This Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara reaches Pergamum, a city named in Revelation, in two days. This route flies to Izmir, drives north to Bergama for the night and returns the next evening. For island trips, open Greece Tours on the homepage.
Day one covers a first look at Izmir and the road north to Bergama. Day two covers the hill city of Pergamon. Then the road leads south to Izmir, old Smyrna, and the evening flight to Ankara. Each card below opens a live GetYourGuide booking page.
Who is Telephos on the frieze, as told on this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara?
Telephos is a son of Heracles and the priestess Auge, hero of the smaller frieze in the altar court. Pergamon’s rulers claimed him as their ancestor. His tale is told on this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara, Tegea being the home of Auge.
Auge was the daughter of Aleus, king of Tegea in Arcadia, and a priestess of Athena Alea. Her name is glossed as sunbeam, daylight or dawn. Aleus is said to have founded the cult of Athena Alea and built her temple at Tegea. A frieze at Tegea, of the fourth century BC, is the earliest certain picture of Auge.
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The oldest fragment comes from the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, a poem of the sixth century BC. It sets Auge’s arrival and the birth of Telephos in Mysia, where Teuthras raises her. Other versions set these events in Arcadia. A lost Auge by Euripides is a source for the tale on this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara.
Mount Parthenion holds the baby in one version, left there by Aleus or by Auge. Diodorus has herdsmen hand him to a king named Corythus, who rears him as a son. Pausanias writes that Telephos was exposed on Mount Parthenius and suckled by a deer. He calls that account equally current among the people of Tegea.
The name Telephos has two readings, both heard on this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Apollodorus says a doe suckled the baby, and that he was called Telephos for that reason. A note by Frazer ties the name to the Greek words for a dug and a doe. The other reading is far-shining.
Tellings with a chest have Aleus send mother and child away on the sea. They reach the Mysian court, where Teuthras takes in Auge and raises the child as his own. In the other telling, a Delphic oracle sends Telephos to Mysia, where Teuthras, who has no sons, names him heir.
Teuthras gave his name to Teuthrania, a town of Mysia near Pergamon. The coast ruled by Telephos is also called Teuthrania in myth. Strabo says Teuthras adopted the youth as son and successor. Both names belong to the tale followed on this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara.
Attalid rulers claimed descent from Telephos, the mythical founder of Pergamon. Scholars say the family used this descent to support its claim to rule. The Pergamenes believed their town was founded soon after the Trojan War. Day two reaches the hill city of Pergamon on this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara.
For more on Cities, see Izmir Ephesus Biblical Cities Tour From Ankara.
Panels follow the story in order. Scholars read Heracles first seeing Auge in an oak grove. Carpenters then build the vessel in which she is set adrift. Teuthras finds her on the Mysian shore. Heracles finds the baby Telephos suckled not by a deer but by a lioness. Auge appears in more than one panel.
Greek viewers were used to single moments of action in architectural sculpture. This frieze asked them to move through time and place. Figures stand at different depths, architecture hints at rooms, and the landscapes are lush and scenic. It was painted once, but no significant colour remains.
After the Altes Museum, the slabs leaned against a wall. Later they were set into the colonnade of the Neues Museum, with viewing windows. Restoration ran in the middle of the nineteen-nineties, and the panels were reassembled. The panel once thought to be first moved to follow panel thirty-one.
How was the Sanctuary of Athena laid out near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara?
Doric columns of a temple from the late fourth century BC stood on the south-western terrace of the citadel. Stoas and a gateway followed near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara, Eumenes II being their builder.
The sanctuary was laid out on the south-western terrace of the upper citadel. The temple stands at the western edge, set far to the south, so the plain below can see it. The terrace of the Great Altar lies beneath, and the altar was built in line with the temple.
The temple faces north near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Dating rests on form, technique and alignment, which point to the late fourth century BC. The temple stands on a line between two old shrines of the Mother goddess. A German Archaeological Institute study reads that choice as a bridge to older cults.
