Listed 82 sub titles with search on: History for wider area of: "AEGEAN COAST Region TURKEY" .
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.
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.
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.
MAGNESIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Rebuilt with help from the Emperor Trajan
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.
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.
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).
TRALLIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Tralleis is said to have been founded by Argives and by certain Tralleian Thracians, and hence the name.
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.
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.
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
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.
KANES (Ancient city) TURKEY
Canae in Aeolis was colonized from Dium.
KARIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Among those who inhabit it (Caria) are certain Cnidians, colonists from Lacedaemon.
KAVNOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
I think the Caunians are aborigines of the soil, but they say that they came from Crete
MAGNESIA ON MEANDROS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Magnesia on the Maeander, a colony of the Magnesians of Thessaly and the Cretans
SARDIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
(Croesus) planned to build ships and attack the islanders; but when his preparations for shipbuilding were underway, either Bias of Priene or Pittacus of Mytilene (the story is told of both) came to Sardis and, asked by Croesus for news about Hellas, put an end to the shipbuilding by giving the following answer: “O King, the islanders are buying ten thousand horse, intending to march to Sardis against you.” Croesus, thinking that he spoke the truth … stopped building ships. Thus he made friends with the Ionians inhabiting the islands.
"My Athenian guest, we have heard a lot about you because of your wisdom and of your wanderings, how as one who loves learning you have traveled much of the world for the sake of seeing it, so now I desire to ask you who is the most fortunate man you have seen." Croesus asked this question believing that he was the most fortunate of men, but Solon, offering no flattery but keeping to the truth, said, "O King, it is Tellus the Athenian." Croesus was amazed at what he had said and replied sharply, "In what way do you judge Tellus to be the most fortunate?" Solon said, "Tellus was from a prosperous city, and his children were good and noble. He saw children born to them all, and all of these survived. His life was prosperous by our standards, and his death was most glorious: when the Athenians were fighting their neighbors in Eleusis, he came to help, routed the enemy, and died very finely. The Athenians buried him at public expense on the spot where he fell and gave him much honor".
FOKEA (Ancient city) TURKEY
The Persians took Phocaea, left uninhabited; the Phocaeans launched their fifty-oared ships, embarked their children and women and all their movable goods, besides the statues from the temples and everything dedicated in them except bronze or stonework or painting, and then embarked themselves and set sail for Chios.
IONIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
KARIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
Cyrus, finding the nations in Asia also independent in exactly the same way, started out with a little band of Persians and became the leader of the Medes by their full consent and of the Hyrcanians by theirs; he then conquered Syria, Assyria, Arabia, Cappadocia, both Phrygias, Lydia, Caria, Phoenicia, and Babylonia; he ruled also over Bactria, India, and Cilicia; and he was likewise king of the Sacians, Paphlagonians, Magadidae, and very many other nations, of which one could not even tell the names; he brought under his sway the Asiatic Greeks also; and, descending to the sea, he added both Cyprus and Egypt to his empire.
KAVNOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Harpagus gained Caunus in a somewhat similar manner, the Caunians following for the most part the example of the Lycians.
LYDIA (Ancient country) TURKEY
SARDIS (Ancient city) TURKEY
(Hdt. 1.15)
(Hdt. 1.80 - 1.184)
(Hdt. 5.99-102)
Antiochus Takes Sardis (Polyv. 7.16)
The Sack of Sardis (Polyv. 7.17)
Sardis Destroyed (Polyv. 7.18)
Cambylus (Kameulos), commander of the Cretans engaged in the service of Antiochus III. in B. C. 214. He and his men were entrusted with the protection of a fort near the acropolis of Sardis during the war against Achaeus, the son of Andromachus. He allowed himself to be drawn into a treacherous plan for delivering up Achaeus to Antiochus, by Bolis, who received a large sum of money from Sosibius, the agent of Ptolemy, for the purpose of assisting Achaeus to escape. But the money was divided between Bolis and Cambylus, and instead of setting Achaeus free, they communicated the plan to Antiochus, who again rewarded them richly for delivering Achaeus up to him. (Polyb. viii. 17-23)
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