The Persians counter-attacked and defeated the lonians at Ephesus. Thus began the Ionian Revolt, which dragged on for fîve years and eventually involved ali of the Greek cities in northwestern Asia Minör. The Persians eventually crushed the revolt, end-ing the campaign when their Phoenician fleet destroyed the Ionian navy at the battle of Lade in 494 B.C. Western Asia Minör then remained under Persian rule until 334 B.C, when Alexander the Great freed the Greek cities along the Aegean coast soon after his victory at the Granicus, occupying Dascylium and Sardis without a struggle. Arrian, in his work on The Campaigns of Alexander, written in the mid-second century A.D., describes Alexander's visit to Sardis immediately after his capture of the city:

While he was in Sardis he went up into the acropolis, where the Persian garrison was stationed, and saw at a glance that this fortress, built as it was on a lofty and precipitous hill and defended by a triple wall, was an extremely strong position.

İt occurred to him to build here a temple and altar in honor of Oiympian Zeus, and while he was considering the best site a summer storm, breaking suddenly with violent thunder and a fail of rain över the palace of the Lydian kings, persuaded him that Zeus himself had indicated the spot where his temple should be raised; so he gave his orders accordingly.

 

After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. Lydia became part of the eleucid kingdom, and following the battle of Magnesia in 189 B.C. it was awarded to Pergamum. in 129 B.C, after the end of the Pergamene kingdom, Sardis became part of the Roman prov-i-ıce of Asia. Sardis remained as prosperous under Roman rule as 't had been under the Persians, as much of the trade of Asia Minör -ontinued to pass through the city along the Royal Road. Along ith the other cities of western Asia Minör, Sardis reached its ak under the Romans in the second century A.D., when its popu-lation exceeded 100,000. During the reign of Diocletian (r. 284-305) Sardis became capital of the Roman province of Lydia, re-laining that distinction up until the reorganization of Asia Minör in Üıe medieval Byzantine era.

During the early Byzantine period Sardis became an important center of Christianity, another of the Seven Churches of Revelation, its first bishop being St. Clement. As we read in Revelation 3:1-6:

Write to the angel of the church in Sardis and say, "Here is the message of the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I know ali about you: how you are reputed to be alive and yet are dead. Wake up; revive what little you have left: it is dying fast. So far I have failed to notice anything in the way you live that my God could possibly cali perfect, and yet do you remember how eager you were when you first heard the message? Hold on to that. Repent. | If you do not wake up I will come to you like a thief, without telling you at what hour to expect me. There are a few in Sardis, it is true, who have kept their robes from being dirtied, and they are fit to come with me, dressed in white. Those who prove victorious will be dressed, like these. in white robes: I shall not blot their names out of the book of life, but acknowledge their names in the presence of my Father and his angels. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches."

 

Sardis was stili a considerable city during the early centuries of the Byzantine era, but then in 616 it was utterly destroyed by the

Sassanid Persian king Chosroes II in his invasion of Asia Minör. Sardis never fully recovered from this catastrophe, and thenceforth it was reduced to the status of a provincial town, having lost for-ever its ancient splendor. During the remainder of the Byzantine period Sardis almost disappears from the pages of history, men-tioned only in passing by an occasional chronicler. Then in 1425 it became part of the Ottoman Empire, diminished to the status of a kaza, a mere administrative center in the province of Aydın. When Chandler visited Sardis in 1765 he reported that it had degenerated to a "miserable village" surrounded by the ruins of its illustrious past, its most conspicuous monument being the edifice now identi-fied as the temple of Artemis.