Readers interested in Pergamon can open Pergamon and Sardis Biblical Cities Tour From Izmir.
Columns stood about 5.25 metres high and 0.75 metres across, with 1.62 metres between them. That spacing made the colonnade light for a temple of its age. The shafts were left unfluted, and rough bosses stayed on them. Over each gap the frieze has three triglyphs and three metopes, not two.
Eumenes II had two-storey stoas built around the temple on three sides. They rose near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Ionic columns carried the upper storey, under a Doric frieze of which five triglyphs and metopes survive. Wide gaps between temple and stoas kept the building in view from the court.
The balustrades of the upper storey on the north and east stoas carried reliefs of weapons. The German study notes the weapons are of different origins. A relief panel from that ornament belongs to the Berlin collection. The royal art collection was presumably housed there too.
The gateway, a marble propylon, occupied the south-east corner of the precinct. An inscription on it dedicated the precinct to Athena Nikephoros under Eumenes II. Garlands of oak and olive leaves ran along its entablature near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Ox skulls, offering bowls, eagles and owls joined the garlands.
More about Pergamon: Izmir Pergamon Biblical Cities Tour From Istanbul.
Reliefs of myth scenes decorated the gateway. Modest remains of an earlier gateway lie beneath the second-century one. They show that Attalos I had already enlarged the precinct. The Berlin Antikensammlung holds a reconstruction of the later gateway, with original marble pieces set into it.
A palace complex lay east of the precinct, and the street fronts of both are parallel. The gateway opens onto a square by a palace group near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Alignment of this kind, the German study argues, tied the cult of Athena to the royal quarter.
Two kinds of base stood in the temple square. A round base at the north-east corner of the temple carried a single statue set up by Attalos I. Its inscription says the king gave it to Athena. A long rectangular base held seven dedication texts, cut in the later third century BC.
Inscribed stone also stood in the precinct. A decree of Antioch on the Orontes ordered a stele for the sanctuary of Athena Nikephoros. It dates to the early second century BC. Two fragments came to light, one in the theatre and one on the slope below the temple.
A marble group of Herakles freeing Prometheus comes from the precinct near this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Bohn was an architect who joined the dig in eighteen seventy-nine. He wrote the volume on the sanctuary for the series Altertumer von Pergamon. Its title names Athena Polias Nikephoros, the last word meaning bestower of victory.
Izmir Sardes Biblical Cities Tour From Ankara covers Cities too.
What did Aelius Aristides write about Pergamon, as read along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara?
Aristides, an orator of the second century, wrote the six-book Sacred Tales and speeches praising Athens, Rome and Smyrna. One festival speech names Pergamon, a title to know along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Mysia, the region of Pergamon, was his home country.
Aristides was probably born at Hadriani, in the countryside of Mysia. His father was a landowner of means who arranged the finest schooling on offer. The boy began under Alexander of Cotyaeum at Smyrna. Alexander later became a tutor of Marcus Aurelius. Aristides then travelled to learn from the leading sophists, with studies in Athens and Alexandria.
Smyrna, where his lessons began, is the last stop along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Egypt crowned his schooling. His career as an orator began on that trip, with declamations at Cos, Cnidos, Rhodes and Alexandria. Upriver he hoped to find the source of the Nile, as the Egyptian Discourse recounts.
The Sacred Tales fill six books, and the Greek title is Hieroi Logoi. A reader can open them along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Asclepius, the healing god, appears in the text and gives Aristides omens and insights in dreams. He set about writing it in the later second century.
The Oxford Classical Dictionary calls the six books “in a class apart”. Scholars value them as evidence for the practices of temple medicine. They rate the Tales the fullest first-hand report of personal religious experience from any surviving writer of the old cults. Other scholars have applied psychoanalytic theories to the way he presents himself.
His output covers addresses, polemic, historical declamations and hymns in prose to the gods. Among them are speeches in praise of cities. Three speeches can be named along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Panathenaicus praises Athens. The Encomium on Rome praises Rome. A festival speech at Cyzicus concerns its temple.
