Travelogue1 Pergamum

Pergamum

Before I even begin to mention Pergamum (Pergamon), please note that during this day I accidentally had my camera in aperture mode and many of the pictures have either come out too light or too dark. I will, one day, sit down and edit the photos and re-publish them.

The history of Pergamum is somewhat mystifying. There appears to be no genuine consensus on who or what culture started using the site, or when, but clearly it was used as far back as the Bronze Age. Its strategic position, elevation, and evident water supply suggests only a group of blind nomads would have given it a wide berth. It does seem, however, that other sites were considered more favourable for various reasons, including access to the sea, but by 560 BC there is documented evidence that the Lydion King, Croesus, had the settlement under his control. The Persians soon arrived and defeated Croesus, taking Pergamum into their hands, and along with it all of Anatolia. Pergamum was not ruled by force, but rather it was a free city under jurisdiction of the Persians, and it had to pay taxes and provide personnel for military campaigns when required.

In 334 BC the mighty Alexander the Great defeated the Persian king Darius III near the city of Troy, although Darius himself was not at the battle, and Pergamum came under the rule of the Macedonians. Eleven years later after the death of Alexander, the massive empire created by Alexander was divided among his generals and Lycimachus was given control of Anatolia and thus Pergamum. The city was quickly turned into a military base with great riches stored within.

The subsequent seventy years are a confusing tale of cheating and backstabbing and the city changes hands so many times the detail will confuse even the most scholarly individual, but by 263 BC things settle at Pergamum under the rule of Eumenes I, and the city flourished as an arts centre until 241 BC. Attalos I, Eumenes’ successor, continues in his footsteps but many wars ensue against the local Galatians, each one a victory for the hill-top city. Pergamum expands and builds and becomes more powerful and Eumenes II, the next heir, turns Pergamum into one of the most important cities in the world after defeating all his enemies. It is during this time that many of Pergamum’s famous monuments were built – the altar of Zeus, the Temple of Athena and the great library, and there was also an expansion of the asclepeion.

Eumenes II died in 159 BC and the city continued to be handed down from father to son to brother to nephew until Attalos III came to power. It appears Attalos was uninterested in state affairs and instead concentrated on the sciences. By doing so he handed the city of Pergamum over to the Romans in 133 BC. His brother, Aristonikos, objected to the decision and started a riot in the city but his jaunt was quickly overrun and he was taken to Rome and murdered. The Romans continued to control the city; the Temple of Trajan was built and the Temple of Dionysus renovated.

The library of Pergamum was the second largest in the world and contained a vast selection of books, apparently numbering 200,000. The knowledge contained within must have been immense. Sometime around 35 BC Marc Antony took the entire contents of the library to Alexandria and gave them to Cleopatra as a wedding or birthday gift. That’s some gift! The volumes stayed in Alexandria until 640 AD when Muslim invaders burned the entire collection to dust, citing their disagreement with the Koran as the reason. I can only close my eyes and shake my head… Imagine what was lost – Greek philosophy, unknown plays and poems like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, historical accounts of battles, all lost to history and, perhaps, even detailed accounts of the history of Asia Minor.

During the Byzantine era the outer city walls were rebuilt and over the ensuing millennium the city was sacked and raided and controlled by Byzantines, Crusaders, the Lascarid Dynasty and finally to the Ottomans in 1336. The main population centre, that stretched from the asclepeion all the way to the hill-top citadel, is now the modern town of Bergama.

Astonishingly the huge Altar of Zeus was dismantled and taken, stone by stone, to Germany in 1871 by Carl Humann. The entire altar was reconstructed and now sits in the Museum of Pergamum in Berlin. Turkey is making a legal claim to retrieve one of its greatest archaeological treasures and I sincerely hope that one day international law will prevail and the altar of Zeus will be returned to its natural home.

My visit to Pergamum was on the afternoon of Tuesday 10 March, 2015.

 

References:

Atila Akan, I; Pergamon & Troy (new edition); Guney Kartpostal, Antalya, Turkey

http://www.travellinkturkey.com/pergamum.html

http://www.allaboutturkey.com/pergamum.htm

http://www.ancient.eu/Darius_III/

http://www.biography.com/people/groups/mark-antony-and-Cleopatra