Opposite the car park near the temple we see the headquarters of the Harvard-Cornell Expedition, the archaeological team that is excavating Sardis. The first systematic excavation of Sardis, fo-cusing on the temple here by the Pactolus, was carried out in 1910-14 by the Princeton Expedition, headed by H. C. Butler. Nothing further was done until 1958, when the Harvard-Cornell Exploration project was begun under the direction of George M. A. Hanfmann, with the excavations continuing annually to the present day. The early excavators assumed that they were unearth-ing the temple of Cybele mentioned by Herodotus and other an­cient writers, but inscriptions were soon discovered indicating that it was actually a temple of Artemis. Archaeologists have since discovered a shrine of Cybele elsewhere in the excavations, and thus it appears that both goddesses were worshipped in Sardis. But an historian of ancient religion would say that they were both different forms of the same deity, the great fertility goddess of Anatolia.

The original shrine of Artemis on this site was a large sand-stone altar dating from the end of the fifth century B.C., located just to the west of the present temple on its longitudinal axis. Early in the third century B.C., under the Seleucids, construction began on the first phase of a west-facing Ionic temple dedicated to Artemis, with the edifice incorporating the earlier altar at its west-

 

em end. This temple was a long and narrow stnıcture with a pronaos one-third the length of the inner sanctuary, and with a very shal-low opisthodomos. The cella of the temple was covered with a roof, supported by the outer walls and an internal colonnade in two rows. During the second building phase, which took place ca. 175-150 B.C., work was begun on the erection of a peristasis, or peripheral colonnade, with eight columns on each of the ends and twenty to a side. During that period only twelve columns of the peripteral colonnade were erected at the east end of the temple, as well as six more in the rear porch. The third phase of construction took place during the years A.D. 136-61, the reign of Antoninus Pius, when the peripteral colonnade was completed except for seven columns in the west front. During this final phase of construction the cella was divided into two halves by a cross wall, with the western half of the sanctuary stili sacred to Artemis, but with the eastern chamber now dedicated to the late empress Faustina, who was deified af ter her death in 141. The Harvard-Cornell team has now cleared the temple and its immediate vicinity, establishing the plan of the edifice in its various stages of construction. A number of column drums have been erected and two of the columns stili stand to their full height, capped with their superb Ionic capitals, an impressive sight when viewed against the background of the acropolis hill on its jagged spur of Mt. Tmolus.

Beside the southeast corner of the temple we see the remains of a small Byzantine chapel of the fourth century known as Church M. This is one of five Byzantine churches unearthed on the ar­chaeological site. Those who built Church M next to the temple of Artemis were aware that the earlier sanctuary was a sacred place of great antiquity, and they took pains to exorcise the evil spirits that they believed inhabited it. As Clive Foss writes in his Byzan­tine and Ottoman Sardis: "Crosses were carved on the temple of Artemis to nullify the power of the demons who, it was believed, dwelt in the material of pagan edifices."

The acropolis hill rises to a peak some 1,500 meters east of the ple. The last part of the ascent is via a narrow and vertiginous

path, where one is reminded of the account that Herodotus gives of the difficulties that the Persians had here in their siege of Sardis in 546 B.C, writing that their final assault was made on *'a section of the central stronghold so precipitous as to be almost inacces-sible." There are remains of a Lydian defense wall on the acropo-lis dating back to at least the sixth century B.C., though most of the fortifications one sees there today are Byzantine works of the sixth or seventh century A.D. One of the lower terraces of the hill is riddled with underground tombs of the Roman period. One of these is the grave of a Roman named Flavius Chrysanthios, who decorated his tomb with garlands of flowers and a dedicatory in-scription; another is painted with a gorgeous depiction of a pea-cock, symbol of eternal life, along with bowls of fruit and flowers. The ruins on the summit of the acropolis hill also include the foundations of a palace of the archaic period, undoubtedly the imperial residence of the kings of the Mermnadae dynasty. The summit commands a panoramic view of the entire archaeological site, most of which is spread out along the east bank of the Pactolus and on both sides of the highway east of üıe village of Sartmustafa. Hamilton's description of the view reveals that the scene has suf-fered little change since his day; as he writes:

The view from this lofty summit was truly magnificent: to the north the Hermus. winding through its rich plain, was hacked by distant hills and the broad expanse of the Gygaean lake; stili farther to the west were the tumuli of the Lydian kings; while the continuation of the broken and rugged line of sand hills which skirt the base of Mount Tmolus was prolonged to the east and west of the spot on which we stood. To the south were the snow-capped peaks of Mount Tmolus; while the deep intermediate space was broken into many hills and dales, either cultivated or covered with flourishing brushwood.

