Listed 22 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "BURSA Province TURKEY" .
APAMIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Apameia (Medania, Mutania). In Bithynia, was originally called Murleia
(Steph. B. s. v. Apameia), and was a colony from Colophon. (Plin. v. 32.) Philip
of Macedonia, the father of Perseus, took the town, as it appears, during the
war which he carried on against the king of Pergamus, and he gave the place to
Prusias, his ally, king of Bithynia. Prusias gave to Myrlea, which thus became
a Bithynian town, the name of his wife Apameia. The place was on the S. coast
of the Gulf of Cius, and NW. of Prusa. The Romans made Apameia a, colony, apparently
not earlier than the time of Augustus, or perhaps Julius Caesar; the epigraph
on the coins of the Roman period contains the title Julia. The coins of the period
before the Roman dominion have the epigraph Apameon Murleanon. Pliny (Ep. x. 56),
when governor of Bithynia, asked for the directions of Trajan, as to a claim made
by this colonia, not to have their accounts of receipts and expenditure examined
by the Roman governor. From a passage of Ulpian (Dig. 50. tit. 15. s. 11) we learn
the form Apamena: est in Bithynia colonia Apamena.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
KIOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Cius (he Kios or Kios: Eth. Kianos: Kio or Ghio), a city in Bithynia,
at the head of a gulf in the Propontis, called the gulf of Cius, or Cianus Sinus.
Herodotus calls it Cius of Mysia; and also Xenophon (Hell. i. 4. § 7), from which
it appears that Mysia, even in Xenophon's time, extended at least as far east
as the head of the gulf of Cius. According to one tradition, Cius was a Milesian
colony. (Plin. v. 32.) It was at the foot of Mount Arganthonius, and there was
a myth that Hylas, one of the companions of Hercules on the voyage to Colchis,
was carried off by the nymphs, when he went to get water here; and also that Cius,
another companion of Hercules, on his return from Colchis, stayed here and founded
the city, to which he gave his name. (Strab. p. 564.) Pliny mentions a river Hylas
and a river Cius here, one of which reminds us of the name of the youth who was
stolen by the nymphs, and the other of the mythical founder. The Cius may be the
channel by which the lake Ascania discharges its waters into the gulf of Cius;
though Pliny speaks of the Ascanium flumen as flowing into the gulf, and we must
assume that he gives this name to the channel which connects the lake and the
sea. If the river Cius is not identical with this channel, it must be a small
stream near Cius. As Ptolemy (v. 1) speaks of the outlets of the Ascanius, it
has been conjectured that there may have been two, and that they may be the Hylas
and Cius of Pliny; but the plural ekbolai does not necessarily mean more than
a single mouth; and Pliny certainly says that the Ascanius flows into the gulf.
However, his geography is a constant cause of difficulty. The position of Cius
made it the port for the inland parts. Mela calls it the most convenient emporium
of Phrygia, which was at no great distance from it.
Cius was taken by the Persian general Hymees, after the burning of
Sardis, B.C. 499. (Herod. v. 122.) Philip V., of Macedonia, the son of Demetrius
and the father of Perseus, took Cius, which he gave to Prusias, the son of Zelas.
Prusias, who had assisted Philip in ruining Cius, restored it under the name of
Prusias (Prousias, Strab. p. 563; Polyb. xvi. 21, &c.). It was sometimes called
Prusias eprthalassie, or on the sea, to distinguish it from other towns of the
same name (Steph. B. s. v. Prousa; Memnon, ap. Phot. Cod. 224, c. 43), or thalassan.
In the text of Memnon (Hoeschel's ed. of Photius) the reading is Cierus; but Memnon,
both in this and other passages, has confounded Cius and Cierus. But it is remarked
that Cius must either have still existed by the side of the new city, or must
have recovered its old name; for Pliny mentions Cius, and also Mela (i. 19), Zosimus
(i. 35), and writers of a still later date.
