PRIENE
The ancient harbor city of Priene probably changed its location when the silt of the Meander River threatened to bury it. Now it is nearly 16 km / 10 mi from the sea. The original place of the city has never been found but it was probably a peninsula with two harbors. Priene was laid out on a Hippodamian system of grid plan at the foot of a spectacular cliff on Mount Mycale and contained many famous examples of Hellenistic art and architecture. All the streets intersect at right angles. Remaining small with about 4 or 5 thousand inhabitants and never of great political significance it shared the same history as the other Ionian cities.

History of Priene
It was founded on the Ionian coast by the inhabitants of an abandoned Ionian city of the same name in c.350 BC. It participated in the Battle of Lade with 12 ships in 494 BC. Alexander the Great assigned the city to watch the unreliable city of Miletus. He also lived in the city and paid for the construction of the Athena Temple. After flourishing during the Hellenistic and passing through the Pergamene Kingdom periods the city declined under Roman rule and was later abandoned. Excavation began at the site in the early years of the 20C and the city has been partially restored.

The Site
The city is organized in four districts, the religious (Athena Temple), the political (bouleterion and prytaneion), the cultural (Theater) and the commercial (agora). In addition to the Athena Temple, the people of Priene built shrines dedicated to Zeus, Demeter and Egyptian gods.

The Theater is a 4 or 3C BC building and one of the finest extant theaters of the Hellenistic world. Although it was rebuilt in the Roman period it still remains as typically Hellenistic as the city of Priene itself. The theater was carved into the hillside and held a capacity of 5,000 people. Five marble seats with arms were provided for priests and dignitaries. In the middle of the prohedria there was an altar which was sacred to Dionysus. Performances used to start with sacrificial rites. The proskene is well-preserved and consists of a colonnade supported with 12 Doric half-columns. The skene had an upper floor which no longer stands.

The Bouleterion is the most intact in Anatolia today. It was used for meetings of the town council. The bouleterion consisted of seats on three sides with a capacity of 640 people, and was covered with a wide wooden roof. The sacrificial altar was placed in the middle of the arc of seats.

The Prytaneion is located to the east of the bouleterion. It was the seat of the elected city administration and housed official receptions. Rooms were set around the courtyard. The shrine of Hestia was in an inner chamber where the eternal sacred flame was burned.

The Temple of Athena Polias was rebuilt in 334 BC as a gift from Alexander the Great and was a standard Ionic structure with eleven columns along its sides, six at the ends and two in antis. Athena Polias was the goddess of Priene and protectress of the city. The proportions of this temple were taken as a classical model or pattern by the Roman architect Vitruvius. The architect of the Athena Temple was Pytheos who also built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

MILETUS
Miletus, an ancient city located near the present Akkoy at the mouth of the Buyuk Menderes (Meander) River, owed its importance to its position on trade routes. It was one of the largest cities in Anatolia with a population of between 80,000 and 100,000. Highly prosperous, it founded many colonies and was the home of the 6C BC philosophers Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Thales, the town planner Hippodamus and architect Isidorus. Miletus seems to have produced geniuses the way Aphrodisias produced sculptors.

History of Miletus
According to legend, the city was founded by Neleus, son of King Codrus of Athens. Neleus came to settle with his men and killed the resident males compelling the women to marry the newcomers. After this took place the women swore not to sit at the same table with their husbands and also not to call them by their names.

In the 11C BC Ionians came to Miletus, and by the 7C BC Miletus was at its peak which was to last for more than two centuries. With other cities of Ionia in 499 BC, Miletus rebelled against the Persians, who had captured, burned it to the ground and enslaved its surviving population. This last battle was that of Lade in 494 BC, just outside the harbor of Miletus where the Persian fleet of 600 warships defeated the Ionian force. The destruction was so bad that when the play of Phrynichus, The Capture of Miletus was performed in Athens, as Herodotus reported, “the whole theater burst into tears, and the people sentenced the playwright to pay a fine”. The role of Miletus was significant in the defeat of the Persians at the Mycale battle in 479 BC. Shortly after the battle, Miletus joined the Delian Confederacy with a contribution larger than that of Ephesus. Upon an agreement between the Persian Satrap and Athens, Miletus and other Ionian cities of Anatolia came under the rule of the Persians again. At the end of the 5C BC Miletus was ruled by the Carian satraps.

Captured by Alexander the Great after a siege in 334 BC and ruled by the Seleucid Dynasty in the following years, Miletus remained an important trade center into Roman times.

St. Paul stopped there in 57 AD on his way back to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey. In Miletus Paul sent word to his friends in Ephesus to join him, and after speaking with them for the last time he bade them an emotional farewell, boarded his ship in Miletus and sailed off via Cos and Rhodes to Patara.

The Roman period was followed by Byzantine and Turkish periods.