Retuming to the temple of Artemis, we now head back along the river road toward the village. The main necropolis of ancient Sardis was across the river from the temple, where we see a num-

 

r of rock-hewn tombs ranging from the sixth century B.C. to the Roman era. There are also burials on the east side of the river. About halfway along the road, where it descends to cross a ravine, a path leads off to the right to the so-called Pyramid Tomb, which is halfway up the side of the gorge at a height of some 300 meters. Professor Hanfmann believed this to be the tomb of the Persian nobleman Abradates and his wife Pantheia. The iden-tification is based on Xenophon's account of the Persian siege of Sardis in 546 B.C, when Abradates was killed in action and Pantheia committed suicide över his body, which so moved King Cyrus that he built a mausoleum for them high on the hillside above the Pactolus.

We now come to the part of the archaeological site known as Pactolus North. Between the river and the road here archaeologists have uncovered an early Christian basilica and a Byzantine church of the medieval era (known as Churches E and EA, respectively), as well as a late Roman villa and bath, a Lydian gold refinery, and an altar of Cybele. The refinery and the altar are dated to the mid-sixth century B.C, perhaps to the reign of Croesus. The dedication of a shrine to Cybele here is a testimony to her role as a mountain goddess, the protectress of the Lydian gold sources on Mt. Tmolus, washed down to the Sardian plain by the Pactolus. The earliest reference to a sanctuary of Cybele in Sardis is by the lyric poet Alcman, who flourished in the second half of the seventh century B.C. Alcman may have been born in Sardis, though he was raised in Sparta, as he says proudly in one of his surviving fragments:

Ancient Sardis, abode of my fathers, had I been reared in you I should have been a maund-bearer unto Cybele or beaten tambours as one of her gilded eunuches; but instead my name is Alcman and my home Sparta, town of prize tripods, and the lore I know is of the Muses of Helicon, who have made me a greaıer king even than Gyges, son of Dascylus.

We now pass through the village to visit the part of the ar-

 

 

chaeological site across the highway to its east, where the excava-tions have unearthed an enormous Roman civic center. This was begun after a catastrophic earthquake in the year A.D. 17. Some of its most monumental structures were not completed for another two centuries, remaining in continual use from then on into the medieval Byzantine era. The eastern half of the complex was de-signed as a gymnasium, with the western half comprising its asso-ciated baths and athletic faciüties. The central area of this com-plex, the Marble Court, has now been reconstructed. its most im-pressive feature is the monumental two-storied arcade adorning the eastern propylon of the courtyard, where one passes from the palaestra, or exercise area, into the baths. An inscription över the columns records that this edifıce was dedicated in A.D. 211-12 to Julia Donma, wife of the Empeıoi Sepiinıiııs Severus (r. 193-211) and their sons Caracalla (r. 211-17) and Geta (r. 211-12). The Corinthian capitals of the columns have heads of gods, fauns and satyrs peering out from among the acanfhus leaves, a delightful feature found in no other Graeco-Roman building in Asia Minör. The Marble Court is an outstanding example of the Roman ba-roque style of architecture, which was beginning to appear in the early third century A.D. Most of the eastern half of the court was taken up with the palaestra. This huge colonnaded court, which has also been reconstructed, has a long süite of rooms at its south-ern end that apparently served as dressing chambers or lecture halis.

