Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "NYSSA Ancient city TURKEY" .
NYSSA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Nysa or Nyssa (Nusa or Nussa), is said to have been the name of the
place in which the god Dionysus was born, whence it was transferred to a great
many towns in all parts of the world which were distinguished for the cultivation
of the vine.
I. In Asia. 1. A town in Caria, on the southern slope of mount Messogis,
on the north of the Maeander, and about midway between Tralles and Antioch. The
mountain torrent Eudon, a tributary of the Maeander, flowed through the middle
of the town by a deep ravine spanned by a bridge, connecting the two parts of
the town. (Strab. xiv. p. 650; Horn. hymn. iv. 17; Plin. v. 29; Ptol. v. 2. §
18; Hierocl. p. 659; Steph. Byz. s. v.) Tradition assigned the foundation of the
place to three brothers, Athymbrus, Athymbradus, and Hydrelus, who emigrated from
Sparta, and founded three towns on the north of the Maeander; but in the course
of time Nysa absorbed them all; the Nysaeans, however, recognise more especially
Athymbrus as their founder. (Steph. B. s. v. Athumbra; Strab. l. c.) The town
derived its name of Nysa from Nysa, one of the wives of Antiochus, the son of
Seleucus (Steph. B. s. v. Antiocheia), having previously been called Athymbra
(Steph. B. s. v. Athumbra) and Pythopolis (Steph. B. s. v. Puthopolis).
Nysa appears to have been distinguished for its cultivation of literature,
for Strabo mentions several eminent philosophers and rhetoricians; and the geographer
himself, when a youth, attended the lectures of Aristodemus, a disciple of Panaetius;
another Aristodemus of Nysa, a cousin of the former, had been the instructor of
Pompey. (Strab. l. c.; Cic. ad Fam. xiii. 6. 4) Hierocles classes Nysa among the
sees of Asia, and its bishops are mentioned in the Councils of Ephesus and Constantinople.
The coins of Nysa are very numerous, and exhibit a series of Roman emperors from
Augustus to Galllienus. The site of Nysa has been recognised by Chandler and other
travellers at Sultan-hissar, above the plain of the Maeander, on a spot much resembling
that described by Strabo; who also mentions a theatre, a forum, a gymnasium for
youths, and another for men. Remains of a theatre, with many rows of seats almost
entire, as well as of an amphitheatre, gymnasium, &c., were seen by Chandler.
(Leake, Asia Minor, p. 248; Fellows, Discover. pp. 22, foil.; Hamilton, Researches,
i. p. 534.) The country round Nysa is described as bearing evidence of the existence
of subterraneous fires, either by exhalations and vapours, or by its hot mineral
springs.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
City in Caria or Lydia, 30 km E of Aydin. A Seleucid foundation, apparently
on the site of an earlier Athymbra, founded according to Strabo (650; cf. Steph.
Byz. s.v. Athymbra) by a Spartan Athymbros, by a synoecism with two other cities,
Athymbrada and Hydrela. The founder was Antiochos I (Steph. Byz. s.v. Antiocheia),
who acted in response to a dream and named the city after his wife Nysa (otherwise
unknown). A letter of Seleucus and Antiochos dated 281 B.C. is addressed to the
Athymbrianoi, and this name survived to the latter part of the 3d c. (IG XI, 1235).
It seems that the name was changed from Athymbra to Nysa at some time towards
200 B.C.; the earliest coins, of the late 2d c., have the latter name. At Acharaka,
on the territory of Nysa, lay the celebrated Plutonion and the cave Charonion.
Strabo was educated at Nysa, and his description of the city (649)
can be verified in the existing ruins. It is, he says, a sort of double city,
divided by a stream which forms a ravine; part of this is spanned by a bridge
connecting the two cities, and part is adorned with an amphitheater under which
the stream flows concealed; below the theater is on one side the gymnasium of
the young men, on the other the agora and the gerontikon. All these buildings
are identifiable, though in some cases badly preserved.
The bridge was a huge platform nearly 100 m long, spanning the ravine
below the theater, but very little is left of it. Parts of the substructure of
the amphitheater and a few of the seats on either side of the ravine survive in
the scrub. The theater, on the other hand, is well preserved: of Graeco-Roman
type, its cavea is more than a semicircle; there are 23 rows of seats below the
single diazoma and 26 above it. Nine stairways divide it into eight cunei; these
are doubled above the diazoma. The front of the stage building is visible, with
the usual five doors, but the back part has not been excavated. Low down on each
side of the cavea is an arched vomitorium.
Not mentioned by Strabo is a fine tunnel, about 100 m long, through
which the stream runs just below the theater. It makes an obtuse angle in the
middle and at one point has a light-shaft in the roof. The builder's name is recorded
in an inscription on the wall by the angle, but it is only partially legible.
The gymnasium lay on the W side of the ravine; its position is recognizable
but virtually nothing survives. The baths, later covered by a church, were at
the S end, but these were of late construction and did not exist in Strabo's day.
Some 150 m N of the gymnasium are the ruins of a library, also later than Strabo's
time. It apparently had three stories, but the lowest is now mostly buried and
the highest almost entirely destroyed. The plan of the middle story is recognizable,
and shows the usual separation of the bookshelves from the outer wall to protect
them from damp.
In the agora on the E side of the ravine little remains but a few
stumps of columns. Near its NW corner the gerontikon, or Council House of the
Elders, is preserved virtually complete, though a good deal reconstructed. It
forms a semicircle, with twelve rows of seats and five stairways, enclosed in
a rectangle supported at the back by four large double half-columns. The floor
is paved with regular limestone blocks. There is no indication that the building
was ever roofed. On the S side, behind the speaker's platform, are three entrances
between four large solid piers; behind these was a row of eight columns, the bases
of which remain.
Another late building, between the agora and the amphitheater, has
been dubiously recognized as a bath. Its spacious vaulted rooms contain many niches
for statues, but it is in poor condition and the ground plan is not complete.
Nothing remains of the city wall which presumably existed in Hellenistic
times. There are a few stretches of a Byzantine wall, but the circuit cannot be
traced.
About 3 km W of Nysa lay the village of Acharaka; the road joining
them crossed several gullies, and some traces of the bridges survive. The healing
establishment of the Plutonion ccmprised a temple of Pluto and Kore and a remarkable
cave called the Charonion; Strabo (649-50) gives a circumstantial account of the
cure. Little remains of the temple, just E of the village of Salavatli. It has
been conjecturally reconstructed with a very unusual plan, including two parallel
walls running the length of the interior. The peristyle had twelve columns on
the sides and six at the ends; the orientation is N-S, with the entrance apparently
on the N. At present a row of six unfluted column drums and a few other blocks
are visible. The Charonion, by Strabo's account, should be somewhere above the
temple, but no cave exists in this position today. A little to the W is a deep
ravine, in which rises the sulphur-bearing stream that gave the place its healing
properties; this has been proposed as the Charonion, but here again no cave of
any consequence is to be found.
G. E. Bean, 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.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