There are coins of Cius, with the epigraph Kianon, belonging to the
Roman imperial period; and there are coins of Prusias with the epigraph, Prousieon
ton pros thalassan.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
MILITOPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Miletopolis, a town in the north of Mysia, at the confluence of the
rivers Macestus and Rhyndacus, and on the west of the lake which derives its name
from it. (Strab. xii. p. 575, xiv. p. 681; Steph. B. s. v.; Plin. v. 32, 40.)
Some modern geographers, as D'Anville and Mannert, have identified Miletopolis
with the modern Beli Kessr or Balikesri, but this place is situated too far S.
Leake, too, seems to place Miletopolis too far SW. of the lake, and identifies
it with Minias, which others regard as the site of the ancient Poemanenum. The
most probable view is, that the site of Miletopolis is marked by the modern Moalitsh
or Muhalitsch, or by the place Hamamli, near which many ruins of an ancient town
are found. (Hamilton, Researches, &c., vol. i. p. 81. &c., vol. ii. p. 91.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
NIKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Nikaia; Eth. Nikaieus or Nikaeus: lshnik. One of the most important
towns of Bithynia, of which Strabo (xii. p. 565) even calls it the metropolis,
was situated on the eastern shore of lake Ascania or Ascanius, in a wide and fertile
plain, which, however, was somewhat unhealthy in summer. The place is said to
have been colonised by Bottiaeans, and to have originally borne the name of Ancore
(Steph. B. s. v.) or Helicore (Geogr. Min. p. 40, ed. Hudson); but it was subsequently
destroyed by the Mysians. A few years after the death of Alexander the Great,
Antigonus, probably after his victory over Eumenes, in B.C. 316, rebuilt the town,
and called it, after himself, Antigoneia. (Steph. B. l. c.; Eustath. ad Horn.
II. ii. 863). Not long after Lysimachus, having made himself master of a great
part of Asia Minor, changed the name of Antigoneia into Nicaea, in honour of his
wife Nicaea, a daughter of Antipater. (Steph. B., Eustath., Strab., ll. cc.) According
to another account (Memnon, ap. Phot. Cod. 224. p. 233, ed. Bekker), Nicaea was
founded by men from Nicaea near Thermopylae, who had served in the army of Alexander
the Great. The town was built with great regularity, in the form of a square,
measuring 16 stadia in circumference; it had four gates, and all its streets intersected
one another at right angles, so that from a monument in the centre all the four
gates could be seen. (Strab. xii. pp. 565. &c.) This monument stood in the gymnasium,
which was destroyed by fire, but was restored with increased magnificence by the
younger Pliny (Epist. x. 48), when he was governor of Bithynia.
Soon after the time of Lysimachus, Nicaea became a city of great importance,
and the kings of Bithynia, whose era begins in B.C. 288 with Zipoetes, often resided
at Nicaea. It has already been mentioned that in the time of Strabo it is called
the metropolis of Bithynia; an honour which is also assigned to it on some coins,
though in later times it was enjoyed by Nicomedeia. The two cities, in fact, kept
up a long and vehement dispute about the precedence, and the 38th oration of Dion
Chrysostomus was expressly composed to settle the dispute. From this oration,
it appears that Nicomedeia alone had a right to the title of metropolis, but both
were the first cities of the country. The younger Pliny makes frequent mention
of Nicaea and its public buildings, which he undertook to restore when governor
of Bithynia. (Epist. x. 40, 48, &c.) It was the birthplace of the astronomer Hipparchus
and the historian Dion Cassius. (Suid. s. v. Hipparchos.) The numerous coins of
Nicaea which still exist attest the interest taken in the city by the emperors,
as well as its attachment to the rulers; many of them commemorate great festivals
celebrated there in honour of gods and emperors, as Olympia, Isthmia, Dionysia,
Pythia, Commodia, Severia, Philadelphia, &c. Throughout the imperial period, Nicaea
remained an important place; for its situation was particularly favourable, being
only 25 miles distant from Prusa (Plin. v. 32), and 44 from Constantinople. (It.