The Site
Miletus was a major port city located on a peninsula with four harbors. With the silting of the Buyuk Menderes (Meander) River the ruins of the ancient city today are a few kilometers away from the sea.

The city had a grid plan which was developed by Hippodamus when it was rebuilt in the 5C BC after the Persians had sacked it.

The Theater was a small Hellenistic theater with a seating capacity of 5,300, but in the beginning of the 2C AD it was modified to a Roman theater and held about 15,000 people. The lower section was built onto a natural hillside, and the upper is supported by vaulted substructures up to a height of 40 m / 131 ft. The facade facing the harbor is 140 m / 460 ft long. During the Roman period the stage building had three stories and was 34 m / 111 ft wide. In front of the stage building it is still possible to see pieces depicting hunting scenes of Eros.

At the top of the theater hill was a Byzantine fortress which is thought to have been built mostly with the stones of the theater in the 7C AD but restored later by the Seljuks. Harbor monuments stood in front of the Lions’ Harbor. There were two of them; different in size but similar in style. The large piece was 7.5 m / 25 ft high, mounted on a three-cornered base built on a round foundation with a diameter of 11 m / 36 ft. The smaller one was only 5.3 m / 17.5 ft.

The Delphinium was a Hellenistic open air shrine surrounded by stoas on four sides with a 6C BC altar in the center. Together with Apollo, the dolphin was sacred for the Milesians as they believed that when the first settlers sailed they were guided by god in the form of a dolphin. The annual festival and celebrations of Didyma were started here. An Ionic Stoa lay parallel to the processional road on the south of the Delphinium. It is a 1C AD structure which had 35 Ionic columns and 19 shops behind the columns.

The Bouleterion was a 2C BC building which consisted of a propylon, a courtyard and an auditorium. The propylon had three Corinthian columns and friezes depicting war scenes. It opened into a courtyard with a monumental tomb in the middle. There were four gates that opened into the main hall. The auditorium seated 1,500 people and had a wooden roof. The Nymphaeum was first built in the 2C AD and rebuilt in the following century. It faced the bouleterion across the processional road and had three stories with statues of gods placed in niches and water spouting from the mouths of bronze fish.

The South Agora lay behind the bouleterion. It was a Hellenistic structure which was later remodeled in the Roman period. Today the North Gate is unfortunately another of the gems from Anatolia currently housed in the Pergamum Museum in Berlin. The South Gate was 180 m by 150 m (196 yards by 164 yards) and destroyed during the construction of Ilyas Bey mosque.

The Temple of Serapis lay between the south agora and the Faustina baths. It consisted of a pronaos and a naos with Corinthian columns and a relief of Serapis on the pediment. The temple was a 3C BC building which was rebuilt in the 3C AD with a donation by Emperor Julius Aurelius.

The Baths of Faustina were 2C AD Roman baths which were built by Faustina, Marcus Aurelius’s wife who usually accompanied her husband on his journeys through the Empire. The frigidarium had a reclining statue of the river god probably personifying the Meander River.

Ilyas Bey Camisi (The Ilyas Bey Mosque) was part of a complex which consisted of a mosque, medrese, cemetery and an imaret. It was built in the early 15C by Ilyas Bey, the regional Ottoman military commander. The dome of the mosque was made of bricks. At the entrance are three arched partitions separated by two columns. The entrance is through the center arch. The mosque was destroyed in 1955.

The Caravansary is a 15C building built by the Mentese Principality which had a lower floor for animals and an upper for people.

DIDYMA
The word Didyma meant “twins” and was associated by some as being the meeting place of Zeus and Leto to have their twins Apollo and Artemis.Didyma was famed as a prophecy center dedicated to Apollo which served a similar purpose as the Delphi of Anatolia. It was not a city but a sanctuary linked to Miletus by Milesians with a 19 km / 12 mi sacred road. However, this road may not have been constructed until the end of the 1C AD. In addition to pilgrimages made by sea, some festivals of drama, music and sports were held there every four years.

Apollo Temple
Even though it is thought that there was a shrine there before the Ionians came in the 10C BC, a temple at the same site was built in the 6C BC, and later destroyed by the Persians in 494 BC. In the 4C BC Milesians started to rebuild the temple but could not complete it because of financial problems. In the 1C and 4C AD Roman emperors tried but could not complete the construction either. Later in the Byzantine period Theodosius II had a church built in the open air courtyard which was destroyed by an earthquake in the 15C AD. Even in its unfinished state the Apollo Temple was regarded as one of the largest temples of the Hellenistic world, comparable to the Artemis Temple in Ephesus or the Heraion at Samos.

