357, he helped the Athenian allies, who had revolted against Athens.
Some of these allies -Chios,
Kos, Rhodes
and Byzantium- became federates
of Maussolus. This was his usual policy: he ruled Caria, had allies abroad, and
left the towns in his territory more or less autonomous. This model was copied
by later rulers.
Between 370 and 365, Maussolus returned the Carian residence to Halicarnassus.
(His father had resided in Mylasa.) The city was fortified with modern walls and
received many new inhabitants. Its most famous building was the monument that
the satrap built for himself, which has become known as the Mausoleum. It was
considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Maussolus died in 353. He was succeeded by his sister (and wife) Artemisia
-she invited Greek artists to finish he Mausoleum-, his brothers Idrieus and Pixodarus
and finally his younger sister Ada. They were quarreling. When Alexander the Great
approached Caria in 334, Ada opened negotiations and became the new queen of Caria.
| Hecatomnus | 391-377 |
| Maussolus | 377-353 |
| Artemisia | 353-351 |
| Idrieus | 351-344 |
| Ada (first reign) | 344-340 |
| Pixodarus | 340-334 |
| Ada (second reign) | 334-326? |
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
KILIKIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Cilicia: ancient name of southern Turkey. The Persian king
Cyrus the Great conquered this country, and after the fall of the Achaemenid empire,
Cilicia belonged to the Seleucid kingdom and the Roman empire. It was well-known
for its iron and silver ores.
Topography and early history
Cilicia as a whole consists of two parts: the inaccessible western
area of the Taurus mountains, also known as "rough Cilicia", and the
eastern plains (modern Cukurova), which are dominated by the rivers Cydnus, Sarus
and Pyramis and are rich in cereals. The Anti-Taurus is the region's northern
border. Here, we find the Cilician gate, a pass that connects the plain with Cappadocia
in the north. To the south, the Mediterranean sea is Cilicia's neighbor, and the
region knew (and knows) close contacts with Cyprus.
In the east the Syrian gates are the connection with Syria
and Mesopotamia.
From times immemorial, the two areas belong together. In the second
half of the the second millennium BCE, the entire region, known as Kizzuwatna,
was part of the Hethitian empire. Contemporary sources mention the two main cities
on the plains: the residence Tarsa (better known as Tarsus)
and Adanija (Adana). The
most important language was Luwian. In those days, the region was ruled by a prince
from the Hethitian royal family, who was called "priest".
Early history
After the fall of the Hethitian empire (after 1215), the two areas
were included in a new kingdom called Tarhuntassa, which had its capital in Pamphylia.
It is not known how long this state existed. When the Assyrians discovered the
region in the ninth century, they called the fertile eastern area Que (its capital
was Adana), and the western area Hilakku; from this word our Cilicia is derived.
The plains of Que (also known as Awariku) were first conquered by
the Assyrians. King Tiglath-pileser III (744-727) appointed a governor, whose
residence was Adana. However, it was not a secure possession of the Assyrian empire:
after the death of Sargon II in 705, it became independent again under the old
dynasty, the house of Muksa. The ancestor of the Quean royal family is known from
Phoenician sources as Mps, and can be identified with the Mopsus from Greek legend,
who is said to have founded a town and an oracle in Cilicia. The Assyrian king
Esarhaddon (680-669) reconquered the area.
Meanwhile, Hilakku remained independent. The Assyrians were not interested
in the underdeveloped mountain area and its poor tribes. However, during the reign
of Assurbanipal (668-627 BCE), Hilakku was threatened by the Cimmerians, a nomadic
tribe from the northeast that had already overrun Armenia.
Therefore, Hilakku placed itself under Assyrian protection.
In 612, the Babylonians and Medes captured the Assyrian capital Nineveh.
Hilakku survived the collapse of Assyria.
A new kingdom came into being, in which both areas were united. Its capital was
Tarsus. The Greeks rendered the title of its kings, suuannassai, as syennesis,
and the name of the country as Cilicia. The coast of Rough Cilicia.
The first syennesis we know about, is mentioned by the Greek researcher
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
(fifth century BCE). He tells that in 585, the syennesis and one Labynetus of
Babylon (probably the future king Nabonidus) negotiated a peace treaty between
king Alyattes of Lydia and
king Cyaxares of Media. The
story confirms that Cilicia was at this time an independent power and did not
belong to the Babylonian empire of king Nebuchadnessar.
This syennesis was succeeded by one Appuwasu, who withstood an invasion
of the Babylonian army under king Neriglissar in 557/556. It had been argued that
Cilicia was invaded because it had become a protectorate of the Median empire,
or may have appeared to have become a Median subject. We can not know.