Another page that includes Pergamon is Izmir Pergamon Tour From Ankara.
Five of his works concern Smyrna. The first Smyrnaean Oration walks a visiting official through the city. It gives the finest description of ancient Smyrna that survives. The others include a monody, a palinode and a letter. A bronze statue of him in Smyrna’s marketplace was inscribed for his goodness and speeches.
A scholarly study of the first and last of his Smyrna orations finds echoes of Plato’s Phaedrus. It argues that the landscape of Smyrna inspires the speaker, as the setting of the Phaedrus does. Aristides and Himerius both celebrate the Meles river and its short course. He likens the main street to a necklace on a statue.
Dindorf’s edition, printed at Leipzig in eighteen twenty-nine, holds fifty-five orations in two volumes. Only one title names Pergamon. A reader meets that title along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Panegyric is the label of the last oration, a festival speech about the water in Pergamon. The Sacred Tales fill numbers twenty-three to twenty-eight.
Scholars have catalogued 234 manuscripts of his works. The oldest are four papyrus fragments from the fifth to the seventh centuries. Codex A, the oldest medieval copy, dates to the early tenth century. The scribe John the Calligrapher wrote it for the archbishop Arethas of Caesarea. A manuscript of the eleventh century is the oldest nearly complete text.
Cities comes up again in Ephesus Pergamum Biblical Cities Tour From Izmir.
A reader can follow the text from papyrus to print along this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Aldus Manutius added two of these city speeches to his Isocrates in fifteen thirteen. The first full edition, the Juntine, appeared at Florence in fifteen seventeen. Willem Canter’s Latin translation, published at Basel in fifteen sixty-six, reordered the speeches.
Who were the Asiarchs, as met past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara?
Asiarchs were prominent officials of the Roman province of Asia, and the book of Acts, chapter nineteen, names them once. Their league and its temple are named past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Coins and texts record both.
The Greek title Asiarches reads as ruler of Asia. Equivalent titles are known in other provinces, among them Macedoniarch, Bithyniarch, Galatiarch and Lyciarch. Asiarchs are known from inscriptions. This route reaches Pergamon on day two, then returns south to Izmir, the old Smyrna of the book of Revelation.
Acts, chapter nineteen, verse thirty-one, tells that Asiarchs who were friends of Paul sent word to him. They urged him not to venture into the theatre. That verse is read past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Asiarchon, the Greek plural, occurs nowhere else in the Greek Testament.
Commentaries on Acts give the number as ten. One adds that the proconsul nominated one of them as president. It also says their duties followed the games and festivals from city to city. A third commentary calls it doubtful whether the office ran for one year or for four.
The Greek word koinon, in Latin concilium provinciae, names an assembly of delegates from the cities of a province. In thirty to twenty-nine BC the koina of Asia and Bithynia asked leave to worship Octavian as their saviour. Honours to him were joined with the goddess Roma, at cult centres planned for Pergamon and Nicomedia.
Pergamon also features in Ephesus Pergamon Tour From Ankara.
Cassius Dio wrote in Greek. The text of book fifty-one, chapter twenty, has Roman residents in two leading cities honour Rome and the hero Julius. Non-Romans, whom he styled Hellenes, were allowed to consecrate precincts to Caesar himself, the Asians at Pergamon. That passage is traced past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara.
Dio adds games to the same passage. The Pergamenes won leave to hold contests that he calls sacred, in honour of Caesar’s temple. A contest database names the Sebasta Rhomaia of Pergamon, established by the koinon of Asia. A runner from Miletos is listed among its entrants.
A French study dates the cult of Rome and Augustus to twenty-nine BC. The koinon founded it, and a yearly high priest, chosen from city notables, came with it. The title high priest of Asia appears soon after the Pergamon temple was founded. That office is recalled past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara.
Silver carries the temple’s image in a coin of the Berlin cabinet. The reverse shows a peripteral temple on a podium, with ROM ET AVGVST on the architrave. The legend reads COM ASIAE. The obverse carries the head of Augustus. The coin keeps that temple in view past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara.
