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Smurna: Eth. Smurnaios, Smyrnaeus: Smyrna or Izmir. One of the most celebrated and most flourishing cities in Asia Minor, was situated on the east of the mouth of the Hernus, and on the bay which received from the city the name of the Smyrnaeus Sinus. It is said to have been a very ancient town founded by an Amazon of the name of Smyrna, who had previously, conquered Ephesus. In consequence of this Smyrna was regarded as a colony. of Ephesus. The Ephesian colonists are said afterwards to have been expelled by Aeolians, who then occupied the place, until, aided by the Colophonians, the Ephesian colonists were enabled to re-establish, themselves at Smyrna. (Strab. xiv. p. 633; Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. v. 31.) Herodotus, on the other hand (i. 1.50), states that Smyrna originally, belonged to the Aeolians, who admitted into their city some Colophonian exiles,; and that these Colophonians afterwards, during a festival which was celebrated outside the town, made themselves masters of the place. From that time Smyrna ceased to be an Aeolian city, and was received into the Ionian confederacy (Comp. Paus. vii. 5. § 1.) So far, then as we are guided by authentic history, Smyrna belonged to the Aeolian confederacy until the year B.C. 688, when by an act of treachery on the part of the Colophonians it fell into the hands of the Ionians, and became the 13th city in the Ionian League. (Herod. l. c.; Paus. l. c.) The city was attacked by the Lydian king Gyges, but successfully resisted the aggressor (Herod. i. 14; Paus. ix. 29. § 2.) Alyattes, however, about B.C. 627, was more successful; he took and destroyed the city, and henceforth, for a period of 400 years, it was deserted and in ruins (Herod. i. 16; Strab. xiv. p. 646), though some inhabitants lingered in the place, living komedon, as is stated by Strabo, and as we must infer from the fact that Scylax speaks of Smyrna as still existing. Alexander the Great is said to have formed the design of rebuilding the city (Paus. vii. 5. § 1); but he did not live to carry this plan into effect; it was, however, undertaken by Antigonus, and finally completed by Lysimachus. The new city was not built on the site of the ancient one, but at a distance of 20 stadia to the south of it, on the southern coast of the bay, and partly on the side of a hill which Pliny calls Mastusia, but principally in the plain at the foot of it extending to the sea. After its extension and embellishment by Lysimachus, new Smyrna became one of the most magnificent cities, and certainly the finest in all Asia Minor. The streets were handsome, well paved, and drawn at right angles, and the city contained several squares, porticoes, a public library, and numerous temples and other public buildings; but one great drawback was that it had no drains. (Strab. l. c.; Marm. Oxon. n. 5.) It also possessed an excellent harbour which could be closed, and continued to be one of the wealthiest and most flourishing commercial cities of Asia; it afterwards became the seat of a conventus juridicus which embraced the greater part of Aeolis as far as Magnesia, at the foot of Mount Sipylus. (Cic. p. Flacc. 30; Plin. v. 31.) During the war, between, the Romans and Mithridates, Smyrna remained faithful to the former, for which it was rewarded. with various grants and privileges. (Liv. xxxv. 42, xxxvii. 16, 54, xxxviii. 39.) But it afterwards suffered much, when Trebonius, one of Caesar's murderers, was besieged there by Dolabella, who in the end took the city, and put Trebonius to death. (Strab. l. c.; Cic. Phil. xi. 2; Liv. Epit. 119; Dion Cass. xlvii. 29.) In the reign of Tiberius, Smyrna had conferred upon it the equivocal honour of being allowed, in preference to several other Asiatic cities, to erect a temple to the emperor (Tac. Ann. iii. 63, iv. 56). During the years A.D. 178 and 180 Smyrna suffered much from earthquakes, but the, emperor M. Aurelius did much to alleviate its sufferings (Dion Cass. lxxi. 32.) It is well known that Smyrna was one of the places claiming to be the birthplace of Homer, and the Smyrnaeans themselves were so strongly convinced of their right to claim this honour, that they erected a temple to the great bard, or a Homereion, a splendid edifice containing a statue of Homer (Strab. l. c.; Cic. p. Arch. 8): they even showed a cave in the neighbourhood of their city, on the little river Meles, where the poet was said to have composed his works. Smyrna was at all times not only a great commercial place, but its schools of rhetoric and philosophy also were in great repute. The Christian Church also flourished through the zeal and care of its first bishop Polycarp, who is said to have been put to death in the stadium of Smyrna in A.D. 166 (Iren. iii. p. 176). Under the Byzantine emperors the city experienced great vicissitudes: having been occupied by Tzachas, a Turkish chief, about the close of the 11th century, it was nearly destroyed by a Greek fleet, commanded by John Ducas. It was restored, however, by the emperor Comnenus, but again subjected to severe sufferings during the siege of Tamerlane. Not long after it fell into the hands of the Turks, who have retained possession of it ever since. It is now the great mart of the Levant trade. Of Old Smyrna only a few remains now exist on the north-eastern side of the bay of Smyrna; the walls of the acropolis are in the ancient Cyclopean style. The ancient remains of New Smyrna are more numerous, especially of its walls which are of a solid and massive construction; of the stadium between the western gate and the sea, which, however, is stripped of its marble seats and decorations; and of the theatre on the side of a hill fronting the bay. These and other remains of ancient buildings have been destroyed by the Turks in order to obtain the materials for other buildings; but numerous remains of ancient art have been dug out of the ground at Smyrna.