Persian period
It is certain that in 547/546, the Persian king Cyrus the Great campaigned
in the countries west of the Tigris. Unfortunately, our source (the Chronicle
of Nabonidus) contains a lacuna, and we are unable to read which country he conquered
- except that its name started with Ly-. Almost certainly, Lydia is meant, where
king Croesus was defeated. It must have been at this stage that Cyrus added Cilicia
to the Achaemenid empire, making the syennesis (perhaps Appuwasu) a vassal king.
Babylonian sources do not mention imported Cilician iron after 545, which strongly
suggests that there were no trade contacts any more.
After the reign of a man named Oromedon, who is just a name, the next
syennesis is better known. The Persian king Xerxes chose Cilicia to gather a large
army to attack the Greek homeland (481 BCE). Next year, the syennesis served as
one of the commanders in the Persian navy. He is known to have married his daughter
to Pixodarus, a Carian leader.
At this stage, we begin to know a bit more about the way the Persians
governed and used Cilicia. Its capital was Tarsus, where the loyal syennesis had
its residence. We may assume that there was a Persian garrison. At several other
places, we find military bases, mostly along the sea coast. The coastal plain
often served to assemble armies. Although Cilicia had a native king, it had to
pay tribute: 360 horses and 500 talents of silver, according to Herodotus.
During the Persian era, the fertile Cilician plains were the most
important part of the satrapy. The relations between the inhabitants of the cities
and those of the villages in the eastern mountains were sometimes less than friendly.
After all, the people from the plains were sedentary agriculturalists and the
mountain people were roaming herdsmen. It is certain that in the fourth century,
the two groups sometimes came to blows, and we may assume that this was also true
in the fifth century.
There were several important sanctuaries that remained more or less
independent from Persian rule. One of the most important was that of a mother
goddess that was called Artemis Perasia by the Greeks and Cybele by everybody
else. Her shrine was at Castabala in the northeast. During the reign of king Artaxerxes
II Mnemon, the Castabalans briefly revolted, but they were subdued by general
Datames.
Another sanctuary was Mazaca, which must have been more to the Persians'
taste. Here, the sacred fire was worshipped. Another site of religious importance
was the oracle at Mallus.
At the end of the fifth century, the third known and probably last
syennesis was ruling Cilicia. He became involved in a civil war between Artaxerxes
II and his brother Cyrus the Younger. When the latter approached the Cilician
gate, the syennesis was forced to side with him. However, after the defeat of
Cyrus at Cunaxa near Babylon,
the syennesis' position was difficult and he was dethroned. This marked the end
of the independence of Cilicia. After 400, it became an ordinary satrapy.
One of its satraps was the Babylonian Mazaeus (361-336). His successor
was expelled by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, who conquered Cilicia
in the summer of 333, and fell ill at Tarsus. After some time, he recovered and
attacked the Cilicians of the Taurus mountains. This was probably a police action
against the herdsmen. The new satrap of Cilicia, a man named Balacrus, was given
special orders to attack the mountain people. Unfortunately, he was unable to
overcome the herdsmen of Isaura,
a tribal formation that now appear in history and was to play a role in the following
centuries.
Greek and Roman period
After the death of Alexander in Babylon (June 11, 323), Cilicia was
first part of the kingdom of Antigonus Monophthalmus, who had been appointed as
satrap of Phrygia. When he
was defeated at Ipsus (301),
Cilicia was divided by Seleucus and Ptolemy, two former friends of Alexander.
From now on, the coastal towns belonged to the Ptolemaean empire, and the interior
was part of the Seleucid empire. Twice, the region was contested: in the Second
Syrian war (260-253), the Ptolemaeans gained ground, but in the Fifth Syrian war
(202-198), all of Cilicia became Seleucid. It remained so for a century, and was
thoroughly hellenized. New cities were founded, and the old Luwian language was
gradually superseded by Greek.
However, after c.110, the Seleucid power was waning, and the inhabitants
of "rough Cilicia", which had always retained some of their independence, started
to behave as pirates. Although both the Seleucid and Roman authorities sometimes
launched expeditions against the Cilician pirates, the two governments did not
really care. After all, the pirates sold the slaves that the ancient economy could
not do without.
It was only after 80, when it became clear to the Romans that the
Seleucid empire was disintegrating and a power vacuum was growing, that the legions
intervened. In 78-74, Publius Servilius Vatia subdued western Cilicia. To commemorate
his victory, he received the surname Isauricus. Eastern Cilicia became part of
the empire of the Armenian king Tigranes. However, the Cilician pirates remained
dangerous, until Pompey the Great attacked them. He settled them in towns and
gave them land (67). This turned out to be an excellent settlement. The last Cilician
war was conducted by Marcus Tullius Cicero (51-50), who defeated the last independent
Cilicians.
During the next decade, the Romans were unable to establish their
power, because they were involved in two civil wars, first between Julius Caesar
and Pompey the Great (49-48) and then between on the one hand Caesar's heirs Marc
Antony and Octavian and on the other hand Caesar's murderers Brutus and Cassius.