The temple was 110 m / 360 ft long and 51 m / 167 ft wide with a height of 24 m / 78 ft. It is a dipteros in Ionic order with 120 columns 108 of them surrounding the building by a double row and 12 in the pronaos. As George Bean points out in Aegean Turkey, the Apollo Temple “serves as a reminder that vastness in architecture was not purely a monopoly of the Romans”. It was an unusual temple, not only because of its huge size but also for its antechamber with two Corinthian columns and two tunnels that led into the cella. The antechamber which was also termed as Cresmographeion probably served as an oracle office where prophecies were written out and delivered to people. In the middle of the temple there is an open air courtyard (adyton) with another Ionic shrine which housed the cult statue of Apollo. There were a few hot springs where the priestess of Didyma immersed her feet or inhaled the water’s vapors for inspiration before prophesying.

The huge Medusa relief standing next to the temple is a 2C AD piece which has fallen off the frieze. A little further stand the remains of an altar and a well. Before asking for a prophesy from the priests in the pronaos, people purified themselves with water from the well and gave votive offerings in the altar.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT
(356-323 BC)

Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, is one of history’s foremost military leaders who established an Empire that extended from Greece to India.
Alexander III, who became the king of Macedonia at the age of 20, the first king to be called “the Great”, conquered the Persian Empire and annexed it to Macedonia. He was taught for a time by Aristotle and acquired a love of Homer and an infatuation with the heroic age. The war horse of Alexander the Great was named Bucephalus.

In 334 BC his army moved onto Asia Minor. After defeating a Persian army at the Granicus River, he marched through Asia Minor with little opposition, then defeated a large Persian army under Darius III at Issus (near modern Iskenderun) in 333 BC. He occupied Syria and then entered Egypt, where he was accepted as pharaoh. After organizing Egypt and founding Alexandria, Alexander crossed the Eastern Desert, the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers and in the autumn of 331 BC defeated Darius’s grand army at Gaugamela (near modern Erbil, Iraq). Later he reached the Indian Ocean. In the spring of 324 BC, Alexander held a great victory celebration at Susa. He returned to Babylon, where he prepared an expedition for the conquest of Arabia. He died in June 323 BC without designating a successor. His death opened the anarchic age of the Diadochi, meaning “successors” in ancient Greek and his burial place is a matter of dispute. The cultural policy of Alexander the Great was very respectful and tolerant towards the Eastern World and he contributed to the unification between East and West. The suffixes -assus and -nd- are those used for hellenization of pre-Hellenic Anatolian ancient city names.

THE HELLENISTIC AGE
Hellenistic Period (300-133 BC)

The period between Alexander’s death and the Roman conquest of Anatolia is called the Hellenistic age. The mixture of Greek and Anatolian cultures resulted in a new civilization, the Hellenistic.
After Alexander’s death three major monarchies emerged out of the wars of the Diadochi; Macedonia under the rule of Antigonus, Egypt under that of Ptolemy and Anatolia under that of Seleucus.

Then followed the rise of a number of independent states in Anatolia among them Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamum and Pontus all of which were eventually absorbed by the Roman Empire in the 1CBC.

The Kingdom of Pergamum, under the rule of Attalids, became the most prominent and continued until Attalus III bequeathed his kingdom and treasury to Rome on his death in 133 AD.

THE ROMAN AGE
Roman Period (133 BC-395 AD)

The Kingdoms of Pergamum and Bithynia were bequeathed to Rome, and Pontus and Cappadocia were conquered. Cilicia also fell under Roman domination. A Roman administrative reorganization took place in Anatolia which brought the Roman culture to Anatolia. At this point according to Naim Turfan Anatolia “hellenized” Rome while Rome colonized her, for she possessed a creative and well-developed culture, the roots of which stretched back thousands of years.

CHRISTIANITY
St. Paul of Tarsus (c.1-67 AD)

Also called Saul in Hebrew and leader of the early Christian movement, was instrumental in the spreading of Christianity throughout the Greco-Roman world. He was born a Jew in Tarsus of Cilicia in Anatolia probably between 1-10 AD.

Thirteen New Testament letters have been attributed to him, many of which show him adjusting Jewish ideas and traditions to new circumstances and measuring Old Testament laws by their relevance to Jesus Christ.

The New Testament records how he actively tried to suppress the early Christian movement through persecution until he was converted to Christianity by a visionary encounter with the risen Jesus while on the road to Damascus in about 36 AD. Because of this vision, Paul held that he, too, had met Jesus and was therefore qualified to be called an apostle. After being instructed and receiving Christian baptism in Damascus, Paul went to “Arabia” for a short time. He then returned to Damascus for 3 years until he was driven out and back to Tarsus, probably in 40 AD. Several years later Barnabas brought Paul to Antioch in Syria, where they ministered together for a year.