One particularly interesting discovery made by the Harvard-Cornell Expedition is the ancient Sardis synagogue, which in late Roman times occupied the long apsidal area in the gymnasium south of the palaestra. This is the largest ancient synagogue known, and its size and grandeur are evidence of the prosperity and emi-nence of the Jewish community in Roman Sardis. The building dates from the period A.D. 220-50, and it appears to have been erected as part of the gymnasium, only to be converted into a synagogue somewhat later. Evidence of a much earlier synagogue is given by the Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the latter half

of the first century A.D. He quotes decrees of both Julius Caesar and Augustus guaranteeing the Jews of Sardis the right, which apparently they had long enjoyed, of meeting in worship together in their own congregation. There is reason to believe that the Jew­ish community in Sardis dated back to the end of the Lydian period, to the days of Croesus. The Sardis synagogue has now been splendidly restored, an outstanding example of Roman archi­tecture without parallel in Asia Minör.

The southern side of the gymnasium was converted into an arcade of vaulted shops early in the Byzantine period. The shops faced a similar arcade on the other side of the avenue, part of the Persian Royal Road, now covered by the modern highway. The twenty-nine structures that have been excavated here date from the fourth century A.D. These were ali used for commercial enter-prises, many of the establishments identified by inscriptions giv-ing the name of the owner. One of the shopkeepers, a man named Jacob, is also identified as an elder in the synagogue.

The part of the archaeological site south of the highway here is known as the Lydian market area, since it appears to have been the agora of Sardis during the time of the Mermnadae, as evidenced by pottery shards of that period. it continued to be a commercial quarter for a full thousand years afterwards. The majör structure in this area is known as the House of the Bronzes, from the Iarge number of bronze objects found here. The most outstanding pieces are now exhibited in the Manisa Museum. The House of Bronzes has been dated to the mid-sixth century A.D. Liturgical objects and an altar found here have led to the suggestion that it was the home of a Christian dignitary, perhaps the Bishop of Sardis. An­other recent discovery in this area is a stretch of the ancient Lydian city wall, a massive structure of unbaked brick some 20 meters thick. The wall has been dated to the mid-seventh century B.C., while an older fortification wall beneath it appears to date from the eighth century B.C. or perhaps even earlier.

There are other ancient structures on both sides of the highway about a kilometers or so east of the Pactolus. Just to the north of

                                   

                              

 

 

marble piers, supporting brick arches; but the greater part of the brick work is göne, enough only remaining to show the spring of the arches. it is nearly 200 feet long, its greatest length being from east to west, and having a semicircular termination, like the bema of the Greek churches, at both ends, but which does not appear extemally. The other, higher up the fiili, consisted also of brick arches raised upon six marble piers, made up entirely of architectural fragments plundered from former buildings. Corinthian and lonic mouldings, shafts of columns, friezes, architraves, and fragments of entabla-tures, are ali worked together with a large quantity of cement: but only four of these piers are now standing.

Some travelers have too hastily concluded that this was the church of Sardis to which allusion is made in the Apocalypse, but besides that the expression can only have referred to the community of Chris-tians then established, the nature of the structure above described shows that its date must have been at least posterior to the overthrow of the Pagan religion and the destruction of the temples, towards the end of the fouıth century.

The theater appears to be of Roman construction; it is entirely built of loose rubble, except the wings of the cavea, which are faced with stone; the marble seats, the proscenium and scena, are ali göne. Immediately in front, and crossing it at right angles, are the remains of the stadium, the northern side of which have been artifıcially formed by a wall supported on arches running along the side of the hill.

From hence ascending to the S.E. we soon reached a level platform, on which were the foundation of a small square building, beautifully situated, and from whence we had a splendid view över the plain, bounded by the bold outline of the Phrygian mountains; while to the south the hills of the Acropolis towered up in wild confusion, hav­ing, from the soft nature of their sandy beds, been worn by snows and storms into a variety of fantastic shapes, whilst, wherever the roots could hold, the dwarf ilex, arbutus, and other shrubs flourished luxuriantly.

These, then, are the ruins cf ancient Sardis, of which the poet

Bacchylides wrote in the first half of the fifth century B.C., la-menting the destruction by fire of the Lydian capital in the Ionian Revolt: "Lo, how it hath ceased, the golden city!"