Ant. p. 141.) When the last mentioned city became the capital of the Eastern Empire,
Nicaea did not lose in importance; for its present walls, which were erected during
the last period of the Empire, enclose a much greater space than that ascribed
to the place in the time of Strabo. In the reign of Constantine, A.D. 325, the
celebrated Council of Nicaea was held there against the Arian heresy, and the
prelates there assembled drew up the creed called the Nicene. Some travellers
have believed that the council was held in a church still existing; but it has
been shown by Prokesch (Erinneirungen, iii. p. 234) that that church was built
at a later period, and that the council was probably held in the now ruined mosque
of Orchan. In the course of the same century, Nicaea suffered much from an earthquake;
but it was restored in A.D. 368 by the emperor Valens. During the middle ages
it was for a long time a strong bulwark of the Greek emperors against the Turks,
who did not conquer it until the year 1078. During the first crusade, in 1097,
it was recovered from them by the Christians, but in the peace which was afterwards
concluded it was ceded to the Turks. In the 13th century, when Constantinople
was the capital of the Latin empire, Theodore Lascaris made Nicaea the capital
of Western Asia; in the end, however, it was finally conquered and incorporated
with the Ottoman empire by Orchan. Many of its public buildings were then destroyed,
and the materials used by the conquerors in erecting their mosques and other edifices.
The modern Isnik is a very poor place, of scarcely more than 100 houses, while
in Pococke's time, there still existed about 300. The ancient walls, with their
towers and gates, are in tolerably good preservation their circumference is 14,800
feet, being at the base from 15 to 20 feet in thickness, and from 30 to 40 feet
in height; they contain four large and two small gates. In most places they are
formed of alternate courses of Roman tiles and large square stones, joined by
a cement of great thickness. In some places have been inserted columns and other
architectural fragments, the ruins of more ancient edifices. These walls seem,
like those of Constantinople, to have been built in the fourth century of our
era. Some of the towers have Greek inscriptions. The ruins of mosques, baths,
and houses, dispersed among the gardens and cornfields, which now occupy a great
part of the space within the Greek fortifications, show that the Turkish town,
though now so inconsiderable, was once a place of importance; but it never was
so large as the Greek city, and it seems to have been almost entirely constructed
of the remains of the Greek Nicaea, the walls of the ruined mosques and baths
being full of the fragments of Greek temples and churches. On the north-western
parts of the town, two moles extend into the lake and form a harbour; but the
lake in this part has much retreated, and left a marshy plain. Outside the walls
remnants of an ancient aqueduct are seen.
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
PRUSSA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Prusa (Prousa: Eth. Prousaeus), generally with the addition of epi
or pros toi Olumpoi, to distinguish it from another place of the same name, was
situated at the northern foot of Mount Olympus, in Mysia. Pliny (v. 43) states
that the town was built by Hannibal during his stay with Prusias, which can only
mean that it was built by Prusias, whose name it bears, on the advice of Hannibal.
According to the common text of Strabo (xii. p. 564), it was founded by one Prusias,
who waged war against Croesus, for whom Stephanus B. (s. v.) substitutes Cyrus.
As no such Prusias is known in the age of Croesus or Cyrus, various conjectures
have been made upon the passage of Strabo, but without success. At all events,
it is acknowledged by Dion Chrysostomus (Orat. xliii. p. 585), who was a native
of the town, that it was neither very ancient nor very large. It was, however,
as Strabo remarks well governed, continued to flourish under the Roman emperors
(Plin. Epist. x. 85), and was celebrated for its warm baths, which still exist,
and bore the name of the royal waters. (Athen. ii. p. 43; Steph. B. s. v. Therma.)
Under the Greek emperors it suffered much during the wars against the Turks (Nicet.