When Octavian became sole ruler (after 30 BCE), Cilicia was finally pacified.
Parts were given to vassal kings, and the remainder became an appendix to the
province Syria. Although
the governor of Syria sometimes had to fight against the mountain tribes (e.g.,
Lucius Vitellius in 36 CE), Cilicia was now a quiet part of the Roman world.
The emperor Vespasian reunited Cilicia in 72. More than two centuries
later, it was divided into two parts by Diocletian: the mountainous west became
known as Isauria, and the plains retained the name Cilicia. In the late fourth
or early fifth century, the remainder of Cilicia was again divided into two parts,
simply called Cilicia I (Tarsus and environs) and Cilicia II (the eastern plains).
The fifth and sixth centuries saw great affluence, but in the seventh
century, it became a border zone where the Byzantine empire was defended against
the Arab incursions. About 700, it became Muslim, but it became Greek again in
965. Many Armenians were settled in Cilicia, and the country became known as Lesser
Armenia. During the Crusades, it became independent. In 1375, this last period
of Cilician independence came to an end, when the country became part of the Ottoman
empire.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
PAMFYLIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Pamphylia: ancient name for the fertile coastal plain in southern Turkey.
Pamphylia is the ancient name of the rich and fertile alluvial plain
of the rivers Kestros, Eurymedon, and Melas (the modern Aksu Cayi, Kopru Cayi,
and Manavgat Cayi). In the south, we find the Mediterranean sea - the Gulf of
Antalya to be more precise. To the west, the Pamphylian city Attalia
(Antalya) faced Lycia; to
the north were the pine forests of Pisidia,
and to the east, Coracesium faced 'rough' Cilicia.
All these countries were dominated by the Taurus mountain range. Between the Taurus
and the Mediterranean, the alluvial plain is dominated by fertile terraces and
the white chalk faces of the foothills.
The name 'Pamphylia'
is very ancient, but because the language of the Pamphylians is hardly known (although
it is closely related to Greek), we cannot interpret the name. When the Rhodian
Greeks entered the region in the seventh century BCE, they thought that the nation
with the related language was called pam-phylos 'all tribes', which may be erroneous
or may be true.
Pamphylia belonged to the ancient Hittite empire. The main towns were
Estwediiys (later known as Aspendus)
and Side. After the fall
of the Hittite empire after 1215, Pamphylia was the center of a new kingdom called
Tarhuntassa. It was later claimed that Greeks settled in the region in the twelfth
century, but these stories were probably invented to explain the linguistic similarities
between Greek and Pamphylian. (In any case, there is no archaeological evidence
for a Greek invasion.) It is not known how long Tarhuntassa existed; when the
Rhodians entered the region, it was already called Pamphylia and we do not know
how this change came to be.
However this may be, it is certain that from the seventh century on,
the Pamphylians traded with the Greeks. Ports like Perge
and Side became large cities,
and rich Pamphylia became a natural target for foreign enemies. The first to conquer
the coastal towns were the Lydians. It is not known who was responsible for the
conquest, but it is certain that it belonged to the possessions of king Croesus
(560-547), who lost it to the Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great. According to
the fifth-century Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Pamphylia belonged
to the first tax district of the Achaemenid empire, together with Lycia,
Magnesia, Ionia,
Aeolia, Milya, and Caria.
Although Pamphylia now belonged to Persia, Greek cultural influence
was still felt. After all, the trade contacts remained important. In 468-465 (the
exact year is not known), the Athenian admiral Cimon defeated the Persians at
the mouth of the Eurymedon, after which Pamphylia became part of the Athenian
empire. Forty years later, the Persians reoccupied their former possession.
In the first weeks of 333, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great
occupied the Pamphylian coast. He left his personal friend Nearchus in charge
of the country, which he organized thoroughly: it never revolted to its new Macedonian
masters. In the years after Alexander's death, it was first part of the empire
of Antigonus Monophthalmus, but in the third century, the Ptolemies ruled the
country, succeeded by the Seleucids - two Macedonian dynasties. Side and Perge
continued to flourish; new important cities were Sillyon and Aspendus.
When the Romans defeated the Seleucid king Antiochus III, they ordered
him to give up Pamphylia, which was given to Rome's ally Pergamum (188). The new
rulers founded Attalia in
150, and seem to have given special attention to the production of olive oil.
However, because of the decline of the Seleucid empire, the region was politically
unstable and the eastern town Coracesium
became the capital of the Cilician pirates. After 100, the Romans started to intervene.
At first, they were not very successful, but in 77 Publius Servilius Vatia gained
some remarkable successes: he defeated the pirates at sea and cleared Lycia and
Pamphylia. Later, general Pompey conquered Cilicia proper.
