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Pergamum (Pergamon) in Mysia | |||
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The Theatre | |||
Pergamon (Latin: Pergamum) is an ancient city about 100 km north of Izmir. The 330 m high castle hill above today's Bergama has been inhabited since the 6th century B.C., but it was not until the Hellenistic era that Pergamon flourished into an ancient cosmopolitan city. |
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Holy Place of Athena | |||
Based on finds of fragments of Western Eastern Greek and Corinthian imported pottery from the late 8th century B.C., a settlement can already be proven in archaic times. Pergamon is first mentioned in literature in 400/399 BC.
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The Dyonisos temple at the end of the theatre terrace | |||
With Alexander the Great this area and with it Pergamum of Persian domination was liberated. At the time of the Diadoches, Pergamon, like the rest of Mysia, belonged to the dominion of Lysimachos. He used Philetairos as guardian of the castle, in which a large part of the Lysimacho's spoils were deposited with 9,000 talents. With this treasure Philetairos succeeded after the death of Lysimacho in 281 B.C. to become independent and to found his own dynasty with the Attalids. |
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The ruins of the royal palaces | |||
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The Attalids ruled Pergamum from 281 to 133 BC. The city became the centre of the Pergamese Empire. Eumenes I did not yet take the royal title. This was only carried out by his successor Attalos I. Only now there was a parchment empire independent from all sides, which reached the peak of its power and expansion in 188 BC. |
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The foundation of the Zeus Altar. (The world-famous Pergamon Altar, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) |
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Under the brothers Eumenes II and Attalos II, Pergamon experienced its heyday, which was reflected in the monumental extension of the city. The aim was to create a second Athens, an Athens of artistic and cultural activity, as it prevailed in Pericles' time and dominated large parts of Greek artistic creation.
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Remains of the mighty amphitheatre of Pergamon |
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Attalos III of Pergamon, who died without descendants in 133 BC, inherited Pergamon to the Romans. From the kingdom of Pergamon the Roman province of Asia emerged in 129 BC, the city itself was declared free. Under Augustus the first imperial cult in the province of Asia was established in Pergamon. Pliny the Elder was considered the most important city in the province, and the local aristocracy continued to produce outstanding men. |
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The Trajaneum | |||
Under Trajan and his successors followed a comprehensive redevelopment and transformation, the construction of a Roman "new town" at the foot of the Acropolis, and as the first city in the province Pergamon received a second neo-corie of Trajan in 113/114 A.D. Hadrian raised the city to the rank of a metropolis in 123 A.D., thereby distinguishing it from its rivals Ephesus and Smyrna.
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The Red Hall | |||
The Red Hall (Turkish Kızıl Avlu) is also called Red Basilica, Serapist temple or temple of the Egyptian gods. It is the ruin of a 60 × 26 meter brick building over 20 meters high, flanked by two towers and with a courtyard in front of it. It is located on the territory of the ancient lower town of Pergamon, today's Bergama. The site of the associated complex measures approximately 100 × 265 meters, making it one of the largest Roman complexes in Asia Minor.
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IIn Byzantine times, the settlement retreated to the castle hill, which was protected by a 6-metre thick wall built from Spolien. Pergamon, seat of one of the seven oldest main churches of Asia Minor, was founded in 716 by the Arabs under Maslama b. Abd-al-Malik conquered, large parts of the population destroyed. After the Arabs had given up their attempt to conquer Constantinople (717-718), the city was rebuilt and fortified.
Under Leo III Pergamon belonged to the topic Thracesion, since Leo VI. to the topic Samos. Although it suffered during the Seljuk advance to Western Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert, it remained a prosperous city under the Comnene Byzantine dynasty.
Under Isaac Angelos the place became an archbishopric after being a suffragan bishopric of Ephesus.
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When the later emperor Theodoros II Laskaris visited Pergamon around 1250, the house of Galens was still shown to him, but he saw the theatres of the city destroyed, and apart from the walls, to which he paid some attention, only the vaults of the river Selinus were worth mentioning to him.
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Photos: @chim | |||
Translation aid: www.DeepL.com/Translator | |||
Source: Wikipedia and others | |||
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