We now head back eastward along highway E96/300, and some two kilometers along we turn right on highway 45-29, signposted for Birgi and Ödemiş. As we drive southward the view to our east is dominated by the Boz Dağlan, whose highest peak rises to an elevation of 2,197 meters. Some 30 kilometers along we pass on our right a turnoff for Gölcük, a drive of six kilometers. Gölcük (Tiny Lake), at an elevation of 970 meters, is a small crater lake in a beautiful setting. it has now been made into a popular resort.

Beyond the Gölcük turnoff the main road winds down through a series of hairpin tums and then, after seven kilometers, brings us to Birgi. This pretty and unspoiled village is the site of Byzantine Pyrgion, whose name it preserves in only slightly different form. Early in the fourteenth century Pyrgion was taken by the Emir of Aydın, after which it came to be called Birgi. Birgi was taken by Beyazit I in 1390, but after his defeat and death at the battle of Ankara in 1402 the town reverted to the Emir of Aydın. Birgi was then captured by Mehmet I in 1425, after which it remained a permanent part of the Ottoman Empire. The oldest part of town is the acropolis hill known as the Kale, where the houses are built on and against the walls of the Byzantine citadel.

The principal monument in Birgi is the Ulu Cami, built on the acropolis hill in 1312 by Mehmet Bey, Emir of Aydın. The build­ing is preceded by a nineteenth-century porch supported by eight wooden pillars. The mosque itself is constructed with marble blocks taken from some ancient building. The minaret is unusual. it rises from the southwest corner of the mosque, its shaft decorated with glazed bricks in red and turquoise arranged in rows of lozenges and zigzags. At the southeast corner of the mosque on its exterior there is a lion carved in high relief, a feature showing Selçuk influence.

The prayer room is the usual forest of columns typical of an Ulu Cami of this period, with sixteen slender marble monoliths

                              

 

 

arranged in four rows of four each. This divides the room into five north-south aisles, the central aisle being slightly wider than the others. The aisles are divided by arcades, in each of which the columns support a row of six archcs of slightly ovoidal shape. The two southemmost columns of the central aisle are connected by a lateral arch, forming a square bay in front of the mihrab that is covered by a dome on straight triangular pendentives. The span-drels of the lateral arch in front of the mihrab are decorated with an inscription from the Koran and geometrical patterns in bi-col-ored faience mosaic. The mihrab is adomed with Selçuk faience mosaic in turquoise and manganese black; the stalactite niche in the rectangular frame is decorated with varying patterns in the same type of tiles, and below this is a panel with geometric inter-lacing. The walnut mimber, which is covered with calligraphic inscriptions, is a fine specimen of Selçuk carving, as are the shut-ters of the eight windows.

The türbe of Mehmet Bey, which is dated by an inscription to 1334, is attached to the northwest corner of the mosque. The dome, which is made of red and turquoise bricks, rests on a drum carried by four pendentives decorated with faience mosaics. The grave-yard surrounding the mosque has a large number of beautifully carved Turkish tombstones of the fourteenth and fifteenth centu-ries.

Another important monument in Birgi is the Çalar Ağa Konağı, which in its present form dates from the last quarter of the eigh-teenth century. This is one of the finest extant examples of an Ottoman konak, or mansion, preserving its original carved ceilings and painted panels depicting vases of flowers and panoramas of istanbul and İzmir, it is one of the most charming dwellings in ali of Turkey, no w splendidly restored.

We leave Birgi on the road for Ödemiş, a drive of 9 kilometers to the west. We then continue on from Ödemiş on highway 310, which takes us southwest to tlkkurşunköy, after which it heads westward along the north bank of the Küçükmenderes Nehri, or Little Maeander River, the ancient Cayster. Then, after passing

Derebaşı, we continue along highway 310 as it abruptly turns south, soon crossing the Küçükmenderes. We then turn left on a road signposted for Tire, to which we come after a drive of five kilome­ters, approaching the town through a vast grove of poplars.