Pamphylia was first part of a province called Cilicia; in 43 BCE it
was added to Asia; twelve years later, general Octavian (the future emperor Augustus)
made it part of Galatia; the emperor Vespasian created a new province called Lycia
and Pamphylia (after 70). In 314 or 325, this double province was divided, and
Pamphylia was a province of its own.
The Roman period was one of great economic and cultural flourishing.
Most archaeological remains that can be visited today in towns like Aspendus and
Side, date back to Roman times.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
ALIKARNASSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
The three cities of Rhodes Lindos, Kamiros, and Ialysos together with Kos, Halikarnassos and Knidos formed the Dorian Hexapolis.
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
After Spartian power in the Aegean was destroyed by Conon in 394 B.C., Iasos was rebuilt, possibly with the aid of Knidos, and it joined a league of Aegean states that included Ephesos, Rhodes, Samos, and Byzantium.
After Spartian power in the Aegean was destroyed by Conon in 394 B.C., Iasos was rebuilt, possibly with the aid of Knidos, and it joined a league of Aegean states that included Ephesos, Rhodes, Samos, and Byzantium.
Alexander the Great (336-323): Macedonian king, defeated the Persian king Darius
III and conquered the Achaemenid empire. During his campaigns, Alexander visited
a.o. Egypt, Babylonia, Persia,
Media, Bactria and the valley
of the Indus. In the second half of his reign, he had to find a way to rule his
newly conquered countries; therefore, he made Babylon
his capital and introduced the oriental court ceremonial, which caused great tensions
with his Macedonian and Greek officers.
Issus
When the Macedonians reached Cilicia
in August 333, they heard rumors that the Persian king Darius III was assembling
an army in Babylonia. In fact, he had left Babylon in July and was approaching
the Macedonians as swift as his large army allowed him to. In his Live of Alexander,
Plutarch of Chaeronea writes
that his army counted 600,000 men, which is of course exaggerated, but even when
we divide it by ten, Darius had an overwhelming majority.
Meanwhile, Alexander had fallen ill. Already in Antiquity, it was
assumed that he was exhausted, but in fact, the months since Gordium
had been tranquil. There is a famous anecdote about Alexander and his doctor Philip
of Acarnania, which can be
found here.
When Alexander had recovered, he immediately launched a new campaign.
He himself went to the west, fighting against the mountain tribes of Cilicia,
who might cut off the road through the Cilician gates. Western Cilicia, which
was and is very inaccessible, had a very bad reputation for what the ancient sources
variously call bandits, brigands, desperadoes or criminals, but in fact were tribesmen
who refused to live a sedentary life. In Alexander's age, they were called 'the
rough Cilicians'. During the Roman age, they were to become notorious as the Isaurians.
While Alexander was in Rough Cilicia, Parmenion and a small army were
ordered to occupy the so-called Assyrian gates. This was the pass between the
coastal plain of Cilicia and the plain of the river Orontes; the main road from
Babylonia to Cilicia went through this pass. Parmenion must have been puzzled
by the fact that Darius did not show up, but was not alarmed until he received
word that Darius' huge army was at Sochi, only two days away. A courier was sent
to Alexander's army, which covered 120 kilometers in forty-eight hours and joined
Alexander's army near Myriandrus.
The two commanders were planning to attack Darius in Sochi, when they
discovered that the Persian army was no longer there and was, in fact, facing
into their rear: with his enormous army, the Persian king had crossed the so-called
Amanus pass, had captured Issus, and had cut off the only Macedonian line of supply.
Darius had trapped Alexander.
The Persians could afford to wait until the invaders surrendered:
the Macedonian army could neither move to the east nor to the south, which was
unknown enemy territory. The only option Alexander had, was to return to the north
and attempt an all-out attack on a grand army of professional Persian soldiers.
At the Granicus, the Macedonians had fought against local levies, and the Persian
garrisons in Turkey had been relatively small. Now, real fighting could be expected.
The Macedonian army probably numbered 26,000 infantry and 5,300 cavalry;
the Persian numbers are unknown, but 60,000 is probably not a bad guess. When
the Macedonians advanced, they descended to a river named Pinarus and had a good
view of their opponents' line on the other side of the river. Darius and the Greek
mercenaries stood in the center, the wings were occupied by the Cardaces, a Persian
phalanx. Alexander made some adjustments to his battle array and already wanted
to attack, when he discovered that Darius had posted a force on the mountain to
the Macedonian right. Without countermeasures, this force would attack the Macedonian
rear. Some light infantry, some horsemen and archers were posted on the foothills
to neutralize the danger.
Alexander led the Companion cavalry to the right: this would force
a part of the Cardaces to move in the same direction, thereby creating a gap with
the Cardaces standing near the center. Then, Alexander wheeled towards the gap,
broke through the enemy lines and attacked the Persian center. At the same time,
the phalanx had crossed the river and made a frontal attack on the Persian right
wing and the Greek mercenaries.