Catalogue entries add detail. The coin weighs 11.65 grams and measures 25 millimetres. It was struck in the late first century BC. The catalogue describes the temple as one for the imperial cult of the Greeks in the province of Asia. It dates the temple’s dedication at Pergamon to twenty-seven BC and calls the mint’s identity disputed.
A related page on Cities: Izmir Ephesus Biblical Cities Tour From Istanbul.
The Priene calendar text is a Greek inscription found on two stones in the marketplace of Priene. Copies are known from Apamea and Eumeneia. It records an edict of the proconsul Paullus Fabius Maximus. A decree of the province accepted the edict, and the text is dated to nine BC.
The text makes the provincial year begin on the birthday of the god Augustus. Such a text shows the league at work past this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Apollonius, the high priest, gave the opinion that the Greeks of Asia adopted at Smyrna.
What did Strabo and Pausanias write of Pergamon, as read beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara?
Strabo describes Pergamon in book thirteen of his Geography. Pausanias tells how the city got its name, and Pliny names its rivers. Their pages sit beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara, Vitruvius and Plutarch adding single lines.
Strabo was born into a well-off family at Amaseia in Pontus, in the first century BC. Aristodemus taught him rhetoric and grammar at Nysa, and Tyrannion of Amisus taught him grammar too. He travelled through Asia Minor, Egypt and Rome. His Geography is written in Greek and has seventeen books.
Book thirteen of the Geography covers the northern Aegean lands. Strabo treats Pergamon in its fourth chapter. He says its people lived on the very summit of the mountain. That hill is met beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Prosperity, he adds, lasted a long time along with the Attalic kings.
A related page on Pergamon: Pergamon Tour From Izmir.
The Geography survives in part in a palimpsest of the fifth century. The earliest manuscripts of books one to nine date to the tenth century. One thirteenth-century manuscript holds the whole text. Those copies are read beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Venice issued the first printed edition in the early sixteenth century.
Pausanias came, scholars think, from Lydia in Asia Minor. He travelled Greece from about the middle of the second century AD. His Description of Greece has ten books, each given to one part of mainland Greece. The regions run from Attica to Ozolian Locris. Its Greek title is Hellados Periegesis.
In book one, chapter eleven, Pausanias tells that Pergamos, a son of Pyrrhus and Andromache, named the city after himself. The tale is told beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Andromache, who went with him, had a shrine in the city. Scholars date a small heroon of Pergamos the founder to about the third century BC.
In book one, chapter five, Pausanias counts Attalus the Mysian among those who gave their names to Athenian tribes. All surviving manuscripts of his work appear to depend on one lost copy. Niccoli held that copy in Florence in the early fifteenth century. The Aldine Press at Venice printed the Greek text in the early sixteenth century.
Pliny the Elder was born at Como and wrote thirty-seven books of Natural History for Titus. Book five places Pergamon on the Selinus, bordered by the Cetius, which flows down from Mount Pindasus. These names are read beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Thyatireni and Mygdones, he adds, take the Pergamene district as their centre.
Another page that includes Pergamon is Izmir Pergamon Tour From Istanbul.
Pliny says King Attalus invented gold embroidery in Asia, and Attalic robes took their name from him. In another book he tells that King Attalus bid for a picture by the Theban painter Aristides. Venice printed the Natural History in the late fifteenth century, among the first classical works to be printed.
Vitruvius wrote On Architecture in ten books, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. Scholars date the work between about thirty and twenty BC. In book two he lists a palace for the Attalic kings at Tralles among his examples of brick walls. The oldest surviving manuscript was written in Germany in the early ninth century.
Plutarch was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia and lived into the second century AD. In On Brotherly Love, Attalus lays aside the crown and goes with the guard to meet the king. That passage names Pergamon, and it is read beside this Izmir Pergamon biblical cities tour from Ankara. Greeting follows: the king receives Attalus with an embrace.