Tire has been identified as the ancient Thyrra, which in the early fourteenth century was captured from the Byzantin.es by the Emir of Aydın. Beyazit I took Tire in 1390, but after he was defeated by Tamerlane the town reverted to Cüneyt Bey, who was then Emir of Aydın. After the death of Cüneyt Bey the town was restored to the Ottoman Empire in 1425 by Murat II.

The most important monument in Tire is Yahşi Bey Camii, built in 1441 by a general of Murat II. The mosque is preceded by a five-bay portico, now in ruins except for the ornate stalactite entrance porch. The minaret rises from the northeast corner of the building. The plan is an inverted T, with the domed central hail flanked by a pak of side chambers covered by smaller domes. On the south the deep mihrab apse, covered by a semidpme with 22 flutes, forms a bold projection on the exterior of the building. This

 

 

is the earliest example in Ottoman architecture of a structure with a semidome extending from the main dome. The building now houses the Tire Museum, which has antiquities from archaeologi-cal sites in the region as well as an extensive ethnographical col-lection.

The Ulu Cami of Tire was built at the beginning of the fif-teenth century by Cüneyt Bey when he was Emir of Aydın. Unfor-tunately it was gutted in a great fire, it has been largely rebuilt in concrete, and so is now of little architectural interest.

Besides the two edifices above, there are at least 29 other his-toric mosques of the beylik and Ottoman period stili standing in Tire. These are, in approximate chronological order: Çanakçı Mescidi (1338); Hafsa Hatun Camii (mid-fourteenfh century), founded by a daughter of İsa Bey, the Emir of Aydın; Doğan Bey Camii (fourteenth century); Kazıroğlu Camii (fourteenth century); Mehmet Bey Camii (fourteenth century); Kara Kadı Mecdettin Camii (fourteenth century); Gucur Camii (ca. 1400); Leyse Camii (early fifteenth century); Karahasan Camii (early fifteenth cen­tury); Hüsamettin Camii (early fifteenth century); Kara Hayrettin Paşa Camii (early fifteenth century); Süratli Mehmet Bey Camii (early fifteenth century); Gazazhane Camii (1457); Narin Camii (fifteenth century); Yoğurtçuoğlu Camii (fifteenth century); Kazanoğlu Camii (fifteenth century); Molla Çelebi Camii (fifteenth century); Rum Mehmet Paşa Camii (ca. 1475, founded by a vezier of Mehmet II); Fadıloğlu Camii (late fifteenth century); Molla Arap Camii (late fifteenth century); Tahtakale Camii (1498); Neslihan Camii (ca. 1510); Lütfü Paşa Camii (early sixteenth cen­tury); Şeyh Camii (second half of sixteenth century); Yeni Cami (late sixteenth century); Yalınak Camii (end of sixteenth century); Hamza Ağa Camii (second half of seventeenth century); Hacı Mehmet Ali Camii (1799); Alabey Camii (1813); Yunus Emir Camii (late nineteenth century).

The bedesten in the center of town is believed to date from the late fifteenth century. Three massive piers divide the vast hail into eight lofty bays covered by domes on spherical pendentives. The

outer periphery of the bedesten is lined with vaulted shops, thirty-two in ali, with those at the ends flanking the two entrances.

Other monuments in Tire include: the Süleyman Şah Türbesi (1349); İbn Melek Türbesi (fourteenth century); the Eski Hamam (fifteenth century); the Mir Ali Hanı (fifteenth century); the Neşetoğlu Konağı (nineteenth century); and the delightful library (kütüphane) of Bağdadi Necib Paşa (nineteenth century). The Neşetoğlu Konağı is at No. 12 Kazıroğlu Sokağı in the district known as Yahudiyan, whose name reveals that this is the old Jewish quarter. However, the last Jewish family left Tire in the 1970s.

We leave Tire and head westward on highway 35-36. About 22 kilometers out of Tire we begin to look on the left of the road for two ancient funerary monuments, both of which are to be found some three kilometers to the east of the village of Belevi.

