Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "STRATONIKIA Ancient city TURKEY".
City in Caria 25 km E of Milas. Founded early in the 3d c. B.C. by
Antiochos I of Syria, and named in honor of his stepmother-wife Stratonike. The
foundation seems to have been made on the site of an old Carian town, Chrysaoris
or Idrias (Paus. 5.21.10), said by Stephanos Byzantios s.v. Chrysaoris, quoting
Apollonios of Aphrodisias, to be the first city founded by the Lycians. Idrias
appears to figure in the Athenian tribute lists in the form Edrieis, and in 425
B.C., together with Euromos and Hymessos, it was assessed at the high sum of six
talents.
Strabo (660) says that Stratonikeia was embellished by the Seleucid
kings, but within a few years it was presented by them to Rhodes (Polyb. 30.31.6).
The Rhodians lost it on some unrecorded occasion, but recovered it in 197 B.C.
(Livy 33.18.22), and the city remained Rhodian until 167, when with the whole
of Caria it was declared free by the Roman Senate. In 130 it was the scene of
Aristonikos' final surrender, and in 40 B.C. was attacked unsuccessfully by Labienus
and his Parthian troops.
Stratonikeia was the home of the Chrysaoric League, a federation of
all the villages in Caria; the League met at the temple of Zeus Chrysaoreus, which
is said to have been near the city. The earliest evidence for this League is an
inscription of 267 B.C., but it may have been in existence much earlier. Recorded
as a free city under the Empire, Stratonikeia continued to flourish, but Stephanos'
statement that it was "founded" by Hadrian under the name of Hadrianopolis
seems to be a confusion with another city of the same name. Coinage extends from
the liberation from Rhodes in 167 to the time of Gallienus (A.D. 253-268).
The acropolis hill is on the S, and has a circuit wall round the summit;
on a terrace on its N slope are the ruins of a small temple dedicated to the Emperors,
and below this is a large theater. The cavea has a single diazoma and nine cunei,
and the foundations of the stage building survive underground.
In the inhabited part of the city, on the level ground to the N, the
most conspicuous ruin is that of the Serapeum, a massive building dating from
about A.D. 200. Its lower parts are buried, but the walls are standing to a considerable
height in solid broad-and-narrow masonry; they bear many inscriptions. Of the
temenos, some 100 m square, little survives apart from the entrance gate on the
W, which stands complete with lintel.
The city wall, originally ca. 1.6 km long, has almost totally disappeared,
but part of the main city gate on the N is standing: a single-arched gateway.
The piers remain, also in broad-and-narrow masonry, and the spring of the arch
above them. Just inside, a single column survives from the interior colonnade;
it is unfluted and of the Corinthian order. At the NE corner of the city is a
large fortress some 80 m long, built of large squared blocks regularly coursed,
but repaired in places with reused material.
The agora lay W of the Serapeum, but nothing remains but a row of
blocks on its E side. To the N are the ruins of a building of unknown purpose
and unusual form; it has a long wall of good regular masonry to which part of
a curved wall is attached on the S side. The site as a whole has never been excavated.
The temple of Zeus Chrysaoreus has not been decisively located. There
are some rather scanty ancient remains near the main road about 4 km E of Eskihisar
which might be those of a temple; if so, this may be the spot called White Pillars
by Herodotos (5.118).
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 14 image(s), bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
25 km E of Milas
(Stratonikeia). Now Eski-Hisar; one of the chief inland cities of Caria, built by Antiochus I. Soter, who fortified it strongly, and named it in honour of his wife Stratonice. It stood east of Mylasa and south of Alabanda, near the river Marsyas, a southern tributary of the Maeander. Under the Romans it was a free city.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Stratonikeia or Stratonike, Ptol. v. 2. § 20: Eth. Stratonikeus. One of the most important towns in the interior of Caria, was situated on the south-east of Mylasa, and on the south of the river Marsyas. It appears to have been founded by Antiochus Soter, who named it after his wife Stratonice. (Strab. xiv. p. 660; Steph. B. s. v.) The subsequent Syro-Macedonian kings adorned the town with splendid and costly buildings. At a later time it was ceded to the Rhodians. (Liv. xxxiii. 18, 30.) Mithridates of Pontus resided for some time at Stratoniceia, and married the daughter of one of its principal citizens. (Appian, Mithr. 20.) Some time after this it was besieged by Labienus, and the brave resistance it offered to him entitled it to the gratitude of Augustus and the Senate (Tac. Ann. iii. 62; Dion Cass. xlviii. 26). The emperor Hadrian is said to have taken this town under his special protection, and to have changed its name into Hadrianopolis (Steph. B. l. c.), a name, however, which does not appear to have ever come into use. Pliny (v. 29) enumerates it among free cities in Asia. Near the town was the temple of Zeus Chrysaoreus, at which the confederate towns of Caria held their meetings; at these meetings the several states had votes in proportion to the number of towns they possessed. The Stratoniceans, though not of Carian origin, were admitted into the confederacy, because they possessed certain small towns or villages, which formed part of it. Menippus, surnamed Catochas, according to Cicero (Brut. 91) one of the most distinguished orators of his time, was a native of Stratoniceia. Stephanus B. (s. v. Idrias) mentions a town of Idrias in Caria, which had previously been called Chrysaoris; and as Herodotus (v. 118) makes the river Marsyas, on whose banks stood the white pillars at which the Carians held their national meetings, flow from a district called Idrias, it is very probable that Antiochus Soter built the new city of Stratoniceia upon the site of Idrias. (Leake, Asia Minor, p. 235.) Eskihissar, which now occupies the place of Stratoniceia, is only a small village, the whole neighbourhood of which is strewed with marble fragments, while some shafts of columns are standing single. In the side of a hill is a theatre, with the seats remaining, and ruins of the proscenium, among which are pedestals of statues, some of which contain inscriptions. Outside the village there are broken arches, with pieces of massive wall and marble coffins.
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
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