Listed 6 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "ANGYRA Ancient city TURKEY".
The chief city of the Roman province of Galatia, in central Asia Minor.
Its legendary founder was King Midas, but it does not appear in the historical
record until the time of Alexander the Great. Until Galatia became a Roman province
in 25 B.C., Ancyra remained comparatively insignificant although its commercial
importance increased as that of the old Phrygian capital, Gordion, diminished.
Throughout the period of the Roman Empire the city flourished, and its importance
continued during the Byzantine era when the city was strongly fortified against
invasions from the East.
Most of the Roman city has been destroyed by modern Ankara, but some
monuments have survived, notably the Temple of Rome and Augustus, the Roman baths
and palaestra, and the "Column of Julian."
The temple was octostyle pseudodipteral, with 15 columns down the
flanks, four detached columns in front of the pronaos, and two between the antae
of the opisthodomos. Only the core of the building still stands, preserved through
its later use as a church when the opisthodomos was converted into an apse. The
walls of the pronaos carry the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti and the
S cella wall the Greek, complete except for some areas of damage. Another important
inscription, the list of high priests of the koinon of Galatia under Tiberius,
stands on the left-hand anta of the pronaos. It has been maintained that the temple
was originally dedicated to the god Men and dates to the middle of the 2d c. B.C.,
but for both architectural and historical reasons an Augustan date is preferable.
The Roman baths lie to the W of the temple near the site of the old
Turkish city gate leading to Cankiri (now destroyed). The baths stood behind a
palaestra that was surrounded by a colonnaded portico. Although little of the
superstructure survives, the hypocausts and much of the substructure have been
excavated and restored. The baths were dated by the excavators to the time of
Caracalla, and are notable for their size and for the number of hot rooms, which
the city's winter climate made desirable. The palaestra serves as a depot for
the inscriptions and architectural fragments from Roman and Byzantine Ancyra.
Beside it is a Byzantine burial chamber, decorated with painted frescos. This
was excavated near the railway station and re-erected on its present site. The
"Column of Julian" stands alone between the baths and the temple. Its
attribution to the reign of Julian is uncertain although it is clearly of late
Roman date.
The most striking remnant of ancient Ancyra is the Byzantine citadel.
The inner fortifications were possibly built ca. A.D. 630 after the city had been
recaptured by the emperor Heraclius from Chosroes II. It was restored on several
occasions, most notably by the emperor Michael III in A.D. 859. At some undetermined
date the outer fortifications were added. The walls are largely built from the
debris of the Roman city and are full of architectural pieces and inscriptions.
The most impressive section is the W wall of the inner fortification where the
regular, closely spaced, pentagonal towers give the profile of the blade of a
giant saw.
Ancyra's archaeological museums, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations
and the Museum of the Middle East Technical University, contain little from the
Roman or Byzantine period but are chiefly of interest to Classical archaeologists
for their very rich collections of Phrygian material.
S. Mitchell, 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.
The modern ANGORA, a titular see of Galatia
in Asia Minor, suffragan
of Laodicea. It was said
to have been founded by Midas, was a chief place of the Gallic conquerors of Asia
Minor (c. 277, B.C.), and in imperial times a centre of great commercial importance.
It is also famous for the official record of the Acts of Augustus,
known as the “Monumentum Ancyranum,” an inscription cut in marble
on the walls of an ancient temple, several times copied and edited since the sixteenth
century.
The ruins of Ancyra furnish to-day valuable bas-reliefs. inscriptions,
and other architectural fragments.
Thomas J. Shahan, ed.
Transcribed by: John Fobian
This extract is cited June 2003 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
Ancyra (Ankura: Eth. Ankuranos, Ancyranus.) (Angora or Engareh), a
town of Galatia, near a small stream, which seems to enter the Sangarius. Ancyra
originally belonged to Phrygia. The mythical founder was Midas, the son of Gordius.
(Paus. i. 4.) Midas found an anchor on the spot, and accordingly gave the name
to the town; a story which, would imply that the name for anchor (ankura) was
the same in the Greek and in the Phrygian languages. Pausanias confirms the story
by saying that the anchor remained to his time in the temple of Zeus. Stephanus
(s. v. Ankura) gives another story about the name, which is chronologically false,
if Ancyra was so called in the time of Alexander. (Arrian. Anab. ii. 4.) The town
became the chief place of the Tectosages (Strab. p. 567), a Gallic tribe from
the neighbourhood of Toulouse, which settled in these parts about B.C. 277. The
Galatae were subjected by the Romans under Cn. Manlius, B.C. 189, who advanced
as far as An. cyra, and fought a battle with the Tectosages near the town. (Liv.
xxxviii. 24.) When Galatia was formally made a Roman province, B.C. 25, Ancyra
was dignified with the name Sebaste, which is equivalent to Augusta, with the
addition of Tectosagum, to distinguish it from Pessinus and Tavium, which were
honoured with the same title of Sebaste. Ancyra had also the title of Metropolis,
as the coins from Nero's time show. Most of the coins of Ancyra have a figure
of an anchor on them.
The position of Ancyra made it a place of great trade, for it lay
on the road from Byzantium to Tavium and Armenia, and also on the road from Byzantium
to Syria. It is probable, also, that the silky hair of the Angora goat may, in
ancient as in modern times, have formed one of the staples of the place. The hills
about Angora are favourable to the feeding of the goat. The chief monument of
antiquity at Ancyra is the marble temple of Augustus, which was built in the lifetime
of the emperor. The walls appear to be entire, with the exception of a small portion
of one side of the cella. On the inside of the antae of the temple is the Latin
inscription commonly called the Monumentum or Marmor Ancyranum. Augustus (Suet.
Aug. 101) left behind him a record of his actions, which, it was his will, should
be cut on bronze tablets, which were to be placed in front of his Mausoleum. A
copy of this memorable record was cut on the walls of this temple at Ancyra, both
in Greek and Latin. We must suppose that the Ancyrani obtained permission from
the Roman senate or Tiberius to have a transcript of this record to place in the
temple of Augustus, to whom they had given divine honours in his lifetime, as
the passage from Josephus (Antiq. Jud. xvi. 10), when properly corrected, shows.
(See Is. Casaub. in Ancyran. Marmor. Animadv.) The Latin inscription appears to
have been first copied by Busbequius about the middle of the sixteenth century,
and it has been copied by several others since. The latest copy has been made
by Mr. Hamilton, and his copy contains some corrections on former transcripts.
A Greek inscription on the outer wall of the cella had been noticed by Pococke
and Texier, but, with the exception of a small part, it was concealed by houses
built against the temple. By removing the mud wall which was built against the
temple, Hamilton was enabled to copy part of the Greek inscription. So much of
it as is still legible is contained in the Appendix to his second volume of Researches
in Asia Minor, &c. This transcript of the Greek version is valuable, because it
supplies some defects in our copies of the Latin original. A Greek inscription
in front of one of the antae of the temple seems to show that it was dedicated
to the god Augustus and the goddess Rome. Hamilton copied numerous Greek inscriptions
from various parts of the town. (Appendix, vol. ii.) One of the walls of the citadel
contains an immense number of portions of bas-reliefs, inscriptions, funereal
cippi with garlands, and the caput bovis, caryatides, columns and fragments of
architraves, with parts of dedicatory inscriptions, resembling indeed very much
the walls of a rich museum. (Hamilton.)
Angora is still a considerable town, with a large population.
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
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