Darius had been fighting from his chariot until his guard had been
annihilated. He was now forced to retire from the battlefield. The Greek authors
have called this cowardice, but it was not. It might have been honorable to die
on the battlefield, but it was not practical. Darius knew what would happen after
his heroic death: the rival factions that had almost caused a civil war in the
years before his accession, would be at each other's throats again, and the invader
would be able to overrun the whole, divided empire. If the empire were to survive,
civil war ought to be prevented at all costs. So he retired to Issus, leaving
his demoralized men as a prey to the Macedonians and the vultures.
The Macedonian losses were heavy. Our sources mention 450 dead and
4,000 wounded, 15% of the soldiers. There are no reliable statistics of the Persian
casualties, but they may have been between 5,000 and 10,000. Since most of the
fighting had taken place near the Pinarus
and sword wounds are extremely bloody, there is no reason to doubt that the river
had really turned red. Alexander's coins (emission from Alexandria,
between 326 and 323)
One of the most impressive actions took place after the battle: Parmenion
rushed to Damascus (350 kilometers
through enemy territory) and seized Darius' treasure. He surprised the Persian
garrison and took with him almost 55 ton gold, a great quantity of silver, 329
female musicians, 306 cooks, 13 pastry chefs, 70 wine waiters, 40 scent makers,
and the women who had lived at Darius' court. Small surprise that Parmenion needed
7,000 pack animals to bring the booty to Alexander.
The gold and silver taken at Damascus was used to strike new coins.
They showed the head of Alexander's legendary ancestor Heracles (with Alexander's
features), and on the reverse the supreme god Zeus seated on a throne. These coins
would be acceptable to the Phoenicians, whom Alexander wanted to persuade to switch
sides: they venerated Heracles under the name Melqart and could recognize the
seated man as their god Ba'al. This would become Alexander's normal coin type.
Among the captive women were Darius' mother Sisygambis, his wife Statira,
his five year old son, and his daughters Barsine (or Statira) and Drypetis. The
Macedonian king treated them kindly, which was not an act of courtesy but simply
a claim to the Persian throne: in the ancient Near East, a new king would take
over the harem of his predecessor. Plutarch tells us that Alexander, 'esteeming
it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies', sought no intimacy
with Darius' wife.This is not true: Statira was captured in November 333 and died
in childbirth in September 331. Darius can not have been the father of the baby.
Among the Persian women was Barsine, the widow of the former Persian
supreme commander in the west Memnon of Rhodes.
She was some seven or eight years older than Alexander, and the two had already
met each other, when she, Memnon, her father Artabazus and her brother Pharnabazus
were staying in Macedonia
as exiles. The childhood friendship was renewed as a serious love affair.
Alexander was now twenty-three. According to the Macedonian ideas
about love and sexuality, he had to find a woman to marry; the time for homosexual
affairs was over. Hephaestion could no longer be Alexander's lover, and had to
find a new role. It should be noted that the friendship between the two young
men remained close; Alexander was deeply shocked when Hephaestion died in 324.
In the aftermath of the battle, Alexander founded a new city, where
the 4,000 wounded were settled. He called it Alexandria, a name that lives on
in the modern name Iskenderun. The site of the town was well chosen: it commanded
the access to the Assyrian gate. (Alexander was not the first one to name a town
after himself. When his father had refounded Crenides
in 356, he had called it Philippi; and the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus
the Great, had built Kurushkatha, 'city of Cyrus'.)
Shortly after the battle, a messenger arrived, delivering a letter
from king Darius, who offered a huge ransom for his mother, wife and children.
Alexander refused. In the next months, there were several diplomatic exchanges
-the chronology is not clear-, which culminated in Darius' offer of all countries
west of the Euphrates to Alexander.
'I would accept it,' said Parmenion after reading the proposal, 'if I were Alexander.'
'So would I,' replied Alexander, 'if I were Parmenion.'
Alexander's first letter to the man who had trapped him near Issus
was intentionally rude. He insulted Darius, accused him of several crimes he had
not committed (e.g., the murder of Alexander's father Philip), and announced that
he would hunt him down and kill him. If Darius wanted to write him again, Alexander
said, the Persian should not write to him as an equal, but should regard him as
the master of the Persian possessions.
The Greek author Arrian has retold in his own words what was in this
letter; although he may have colored it a bit, it is clear that Alexander for
the first time claimed to be more than the king of Macedonia. Arrian uses the
expression 'king of Asia' to describe Alexander's new title. That Alexander claimed
the Persian kingdom at this early stage -before he had actually conquered Persia-,
can be corroborated from the fact that he entered Darius' harem. Other proof can
be found in a Babylonian diary, which states that Alexander already called himself
'king of the world' when he entered Babylon.
