Magnesia ad Sipylum was a city of
LydiaLydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
, situated about 65 km northeast of
SmyrnaSmyrna was the ancient city now in Turkey, represented by modern İzmir. Located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia and aided by its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence before the Classical Era....
(now
İzmirİzmir, historically Smyrna, is Turkey's third most populous city and the country's largest port after Istanbul. It is located along the outlying waters of the Gulf of İzmir, by the Aegean Sea. It is the seat of İzmir Province, which has an area of 7350 km
2...
) on the river
HermusIn Greek mythology Hermus is the god of the river Hermus , located in Aegean region of Lydia . Like most of the river-gods, he is the son of Oceanus and Tethys. He was the father of the Lydian nymphs.----...
(now
GedizThe Gediz River , the ancient Hermus, is the second largest river, after the Menderes, flowing from the Anatolian hinterland into the Aegean Sea....
) at the foot of Spil Mount. Nowadays this is the location of
ManisaManisa is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province...
in
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
.
No mention of the town is found till
190 BC-Greece:* The Battle of the Eurymedon is fought between a Seleucid fleet and ships from Rhodes and Pergamum, who are allied with the Roman Republic. The Seleucids are led by the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal...
, when Antiochus the Great was defeated in the
battle of MagnesiaThe Battle of Magnesia was fought in 190 BC near Magnesia ad Sipylum, on the plains of Lydia , between the Romans, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, the famed general Scipio Africanus, with their ally Eumenes II of Pergamum against the army of Antiochus III the Great of the...
by the Roman
consul-Ancient Rome:During the time of ancient Rome as a Republic, the consuls were the highest civil and military magistrates, serving as the heads of government for the Republic. New consuls were elected every year. There were two consuls, and they ruled together...
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus. It became a city of importance under the Roman dominion and, though nearly destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of
TiberiusTiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla...
, was restored by that emperor and flourished through the Roman empire.
Magnesia ad Sipylum was a city of
LydiaLydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....
, situated about 65 km northeast of
SmyrnaSmyrna was the ancient city now in Turkey, represented by modern İzmir. Located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia and aided by its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence before the Classical Era....
(now
İzmirİzmir, historically Smyrna, is Turkey's third most populous city and the country's largest port after Istanbul. It is located along the outlying waters of the Gulf of İzmir, by the Aegean Sea. It is the seat of İzmir Province, which has an area of 7350 km
2...
) on the river
HermusIn Greek mythology Hermus is the god of the river Hermus , located in Aegean region of Lydia . Like most of the river-gods, he is the son of Oceanus and Tethys. He was the father of the Lydian nymphs.----...
(now
GedizThe Gediz River , the ancient Hermus, is the second largest river, after the Menderes, flowing from the Anatolian hinterland into the Aegean Sea....
) at the foot of Spil Mount. Nowadays this is the location of
ManisaManisa is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province...
in
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
.
No mention of the town is found till
190 BC-Greece:* The Battle of the Eurymedon is fought between a Seleucid fleet and ships from Rhodes and Pergamum, who are allied with the Roman Republic. The Seleucids are led by the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal...
, when Antiochus the Great was defeated in the
battle of MagnesiaThe Battle of Magnesia was fought in 190 BC near Magnesia ad Sipylum, on the plains of Lydia , between the Romans, led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, the famed general Scipio Africanus, with their ally Eumenes II of Pergamum against the army of Antiochus III the Great of the...
by the Roman
consul-Ancient Rome:During the time of ancient Rome as a Republic, the consuls were the highest civil and military magistrates, serving as the heads of government for the Republic. New consuls were elected every year. There were two consuls, and they ruled together...
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus. It became a city of importance under the Roman dominion and, though nearly destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of
TiberiusTiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla...
, was restored by that emperor and flourished through the Roman empire. It was one of the few towns in this part of
AnatoliaAnatolia is a geographic region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Iranian plateau to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west...
which remained prosperous under the Turkish rule. There are two famous relics of antiquity. The first is the
Niobe of SipylusNiobe was a daughter of Tantalus and the sister of Pelops, all of whom figure in Greek mythology.Her father was the ruler of a city called either under his name, as "Tantalis" or "the city of Tantalus", or as "Sipylus", in reference to Mount Sipylus at the foot of which his city was located and...
(Aglayan Kaya), a natural rock formation, on the lowest slopes of the mountains in the middle of town. The second is a carving, allegedly of Cybele (Suratlu Tash) about 100 meters up the mountain about 6 km east of the town. This is a colossal seated image cut in a niche of the rock, of
HittiteThe Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height ca...
origin, and perhaps that called by
PausaniasPausanias was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between...
the very ancient statue of the Mother of the Gods, carved by
BroteasIn Greek mythology, Broteas was the ugly son of Tantalus, whose other offspring were Niobe and Pelops. He carved the most ancient image of the Great Mother of the Gods , an image that in Pausanias' day was still held sacred by the Magnesians...
, son of
TantalusIn Greek mythology Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto. Thus he was a king in the primordial world, the father of a son Broteas whose very name signifies "mortals" . Other versions name his father as Tmolus "wreathed with oak," son of Sipylus, a king of Lydia. Both Tmolus and Mount...
, and sung by
HomerHomer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
. It can be seen by driving into a parking lot at a children's playground. Near it lie many remains of a primitive city, and about a kilometer east is the rock-seat conjecturally identified with Pausanias' Throne of Pelops. There are also hot springs and a sacred grotto of
ApolloIn Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities...
.