Chon. pp. 186, 389); when at last it fell into their hands, it was for a time
the capital of their empire under the name of Brusa or Broussa, which it still
bears, for it still is one of the most flourishing towns in Asia Minor. (Browne's
Travels in Walpole's Turkey, vol. ii. p. 108; Sestini, Mon. Vet. p. 70; Hamilton,
Researches, i. p. 71, &c.)
Ptolemy (v. 1. § 13) and Pliny (v. 43) mention a town of the same
name on the river Hyppius or Hypius, in Bithynia, which, according to Memnon (cc.
29, 42, 49), had formerly been called Cierus (Kieros), and had belonged to the
territory of Heracleia, but had been taken by Prusias, who changed its name. But
there seems to be some confusion here between Cierus and Cius, the latter of which
is known to have received the name of Prusias from the king of that name. (Strab.
xii. pp. 563, 566)
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
KIOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
An ancient city in Bithynia, on a bay of the Propontis called Cianus Sinus, was colonized by the Milesians. It was destroyed by Philip III., king of Macedonia; but was rebuilt by Prusias, king of Bithynia, from whom it was called Prusias.
MILITOPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
A city of Mysia.
NIKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
(Nikaia). A celebrated city of Asia, situated on the eastern
side of Lake Ascania (Isnik) in Bithynia, built (about B.C. 300) by Antigonus,
king of Asia, and originally called Antigonea; but Lysimachus soon after changed
the name into Nicaea, in honour of his wife. Under the kings of Bithynia it was
often the royal residence; and under the Romans it continued to be one of the
chief cities of Asia; and at the time of the Byzantine emperors it was a great
military outpost of Constantinople against the Turks. It fell in A.D. 1330, being
taken by the Turk Orchan, the son of Ottoman. The great double walls of the ancient
city still exist, and there are ruins of an aqueduct, a theatre, a gymnasium,
and the two moles of the ancient harbour. It is famous in ecclesiastical history
as the seat of the great Oecumenical Council which Constantine convoked in A.D.
325, chiefly for the decision of the Arian controversy, and which drew up the
Nicene Creed. The modern name is Isnik (eis Nikaian).
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
PRUSSA (Ancient city) TURKEY
or Prusias (Prousa). P. ad Olympum (he epi toi Olumpoi), now Brusa. A great city of Bithynia, on the northern side of Mount Olympus, fifteen Roman miles from Cius and twenty-five from Nicaea. It was built by Prusias, king of Bithynia, or, according to some, by Hannibal.
MILITOPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
BASILINOPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
MILITOPOLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
A titular see of Asia Minor, suffragan of Cyzicus. Miletopolis was a town north of Mysia, at the confluence of the Macestus and the Rhyndacus, west of Lake Miletopolitis Limne. There seems to have been a tribe there, called Milatζ, of which Miletopolis was the chief town and whose name was hellenized in order to suggest a colony from Miletus. Nothing is known of the history of Miletopolis except that its inhabitants served to colonize the city of Gargara. It has been identified with Bali-Kesser, Manias, Mikhalitch; but the first two identifications are certainly erroneous and the third doubtful. It was more probably located at Hammamli, in the vilayet of Brusa, where the remains of an ancient town can be seen. Miletopolis figures in the "Notitiζ episcopatuum" among the suffragan sees of Cyzicus until the twelfth or thirteenth century; toward the end of the twelfth it was united with the See of Lopadium, as an archbishopric and later as metropolis. Le Quien (Oriens Christ., I, 779) gives the names of some twelve bishops of Miletopolis; the first is Philetus, a contemporary of St. Parthenius, Bishop of Lampsacus, born at Miletopolis, in the beginning of the fourth century.
S.Pitridos, ed.