Having won the battle, having found a girlfriend, having humiliated
Darius, Alexander proceeded along the Orontes to Emessa.
There, he turned to the west and reached Aradus,
the northernmost city of Phoenicia.
It surrendered immediately.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited August 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
PAMFYLIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
River of Pamphylia,
on the southern coast of Asia
Minor (modern name is Kopru su).
At the mouth of this river, in 466, the Athenians and their allies,
under the command of Cimon, won a double battle, on sea and on land, over the
Persians, in which two hundred Phoenician ships were destroyed. Plato mentions
this battle in the Menexenus.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
ADRAMYTION (Ancient city) TURKEY
(Thuc. 8,108,4)
DIDYMA (Ancient sanctuary) TURKEY
The temple at Didyma with its shrine and place of divination was plundered and burnt. (Hdt. 6.19.3)
Alexander destroyed also the city of the Branchidae, whom Xerxes had settled there -people who voluntarily accompanied him from their homeland- because of the fact that they had betrayed to him the riches and treasures of the god at Didymi. Alexander destroyed the city, they add, because he abominated the sacrilege and the betrayal .. The Branchidae gave over the treasures of the god to the Persian king, and accompanied him in his flight in order to escape punishment for the robbing and the betrayal of the temple. (Strab.11.11.4)
KARIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Cos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task
LEVEDOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
The city of Lebedus was razed to the ground by Lysimachus, simply in order that the population of Ephesus might be increased.
LYKIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Cos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task.
MAGNESIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Rebuilt with help from the Emperor Trajan
PERINTHOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
ALIKARNASSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
EFESSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Strabo (iv. p. 179) found in some of his authorities a story that the Phocaeans before they sailed to Gallia were told by an oracle to take a guide from Artemis of Ephesus ; and accordingly they went to Ephesus to ask the goddess how they should obey the oracular order. The goddess appeared to Aristarche, one of the women of noblest rank in Ephesus, in a dream, and bade her join the expedition, and take with her a statue from the temple. Aristarche went with the adventurers, who built a temple to Artemis, and made Aristarche the priestess. In all their colonies the Massaliots established the worship of Artemis, and set up the same kind of wooden statue, and instituted the same rites as in the mother-city. For though Phocaea founded Massalia, Ephesus was the city which gave to it its religion.
FASILIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
FOKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
KLAZOMENES (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
KNIDOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
LYDIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
In the reign of Atys son of Manes there was great scarcity of food
in all Lydia. For a while the Lydians bore this with what patience they could;
presently, when the famine did not abate, they looked for remedies, and different
plans were devised by different men. Then it was that they invented the games
of dice and knuckle-bones and ball and all other forms of game except dice, which
the Lydians do not claim to have discovered. Then, using their discovery to lighten
the famine, every other day they would play for the whole day, so that they would
not have to look for food, and the next day they quit their play and ate. This
was their way of life for eighteen years. But the famine did not cease to trouble
them, and instead afflicted them even more. At last their king divided the people
into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain
and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew
the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed.
Then the one group, having drawn the lot, left the country and came down to Smyrna
and built ships, in which they loaded all their goods that could be transported
aboard ship, and sailed away to seek a livelihood and a country; until at last,
after sojourning with one people after another, they came to the Ombrici,1 where
they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves
Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king's son who had led them there.
This extract is from: Herodotus. The Histories (ed. A. D. Godley, 1920), Cambridge. Harvard University Press. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Tyrrhenus (Turrenos or Tursenos). The son of the Lydian king Atys and Callithea, and brother of Lydus. He is said to have led a Pelasgian colony from Lydia into Italy, into the country of the Umbrians, and to have given to the colonists his name. Others call Tyrrhenus a son of Heracles by Omphale, or of Telephus and Hiera, and a [p. 1624] brother of Tarchon ( Dionys.i. 28). The name Tarchon is perhaps only another form of Tyrrhenus.
TEOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amasis became a philhellene, and besides other services which he did
for some of the Greeks, he gave those who came to Egypt the city of Naucratis
to live in; and to those who travelled to the country without wanting to settle
there, he gave lands where they might set up altars and make holy places for their
gods. Of these the greatest and most famous and most visited precinct is that
which is called the Hellenion, founded jointly by the Ionian cities of Chios,
Teos, Phocaea, and Clazomenae, the Dorian cities of Rhodes, Cnidus, Halicarnassus,
and Phaselis, and one Aeolian city, Mytilene.
ALIKARNASSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
The fact is that when Melas and Arevanias came there from Argos and Troezen and founded a colony together, they drove out the Carians and Lelegans who were barbarians.
GARGARA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Hellanicus adds that Gargara was founded by Assus.
KELENDERIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Ephorus says: Miletus was first founded and fortified above the sea by the Cretans, where the Miletus of olden times is now situated, being settled by Sarpedon, who brought colonists from the Cretan Miletus and named the city after that Miletus, the place formerly being in the possession of the Leleges; but later Neleus and his followers fortified the present city (Strab. 14,1,6).
NIKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Nicaea was first founded by Antigonus the son of Philip, who called it Antigonia, and then by Lysimachus, who changed its name to that of Nicaea his wife (Strab. 12,4,7).
PARION (Ancient city) TURKEY
Thasos was founded by the Parians, as also Parium, a city on the Propontis (Strab. 10.5.7).
SELGI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Selge was founded at first by the Lacedaemonians as a city, and still earlier by Calchas; but later it remained an independent city, having waxed so powerful on account of the law-abiding manner in which its government was conducted that it once contained twenty thousand men.
SIDI (Ancient port) TURKEY
Then Side, a colony of the Cymaeans, which has a temple of Athena; and near by is the coast of the Lesser Cibyratae (Strab. 14.4.2).
TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Tralleis is said to have been founded by Argives and by certain Tralleian Thracians, and hence the name.
IOTAPI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Iotape. A daughter of Artavasdes, king of Media, was married to Alexander, the son of Antony, the triumvir, after the Armenian campaign in B. C. 34. Antony gave to Artavasdes the part of Armenia which he had conquered. After the battle of Actium lotape was restored to her father by Octavianus. (Dion Cass. xlix. 40, 44, 1. 16.)
SISSAMOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amastris, also called Amastrine (Amastrine), the daughter of Oxyartes, the brother of Darius, was given by Alexander in marriage to Craterus. (Arrian. Anab. vii. 4.) Craterus having fallen in love with Phila, the daughter of Antipater, Amastris married Dionysius, tyrant of Heracleia, in Bithynia, B. C. 322. After he death of Dionysius, In B. C. 306, who left her guardian of their children, Clearchus, Oxyathres, and Amastris, she married Lysimachus, B. C. 302. Lysimachus, however, abandoned her shortly afterwards, and married Arsinoe, the daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus ; whereupon Amastris retired to Heracleia, which she governed in her own right. She also founded a city, called after her own name, on the sea-coast of Paphlagonia. She was drowned by her two sons about B. C. 288. (Memnon, c. 4, 5 ; Diod. xx. 109.)
STRATONIKIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Wife of Antiochus I Soter, who built the city probably on the site of the ancient city of Chrysaoris or Idrias.
AMASSIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
The Catholic Encyclopedia
KNIDOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
City of southern Asia
Minor, on a peninsula between the islands of Cos
and Rhodes.
Cnidus, a colony of Sparta
founded in the XIIth century B. C., was one of six cities of Dorian origin in
Caria (the province of southern
Asia Minor in which they
were located) that had gathered in a confederacy having its common sanctuary,
a temple to Apollo, on the promontory on which Cnidus was located, named the Triopion.
The members of the confederacy, aside from Cnidus, included three cities of the
island of Rhodes : Lindus,
Ialysus and Camirus,
plus Cos on the island of
the same name and Halicarnassus
on the mainland north of Cos.
Together they formed what used to be called the Hexapolis (in Greek, “the
six cities”). Yet, Herodotus, who was born in Halicarnassus,
tells us how, at some point in time, his native city was excluded from the confederacy,
which then became the Pentapolis (in Greek, “the five cities”).
This group of Dorian colonies in Asia
Minor was called Doris, in much the same way Ionian colonies in Asia
Minor further north were called Ionia.
But there was also a province called Doris
in mainland Greece, north
of Delphi, and, in classical
times, Dorians were primarily settled in most of Peloponnese.
After Harpagus, a general of Cyrus the Great, had subdued Ionia
around 545B. C., he set about to invade Caria
as well and the citizens of Cnidus tried to defend themselves by digging a channel
at the narrowest part (less than a kilometer) of the isthmus leading to their
city, but couldn't bring the work to completion and had to submit to the Persians.
Cnidus was the location of a famed school of medicine that was surpassed
only by that of Cos (birthplace
of Hippocrates). Cnidus was also the birthplace of Eudoxus, a pupil of Plato at
the Academy who became one of the brightest mathematicians of ancient Greece.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This extract is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
KOLOFON (Ancient city) TURKEY
City of Asia Minor,
northwest of Ephesus.
Colophon was one of the member cities of the Ionian Confederacy, the
Paniones, grouping cities founded in Asia
Minor by Ionians fleeing the southern shores of the gulf
of Corinth west of Sicyon
in northern Peloponnese when
the area was conquered by Achaeans.
Colophon was the birthplace of the philosopher Xenophanes.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
City of Asia Minor.