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited June 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Smurna, and in some manuscripts Zmyrna. Now Smyrna (Turkish, Izmir); an ancient city of Asia Minor, the only one of the great cities on the coast that still remains of importance as a commercial port. It lay on the river Meles at the eastern end of the Sinus Smyrnaeus, whose depth allowed the largest ships to anchor at the very walls of the city. From it stretched back the great valley of the Hermus, in which lay the rich city of Sardis, of which Smyrna served as the principal seaport. It was probably Aeolian in its origin, founded by colonists from Cyme, but became a possession of the Ionians of Colophon, and from that time was politically classed with the Ionian cities. As to the time when it became a member of the Panionic Confederacy, we have only a very untrustworthy account, which refers its admission to the reign of Attalus, king of Pergamum. Its early history is also very obscure. There is an account in Strabo that it was destroyed by the Lydian king Sadyattes, and that its inhabitants were compelled to live in scattered villages until after the Macedonian conquest, when the city was rebuilt, twenty stadia from its former site, by Antigonus; but this is inconsistent with Pindar's mention of Smyrna as a beautiful city. Thus much is clear, however, that at some period the old city of Smyrna, which stood on the northeastern side of the Hermaean Gulf, was abandoned, and that it was succeeded by a new city on the southeastern side of the same gulf (the present site), which is said to have been built by Antigonus, and which was enlarged and beautified by Lysimachus. This new city stood partly on the sea-shore and partly on a hill called Mastusia. The streets were paved with stone, and crossed one another at right angles. The city soon became one of the greatest and most prosperous in the world. It was especially favoured by the Romans on account of the aid it rendered them in the Syrian and Mithridatic Wars. It was the seat of a conventus iuridicus. In the Civil Wars it was taken and partly destroyed by Dolabella, but it soon recovered. It occupies a distinguished place in the early history of Christianity, as one of the only two among the Seven Churches of Asia which St. John addresses in the Apocalypse without any admixture of rebuke, and as the scene of the labours and martyrdom of Polycarp. In the years A.D. 178- 180 a succession of earthquakes, to which the city has always been much exposed, reduced it almost to ruins; but it was restored by the emperor M. Antoninus. In the successive wars under the Eastern Empire it was frequently much injured, but always recovered; and, under the Turks, who took it in A.D. 1424, it has survived repeated attacks of earthquake, fire, and plague, and still remains the great commercial city of the Levant. There are but few ruins of the ancient city. In addition to her other sources of renown, Smyrna stood at the head of the seven cities which claimed the birth of Homer. The poet was worshipped as a hero in a magnificent building called the Homereum (Homereion). Near the sea-shore there stood a magnificent temple of Cybele, whose head decorated the coins of the city.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The early Hellenic settlement lay on a small peninsula, inhabited
since the beginning of the 3d millennium B.C., on the NE coast of the gulf of
Smyrna. This site is now a hill E of the town of Bayrakli, 4 km N of Izmir. Strabo
(14.646) reported that it lay 20 stadia from the city of his time, on a bay beyond
it, and gave the exact location.
The earliest Protogeometric pottery found in abundance at Bayrakli
reveals that the first Hellenic settlement was founded in the 10th or even the
11th c. B.C., confirming the traditions (Eusebios, Eratosthenes, pseudo-Herodoteian
Life of Homeros), which place the Aiolian and Ionian migration relatively soon
after the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization. The Protogeometric pottery of
Bayrakli is closely related to that of Athens, but it is also individual and probably
of local manufacture. Geometric pottery (ca. 825-675 B.C.), in each of its three
phases, also shows some Attic influence and relationship with neighboring E Greek
centers, but is likewise of local origin.
The oldest building of the Hellenic settlement is an oval house consisting
of a single room built ca. 900 B.C.; its wonderfully preserved courses of mudbrick
and intact ground plan present the best available example of early Greek building,
and in fact is the oldest one in existence. In the 9th c. rectangular houses appear:
these likewise consist of a single large room but have stone foundations. Three
well-preserved examples have been uncovered. In the next level, from before the
middle of the 8th c. to the mid 7th, the oval house is dominant and rectangular
ones rarely appear.
The earliest Greek defensive system dates back at least to the 9th
c. Originally a deep core with thicknesses of mudbrick and stone packing in some
places, and a facing of stout, irregular masonry, it was restored or enlarged
more than once down to the late 7th c.