The first monument that we come to, on a low hill beside the road, is known as the Belevi Mausoleum. This has at its core a squared mass of living rock about 25 meters on a side and 15 meters high, formed by cutting away the surrounding hillside. The rock was faced with marble blocks and approached by a flight of marble steps, with a Doric frieze carved at its top. This served as the base of a marble tomb, with a pyramidal roof surmounted by a quadriga, or four-horse chariot. The monument is surrounded by a Corinthian colonnade topped by pairs of winged lions flanking globular urns. Excavation of the Belevi Mausoleum revealed an ornately carved sareophagus, now in the Ephesus Museum in Selçuk. On the lid of the sareophagus there is a carving in high relief of the deceased, who is shown reclining on his elbow. The sides are decorated with reliefs representing eleven Sirens, the winged female creatures who conduet the soul of the deceased to the world of the dead. Other parts of the monument are also preserved in the museum, ineluding the statues of the winged lions that önce stood on the roof. Archaeo-logical and historical evidence have led to the general agreement that the Belevi monument was created in the mid-third century B.C. it was most probably the tomb of the Seleucid king Antiochus II Theos, who died at Ephesus in 246 B.C. Ancient sources state that Antiochus was probably killed by his estranged fırst wife and half sister, Laodice, who had attempted a reconciliation with the king but failed. She then poisoned him.

The second monument is on the hill to the west of the Belevi Mausoleum. This has the shape of a natural tumulus formed from the conical summit of the hill itself, which is surrounded by a well-built wall of ashlar masonry. The entrance is on the south side, where a tunnel nearly 20 meters long burrows into the hill to the core of the tumulus, where there are two burial chambers. The archaeologists who excavated the mound found no sarcophagi in the chambers, which were looted in antiquity. No inscription has been found, but from its size, situation and workmanship the monu­ment has been dated to the fourth or third century B.C. it was probably the tomb of a wealthy dignitary.

We now continue on past Belevi to highway E87/550, where we turn right to head towards izmir, crossing the Küçükmenderes önce again. As we do so we see the ruins of a fortress on a craggy peak just to the west of the highway. This rough structure is called Keçi Kalesi, the Goat's Castle. it was a Byzantine fortress erected to guard the northern approach to Ephesus along the valley of the

Cayster.

After a drive of about 18 kilometers we come to Torbalı. Here we make a detour to the site of ancient Metropolis, whose ruins are to be found some five kilometers to the southwest on the north slope of Alaman Dağı. Metropolis takes its name from the Mother Goddess, in Greek, "Mitera," to whom it was dedicated. it is men­tioned by Strabo as a town on the road from Smyrna to Ephesus renowned for its excellent wine. Metropolis is also mentioned by Pliny the Younger as one of the free cities that issued coins under Roman rule. Metropolis began to issue coins in the first century B.C, and the supposition is that prior to then the city was subject to Ephesus. The only visible remains of Metropolis were its the-ater and fragments of its defense walls. Recently the Turkish ar-chaeologist Recep Meriç has unearthed the agora, a gymnasium and a stoa, as well as pottery shards dating back to 725 B.C.

We now retum to Torbalı and turn off on to highway 35-26, signposted for Kemalpaşa. After passing turnoffs to Dağkızılca, about two-thirds of the way to Kemalpaşa the road goes through the Karabel Pass. On the right is Mahmut Dağı (1,372 meters), the ancient Mt. Drakon, and on the left Nif Dağı, another one of the peaks that in antiquity was known as Olympus. As we go through the pass we see ahead an ornamental archway över the road, at which point we pull över to look for the famous Karabel relief. This is about 20 meters above the right side of the road, where we see a figüre cut in low relief in a panel on the rock facing south. The figüre is somewhat larger than life, representing a marching \varrior wearing a short tunic or kilt, a short-sleeved vest, a conical headdress, and boots upturned at the toes. He holds a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left. in the upper right-hand corner of the panel there are traces of a hieroglyphic inscription. There was an identical relief on the other side of the road, but this has since disappeared. The surviving relief is very similar to representations of Hittite deities found east of Ankara at Boğazkale, the ancient