Transcribed by: Douglas J. Potter
This text is cited July 2004 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
NIKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
In legend, the God Dionysos was Nicaea's founder; according to record,
some inhabitants of a small town of the same name near Thermopylai may have colonized
it (Nonnus Dion. 15.170; 16.403-5; Dio Chrys. Or. 39.1 & 8). Moreover, in that
locality is noted an ancient military camp of Bottiei; and the city was named
Elikore, Ankore, when in 316 B.C. Antigonos Monophthalmos founded Antigoneia there
(Strab. Geogr. 12.565; Eust. Il. 2.863). After the battle of Issos, in 301 B.C.,
Lysimachos conquered the city and refounded it with the name of his wife, daughter
of Antipater. In 282-81 B.C. Nicaea came under the rulers of Bithynia and regained
great importance (App. Mith. 6 & 77). It was only in 72 B.C. that Bithynia came
under Roman domination at the conclusion of the Mithridatic war (App. BCiv. 5.139.1).
Embellished under Augustus to the point of contending with Nicomedia for the seat
of the provincial governor, Nicaea became the first city of the eparchy under
Claudius, as we know from the coinage. Pliny the Younger, governor under Trajan,
further enlarged the city. Hadrian visited Nicaea in 123 and undertook works of
fortification that were finished in the 3d c. A.D. under Claudius II (Gothicus),
after the Goths had already caused serious damage to the city in 258. Constantine
continued the work of embellishment of his predecessors, and held the first council
at Nicaea in 325. Justinian took particular interest in the city (Amm. Marc.,
26.1.3.5; 2.2; 22.9.5), which was again chosen in 787 for the second council.
The geographical situation of Nicaea was particularly fortunate (Plin.
HN 6.34.217; Strab. Geogr. 2.134; Ptol. Geogr. 5.1.3). Its position on the shore
of Lake Ascania (Iznik Golu), on level and fertile ground, with wide roads for
traffic that radiated from the city, made Nicaea a great Hellenistic center. Strabo
(Geogr. 12.565) minutely described the foundation of the new Lysimachan city:
It had a square plan 700 m to a side; the roads were arranged with perpendicular
axes, following the perfect regularity of the rectangular scheme; two large arteries
crossed at right angles at the center of the inhabited area; the extensions of
the roads led to the four gates of the city, visible from a fixed stone placed
at the center of the gymnasium, a building that thus must be supposed at the heart
of the urban plan.
The following monuments are listed by written history and inscriptions:
a theater, a Sanctuary of the goddess Roma and of Caesar (built under Augustus),
an Apolloneion, a market (built under Hadrian), an aqueduct, and churches and
a palace erected by Justinian (Procop. De aed. 5.3). The coinage, from the period
of Marcus Aurelius onward, commemorates a number of other monuments, among them
the temples of Asklepios, of Dionysos, and of Tyche. The theater was to the SW
of the city, though little remains of the building itself. Its recognizable dimensions
reach a maximum of 85 x 55 m, and only part of the cavea is conserved; the orchestra
and the skene have been lost. Its plan must have been Hellenistic but has been
repeatedly modified (Plin. Ep. 10.48). A curious monument, the obelisk of C. Cassius
Philieus, rises barely outside Nicaea on the road to Nicomedia, and must have
been a family tomb. The obelisk, triangular in section, is 12 m tall, and is placed
on a rectangular base 2 x 3 m. The Byzantine city, which rendered unrecognizable
with its new constructions the ancient Nicaea, overlaid the Hellenistic-Roman
city plan. The imposing earlier walls had by the 5th c. A.D. already undergone
major renovation. This Byzantine construction has two aspects. The gates, with
triple openings, and several towers, seem still to follow the Roman plan; but
often the superstructures are Byzantine, and the definitive system is Turkish.
The principal churches of Nicaea included the Cathedral of Haghia Sophia, originally
a basilica with three aisles of the 5th c., that underwent repeated restoration
until the 14th c.; and the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, whose controversial
chronology varies between the 6th-7th and the 8th-9th c., with the earlier more
probable. Of notable interest were the rich mosaics of the cupola and the narthex,
destroyed during the Graeco-Turkish War, known only from photographs and watercolors
made at the beginning of this century.
N. Bonacasa, 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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