The early Hellenic stratum (1050-650 B.C.) reveals a simple existence
based mainly on agriculture. There are no cultural artifacts except pottery, no
sign of imports from the E, and of course no evidence of writing. The settlers,
however, kept alive the custom of singing tales of their ancestors' achievements;
they must have preserved as an oral tradition the song of the deeds of Achilles
and Agamemnon, and the tales of the Achaean heroes who preceded them in colonization.
Thus emerged the Homeric epos, composed in both Aiolian and Ionian dialects. Smyrna,
on the border of Aiolis and Ionia, was probably the actual birthplace of Homer
and the Iliad, in the second half of the 8th c. B.C.
The city enjoyed its greatest prosperity between 650 and 545 B.C.
The houses of this period are of the megaron type, consisting of a porch and two
rooms; in one example two megara were coupled to form a relatively elaborate house
type, composed of a porch, three rooms, and one courtyard, and some houses had
terracotta bathtubs. The houses were always oriented N-S or W-E, indicating some
axial planning as early as the 7th c.
The well-preserved temenos terrace of the temple, with walls of carefully
fitted polygonal and rectagonal masonry, is now entirely uncovered. The first
monumental structure of the sanctuary dates from the third quarter of the 7th
c.; it was destroyed by Alyattes (Hdt. 1.16; 14.646) about 600 B.C., rebuilt and
its temenos enlarged about 580, and completely ruined by the Persians about 545
B.C. The temple in its last phase, with its carved Proto-Aiolic capitals, was
the earliest monumental sanctuary of the E Greek world; it was dedicated to Athena,
according to the inscription on a small bronze bar recently excavated.
The houses have yielded bird bowls, charming examples of vases in
the wild goat style, and statuettes in bronze, ivory, and terracotta. Fragments
of delicately carved stone statues date from about 600 B.C. The abundance of Cypriote
and Syrian statuettes and of Lydian pottery demonstrates the international trade
developed by the Ionians after the middle of the 7th c. After 580 Attic imports
provided models for the new style of E Greek black-figured vase painting.
The city was insignificant during the 5th-4th c.; the houses were
of the long type and still arranged on an axial plan. In the time of Alexander
the Great, however, the population outgrew the peninsula, and a new, larger city
was founded on the slope of Mt. Pagos. Coins of Marcus Aurelius, Gordianus, and
Philippus Arabus, show Alexander sleeping under the plane tree, on Mt. Pagos,
and the two Nemeses who directed him in a dream to build a city here.
Strabo (14.646) described Smyrna as the finest Ionian city of his
time, the turn of the 1st c. B.C. The city was centered around the harbor, on
flat land where the Temple of the Mother Goddess and the gymnasium also stood.
The streets were straight and paved with large stones. The orator Aelius Aristeides,
who came from Smyrna, also mentions the straightness and the paving, and states
that the two main thoroughfares, the Sacred Way and the Golden Road, ran E-W,
so that the wind from the sea cooled the city. Some years ago an ancient road
was unearthed, running E-W. It was well paved, 10 m wide, and had a roofed-over
pavement for pedestrians along the side near the mountain; possibly it is part
of the Sacred Way. Strabo also mentioned a stoa called the Homereion (probably
in the shape of a peristyle house).
Nothing remains of the theater on the NW slope of Mt. Pagos, or of
the stadium on the W. A silo built by Hadrian once stood near the harbor, indicating
that the commercial agora lay close to the docks, but it has not been located.
On the other hand, the state agora is well preserved: a courtyard 120 by at least
80 m, with stoas on the E and W sides (excavated for 35 and 72 m respectively).
These stoas were 17.5 m wide and had two stories, each of which was divided into
three, longitudinally, by two rows of columns. On the N side a similar two-storied
colonnade consisted of a nave and two aisles, 28 m wide. The main stoa of the
agora was called a basilica. There is also a magnificent vaulted basement beneath
the N colonnade, still in splendid condition. The N aisle in the basement was
composed of shops, which must have opened onto a street in Roman times. Court
cases were heard in an exedra in the W part of the N colonnade. The stoa on the
S side, not yet excavated, must also have had two stories with a nave and two
aisles.
After an earthquake in A.D. 178 the city was reconstructed with help
from Marcus Aurelius. This is confirmed by a portrait of his wife, Faustina II,
still visible over an arch of the W colonnade, which must have been restored shortly
after the earthquake. Stylistic considerations probably date construction of the
N stoa to the end of the 2d c. A.D.
Aelius Aristeides relates that ca. 150 B.C. an altar to Zeus occupied
a central position in the agora. Two high reliefs depicting a large group of gods,
possibly connected with the altar, have been uncovered, on which Demeter is shown
standing next to Poseidon. It may well be that placing these deities side by side
was intended to demonstrate that Smyrna at that time dominated commerce by both
land and sea.
E. Akurgal, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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