Pergamon

The ancient city of Pergamon, located on the site of the present-day city of Bergama in Izmir, Turkey, flourished in the third and second centuries BCE. It allied itself with Rome and after becoming Roman in 133 BCE was known as Pergamum.

The kingdom of Pergamon surrendered to Alexander of Macedon in 334 BCE and after Alexander's death in 323 BCE was claimed by Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals, in 301 BCE. Lysimachus used the acropolis of Pergamon to guard his riches. Philetaerus, at first an ally of Lysimachus, changed sides and supported Seleucus I, another of Alexander's generals, a tactic that won him the rulership of Pergamon. Philetaerusruled over the kingdom from 282 to 263 BCE; his successor, his nephew Eumenes I, governed until 241 BCE and left a wealthy kingdom to his cousin Attalus I, founder of the Attalid dynasty that controlled the city-state until 133 BCE.

Attalus (reigned 241–197 BCE) enlarged the kingdom to include Bythnia, Lydia, Cappadocia, and land as far away as Antalya; conquered the invading Gauls and the Seleucid king Antiochus III; and allied the kingdom with Rome. Attalus founded a library in the well-fortified, magnificently constructed city, which became a major literary center in Asia Minor as well as a center of Hellenistic sculpture.

Eumenes II, Attalus's son, expanded the kingdom still further and developed the library to challenge the library of Alexandria. The immense altar of Zeus, a masterpiece of Hellenistic architecture and sculpture constructed in Eumenes II's reign, is decorated around the base with a heroic frieze almost 120 meters long, depicting the battle of Gods and Giants; a smaller frieze celebrating the founding of Pergamon adorns the main colonnaded court. The dramatic conflicts of the figures on the large frieze suggest the power and divinity inherent in nature, which Greeks saw as their gods.

Pergamon continued to prosper, but Attalos III, the last ruler of the dynasty, had no heirs and at his death bequeathed his kingdom to Rome. Pergamon became Pergamum, the first Roman-ruled possession in Asia Minor and capital of the Roman province of Asia.

The city was founded on a steep acropolis and expanded under later kings and the Romans to the plain below; it varies in altitude from 60 to 335 meters. On the oldest part of the site, the acropolis, stand temples to Athena, the altar dedicated to Zeus and probably to all the gods, royal palaces designed to glorify the Hellenistic rulers, and a heroon, or shrine to a hero, where the Attalid dynasty was worshiped. The library, which attracted distinguished scholars, included books written on parchment—specially treated skins of young animals, particularly sheep, calf, or goat (from the Greek pergamene, "of Pergamum"; Pergamon was famed for its fine parchment). In 40 BCE Mark Antony sent some of the 200,000 books to Cleopatra to restock the library of Alexandria after a disastrous fire.

Below the original walls and rising above the temple of Dionysus, the huge Greek theater was partly cut into natural rock; there were eighty rows in the cavea, or circle of seats, and two diazomas, horizontal passages that allowed people to cross the seating area. A huge gymnasium, with divisions for teaching infant, junior, and senior boys, included baths supplied through clay pipes. From the second century BCE, aqueducts made of earthenware pipes were constructed to supply drinking water; that from the spring at Madradag Hill was made up of 240,000 separate clay pipes. Later a pressurized lead-piped system and an eighty-kilometer-long Roman aqueduct led to cisterns and holding tanks.

The Romans added a temple dedicated to the imperial cult and a Serapeion, the temple of an Egyptian deity worshiped in the Greco-Roman world. The Serapeion, 260 by 100 meters, was built of red brick and had ducted sacred pools. A sacred way led to a temple of Asklepios, the Greek god of medicine; his temple functioned as a sort of hospital, where the god appeared to patients in dreams, offering diagnosis and cures.

The Greek physician Galen (129–c. 199 CE) was born in Pergamum and ministered to the gladiators there. From 161 Galen was in Rome, at the court of Marcus Aurelius, and then was physician to the Roman emperor Commodus. Galen's writings formed the basis of Greco-Roman and Arabic medicine. Pergamum was also an early center of Christianity and the seat of one of the seven churches of Asia, founded by Saint Paul. The city continued as a commercial center during the Byzantine and Ottoman empires.

The ancient ruins of Pergamon, which surround the modern city of Bergama, were rediscovered in 1868 by a railway engineer, Carl Humann, who found fragments of the sculptures of the Zeus altar. From 1878 on, the immense altar was excavated under the sponsorship of the Prussian government, and the remains were taken to Berlin and installed in the Pergamon Museum, where they may be seen today. Despite this loss, ancient Pergamon is still a magnificent Hellenistic city whose sights attract numerous visitors.

Akurgal, Ekrem. (1969) Ancient Civilizations and Ruins of Turkey. Istanbul, Turkey: Haslet Kitabevi.

Darke, Diana. (1989) Discovery Guide to Aegean and Mediterranean Turkey. 2d ed. London: Michael Haag, Ltd.

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