Paul spent the following 10 years on 3 lengthy missionary journeys to Anatolia and Greece. The second journey included an 18-month stay in Corinth and the third, 2-3 years in Ephesus. During this time Paul wrote letters to churches he had previously founded and could not visit in person. Some of these letters have been preserved in the New Testament. Paul was especially concerned that he protect his understanding of the life and teachings of Jesus from alteration toward Jewish practices or toward Hellenistic religious and philosophical ideas. He instructed the Christian communities he founded in ethical behavior by correcting their failings and offering advice. The Book of Acts describes the typical pattern of Paul’s ministry: he began by preaching in a synagogue but was soon expelled as a rabble-rouser; then, with a small number of Jewish adherents, Paul turned to the Gentiles, converting large numbers but occasionally encountering trouble with the civil authorities.

The different accounts of Paul’s visit to Jerusalem to settle the controversy over how much of the Jewish Law Gentile Christians were required to keep, have never been fully reconciled. Years later (c.58 AD), Paul brought a collection to Jerusalem for the city’s poor Christians, but he was arrested. After 2 years in prison he used his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to the emperor and was sent to Rome for trial.

The Book of Acts ends with Paul under house arrest (c. 63 AD), still preaching about Jesus. Clement of Rome and Eusebius of Caesarea report that Paul was eventually acquitted before traveling to Spain where he was arrested again and subsequently martyred in Rome under Nero, c.67 AD. Feast day: June 29 (with Saint Peter).

Seven Churches of Revelation

The Seven Churches of Asia are all located in Anatolia; Ephesus (Efes), Smyrna (Izmir), Laodicea ad Lycum (Goncali), Sardis (Sart), Pergamum (Bergama), Philadelphia (Alasehir) and Thyatira (Akhisar).

These churches are associated both with Saint Paul and with Revelations (the Apocalypse); letters written in c.95 AD to the Seven Churches by John. For some people John is a visionary who lived on the island of Patmos. But some people say he is the Apostle John.

There should have been more than seven cities with major Christian congregations in Anatolia at the time that John wrote and it is unknown why he addressed only these seven. These were possibly the most important ones at that time or letters to other churches were lost.

These churches were not church buildings as such but congregations. These early congregations had their meetings in private homes as there had been no original church buildings until the 3C AD. St. Paul possibly founded some of the Seven Churches on his missionary journeys between 47-57 AD, as he was thought to have visited all seven cities.

Constantine the Great (280-337 AD)

He was the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. Before 312 AD Constantine seems to have been a tolerant pagan, willing to accumulate heavenly patrons but not committed to any one deity. However, between 312-324 AD he gradually adopted the Christian God as his protector and on several occasions granted special privileges to individual churches and bishops.

Soon after his victory over Licinius at Chrysopolis in 324 AD, Constantine openly embraced Christianity and became more directly involved in the affairs of the church. Christianity spread fastest among the urban populations while people who lived in villages continued to worship different deities. The early Christians called non-Christians pagans because pagani in Latin means “country-dwellers”.

THE BYZANTINE PERIOD
Iron Age (1200-700 BC)

The Byzantine Empire is one of the longest-lasting empires in world history. Its name, which is derived from the name of the city of Byzantium, was given by 19C historians. Byzantines always called and regarded themselves as Romans. In 330 AD Constantine made Byzantium Rome’s second capital, naming it Constantinople which meant “city of Constantine”.
In 395 AD Theodosius I divided the Roman Empire into two, Eastern and Western. Culturally, the Western part was Latin and the Eastern part was Hellenistic. Soon after, in 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire collapsed and the Eastern Empire survived. The Eastern Romans were Christians and changed their language from Latin to Greek.

Justinian I’s successful efforts to reconquer the West followed in the early Byzantine period.

The Middle Byzantine period (610-1081 AD) began with the triumph of Heraclius over the Persians and his subsequent defeat by the Arabs. After 634 AD Arabs seized Palestine, Syria and Egypt and raided deep into Anatolia.

In the 11C, a struggle started between the generals who were great landowners and the bureaucrats. Distracted by this struggle, the emperors were unable to resist the Seljuks, who began conquering Anatolia.

In 1204 AD the Fourth Crusade seized and brutally sacked the capital and established the Latin Empire of Constantinople.

In 1261 AD the ruler of Nicaea regained Constantinople and refounded the Byzantine Empire which had to face threats from Westerners and from Turks in the East. Gradually reduced in area, the Empire finally succumbed in 1453 AD to the Ottoman Turks, who pronounced Constantinople to be the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

In this final period, the landed aristocracy dominated all provincial and central administrative positions of the Byzantine Empire. The army consisted of mercenaries and a “feudal” levy based on government properties awarded to great landlords in return for military service. The Byzantine emperors repeatedly tried to reunify the Orthodox and Catholic churches in return for Western aid against the Turks, but their efforts proved futile.