Abydos, Hellespont

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Abydos, Hellespont

Abydos (Greek: ?ß?d??), an ancient city of Mysia

Mysia

Mysia was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia . It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north....
, in Asia Minor, situated at Nara Burnu or Nagara Point on the best harbor on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont

Hellespont

Hellespont was the ancient name of the narrow strait, now known by the modern European term 'Dardanelles'. It was so called from Helle , the daughter of Athamas, who was drowned here in the mythology of the Golden Fleece....
. Across Abydos lies Sestus on the European side marking the shortest point in the Dardanelles

Dardanelles

.The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara....
, scarcely a mile broad.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Abydos, Hellespont'

Start a new discussion about 'Abydos, Hellespont'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Abydos (Greek: ?ß?d??), an ancient city of Mysia

Mysia

Hellespont

Dardanelles

.The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara....
, scarcely a mile broad. The strategic site has been a prohibited zone in the twentieth century.

Abydos was first mentioned in the catalogue of Trojan allies (Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
ii.836). It probably was a Thracian

Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. Today the name Thrace designates a region spread over southern Bulgaria , northeastern Greece , and European Turkey ....
town, as Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
has it, but was afterwards colonized by Milesians

Miletus

Miletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria. Evidence of first settlement at the site has been made inaccessible by the rise of sea level and deposition of sediments from the Maeander....
, with the consent of Gyges, king of Lydia

Gyges of Lydia

Gyges was the founder of the third or Mermnad dynasty of Lydian kings and reigned from 716 BC to 678 BC . He was succeeded by his son Ardys II....
, around 700 BC. It was occupied by the Persians in 514 BC, and Darius

Darius

Darius is a common Persians male name. Three monarch of the ancient Achaemenid Empire of Iran were named Darius:*Darius the Great of Persia or Darius the Great....
burnt it in 512. Here Xerxes built two bridges of boats and crossed the strait in 480 BC when he invaded Greece

Greco-Persian Wars

For other Persian wars, see Roman-Persian Wars, Islamic conquest of Persia, Iraq war , and Military history of Iran.The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between several ancient Greece city-states and the Achaemenid Empire that started in 499 BC and lasted until 448 BC....
.

Abydos thereafter became a member of the Delian League

Delian League

The Delian League was an association of approximately 150 5th-century BC Ancient Greece city-states under the leadership of Classical Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Greco?Persian Wars....
, until it revolted from Athenian rule in 411 BC. It allied itself to Sparta

Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
, until 394 BC; King Agesilaus

Agesilaus

Agesilaus was a Greek historian who wrote a work on the early history of Italy, fragments of which are preserved in Plutarch's "Parallel Lives", and in Stobaeus' Florilegium....
of Sparta crossed here while returning to Greece. Abydos then passed under Achaemenid rule, until 334 BC. Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
threw a spear to Abydos while crossing the strait and claimed Asia as his own.

Abydos is celebrated for the vigorous resistance it made against Philip V of Macedon

Philip V of Macedon

File:Philip_V_of_Macedon BM.jpgPhilip V was King of Macedon from 221 BC to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of Roman Republic....
in 200 BC, and is famed in myth as the home of Leander

Hero and Leander

Hero and Leander is a Greek mythology, relating the story of Hero , a priestess of Aphrodite who dwelt in a tower in Sestos, at the edge of the Hellespont, and Leander , a young man from Abydos, Hellespont on the other side of the strait....
. It minted coins from the early fifth century BC to the mid-third century AD.

The town remained until late Byzantine times an important toll and customs station of the Hellespont, its importance thereafter being transferred to the Dardanelles

Dardanelles

.The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara....
, after the building of the "Old Castles" by Sultan Mehmet II (c. 1456).

Footnotes

Additional sources

"Abydos, (Naara Point) Turkey"