                              

 

 

Hittite capital of Hattusha. The Karabel relief may represent the weather god Teshuba, and it is thought to date from the period of the New Hittite Empire, ca. 1500-1200 B.C. This is almost cer-tainly one of the reliefs mentioned by Herodotus in Book ü of his Histories, where he describes them as figures of the Egyptian king Sesostris. (Sesostris was an almost mythical figüre among the Greeks, but it is now known that his name was bome by three pharaohs in the first two centuries of the second millennium B.C.) As Herodotus writes:

in Ionia also there are two images of Sesostris cut on rock, one on the road from Ephesus to Phocaea, the other between Sardis and Smyrna; in each case the carving is nearly seven feet high and repre-sents a man with a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, and the rest of his equipment to match—partly Egyptian and partly Ethio-pian. Across his breast from shoulder to shoulder runs an inscription in the Egyptian sacred script: "By the strength of my shoulders I won this land." The name and country of the conqueror are not here recorded, and some who have seen the image suppose it to represent Memnon [a mythical king of Ethiopia]; however they are wide of the mark, for Sesostris has made the truth plain enough elsewhere.

Herodotus was unaware of the Hittites, and virtually nothing was known of their empire until the rediscovery of their civiliza-tion by modern archaeologists. The first Greeks who saw the re­liefs at Karabel seem to have thought that the kilted figures were the women \varriors they called the Amazons. This may have given rise to some of the founding legends of the Aeolian cities. The Karabel relief is now known to the Turks as Eti Baba, or Father Hittite.

We now continue along the road to Kemalpaşa, a small town on the Nif Çayı, a stream known to tJıe Greeks as Kryos Potamos, the "Cold River." Kemalpaşa is the ancient Nymphaeum, which would seem to have taken its name from a river shrine sacred to the nymphs. This was shortened to Nymphi and later stili to Nif,

taking its present name under the Turkish Republic in honor of Mustafa Kemal Paşa, later to be called Atatürk.

Little is known of Nymphaeum in ancient times other than as a stopping place on the road from Smyrna to Sardis. A Roman bath in Nymphaeum was dedicated to the emperor Nero (r. 54-68), who was worshipped there together with Apollo and Artemis.

At the western end of the town we see the ruins of a Byzantine palace built by Andronicus I Comnenus (r. 1183-85). This served as an imperial residence for the emperors of the Lascarid dynasty during the Latin occupation of Constantinople in the years 1204-61, when the Byzantine capital was in Nicaea. The Emperor John III Vatatzes died in the palace at Nymphaeum in. 1254. Michael VIII Palaeologus met here with the Genoese ambassadors Guglielmo Vesconte and Guarnerio Giudice to negotiate the historic Treaty of Nymphaeum. This was signed in the palace on 13 March 1261, five months before the Greeks recaptured Constantinople from the Lat-ins. The treaty established an alliance between Byzantium and Genoa that was to endure up until the fail of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. it gave the Genoese lucrative commercial concessions and allowed them to build fortresses to protect the trading colonies they established along the coasts of Asia Minör. Nymphaeum fell to one of the Saruhan emirs in 1313 and was later captured by the Emir of Aydın, in 1415 it was taken by Mehmet I, after which it remained a permanent part of the Ottoman Empire.

After leaving Kemalpaşa we continue in the same direction until we come to highway E96/300. Then we turn westward for izmir, a drive of 19 kilometers that takes us över the Belkahve Pass at an altitude of 262 meters. Yamanlar Dağı and Mt. Sipylus are to the north and to the south is the Lydian Olympus, Nif Dağı. As we descend into the plain we see off to the west the massed houses of izmir shining at the head of the Symrnaic Gulf. This completes our tour of the region önce known as Lydia.