In mythology, Miletus was said to have been founded by Neleus, a son
of Codrus, the last king of Athens,
with Ionians from Attica
joined by Messenians fleeing the Heraclidae.
According to Herodotus, Miletus was one of 12 cities founded in Asia
Minor by Ionians fleeing the southern shores of the gulf of Corinth
west of Sicyon in northern
Peloponnese when the area
was conquered by Achaeans, and gathered in the Ionian Confederacy (the Paniones).
Herodotus then adds that settlers from many parts of Greece
joined Ionians in these cities and scorns at the pretense of nobility of these
supposedly “purer” Ionians, especially those coming from Athens,
that is, the settlers of Miletus, who had to take wives among the women of the
area for lack of Ionian women.
Miletus was one of the most active cities in founding colonies in
the Hellespont and along
the coast of the Black Sea
in the VIIth and VIth centuries B. C. It was also, along with Samos and a few
other cities from Asia Minor,
at the origin of Naucratis, a trade post in the Nile
delta area in Egypt, in fact
the only Greek city in Egypt.
Miletus was the birthplace of several Presocratic philosophers called
the Milesian from the name of that city. They include Thales, Anaximander and
Anaximenes.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This extract is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Foundation of the Hellenic World
TEOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
City of Asia Minor,
south of Clazomenae. Teos
was part of the Ionian Confederacy, the Paniones, grouping cities founded in Asia
Minor by Ionians fleeing what was to become Achaia,
in northern Peloponnese, where
they had earlier settled the southern shores of the gulf of Corinth
west of Sicyon, when the
area was conquered by Achaeans who gave it their name. When the Persians of Harpagus,
a general of Cyrus the Great, invaded Ionia
around 545B. C., the citizens of Teos, along with those of Phocaea,
were the only ones not to submit to the Persians. The people of Teos fled north
and founded the city of Abdera
in Thracia.
Bernard Suzanne (page last updated 1998), ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Plato and his dialogues URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
VITHYNION (Ancient city) TURKEY
A tribe in Paphlagonia, tribute to Persia, in Xerxes' army, the Argonauts among the.
ERYTHRES (Ancient city) TURKEY
The city sent eight ships to the battle of Lade
FOKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
The Phokaians could send only three ships to the battle of Lade in 494; but owing to their naval skill, the command of the entire Hellenic fleet was given to Dionysios of Phokaia.
MILITOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
The Ionians then came there with their ships manned, and with them
the Aeolians who dwell in Lesbos. This was their order of battle: The Milesians
themselves had the eastern wing, bringing eighty ships; next to them were the
Prieneans with twelve ships, and the Myesians with three; next to the Myesians
were the Teians with seventeen ships; next to these the Chians with a hundred;
near these in the line were the Erythraeans, bringing eight ships, and the Phocaeans
with three, and next to these the Lesbians with seventy; last of all in the line
were the Samians, holding the western wing with sixty ships. The total number
of all these together was three hundred and fifty-three triremes.
MYOUS (Ancient city) TURKEY
At the battle of Lade in 494 B.C. Myous contributed three ships to the Ionian fleet
PRIINI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Povided twelve ships at the battle of Lade in 494 B.C.
TEOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
The city sent 17 ships to the battle of Lade
ALOPEKONISSOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Near the outlet of the Hebrus, which has two mouths, lies the city Aenus, on the Melas Gulf; it was founded by Mitylenaeans and Cumaeans, though in still earlier times by Alopeconnesians.
ANEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
The Ephesians under Androclus made war on Leogorus, the son of Procles, who reigned in Samos after his father, and after conquering them in a battle drove the Samians out of their island, accusing them of conspiring with the Carians against the Ionians. The Samians fled and some of them made their home in an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name of the island was changed from Dardania to Samothrace. Others with Leogorus threw a wall round Anaea on the mainland opposite Samos, and ten years after crossed over, expelled the Ephesians and reoccupied the island.
ARISVI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Anaximenes of Lampsacus says that the Milesians colonized the islands Icaros and Leros; and, near the Hellespont, Limnae in the Chersonesus, as also Abydus and Arisba and Paesus in Asia.
(Perseus Project - Strabo, Geography 14.1.6
ARTAKI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Anaximenes of Lampsacus says that the Milesians colonized the islands Icaros and Leros; and, near the Hellespont, Limnae in the Chersonesus, as also Abydus and Arisba and Paesus in Asia; and Artace and Cyzicus in the island of the Cyziceni.
(Perseus Project - Strabo, Geography 14.1.6)
AVYDOS (Ancient city) MARMARA
Anaximenes of Lampsacus says that the Milesians colonized the islands Icaros and Leros; and, near the Hellespont, Limnae in the Chersonesus, as also Abydus and Arisba and Paesus in Asia.
(Perseus Project - Strabo, Geography 14.1.6
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