Cyzicus is a city of Mysia in Asia Minor built on the southern coast of Propontis (Sea of Marmara) on the isthmus of the Arctonessos peninsula near present-day Erdek in Balıkesir Province. It was founded around 680 BC by a group of Greek colonists from the city of Miletus, making it one of the oldest Greek settlements in the region. Cyzicus developed into a thriving city-state with a strong maritime tradition. Its privileged location made its two ports commercial hubs, and the city became a key hub for trade and commerce between the Greek world and the Anatolian interior. Under Roman rule, Cyzicus flourished as a prosperous urban centre. New public buildings and monuments were constructed, including a massive temple to Hadrian, considered one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Coordinates: 40° 23′ 15.91″ N, 27° 52′ 13.6″ E

According to mythology, the city was named after King Cyzicos (or Kyzikos), a Thessalian migrant who was accidentally killed by Jason. When the Argonauts journeyed to Colchis and landed on the island of the Doliones, King Cyzicos received them with generous hospitality. But after their departure, a storm drove them back to the Cyzicene coast. They landed again at night-time, but they were mistaken by the Doliones for hostile people, and a struggle ensued in which Cyzicos was killed either by Jason or Hercules. When the day broke, the Argonauts realised their tragic mistake, granted Cyzicos an elaborate burial, and celebrated funeral games (Apollonius of Rhodes 1,949).

In the early historical years, Cyzicus accepted colonists from Ionian Greeks from Miletus. The Milesian colony was established around 680 BC, when Miletus began systematic colonisation of the area. It may have begun minting electrum coins in the first half of the 6th century BC. Due to commercial activities, Cyzicene staters were used as the primary foreign currency outside the Marmara Region, especially along the Black Sea coast. The coins featured a wide variety of obverse motifs, including over 250 unique designs depicting animals, heroes, mythological creatures, and gods.

The Propontis was famous for its abundant fish, one of the main sources of wealth in Cyzicus. As early as 600 BC, Cyzicus used a tunny fish (Euthynnus alletteratus) as its civic emblem on its coinage.

During the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), Cyzicus changed hands between Persian and Athenian control several times. It became a member of the Delian League, paying an annual tax of nine talents. Sometime later (373 BC), Cyzicus joined the Second Athenian League, which it abandoned during the Allied War (357-355 BC). It remained a free city in the Hellenistic Period. It consolidated its economic domination by annexing several nearby towns, but later came under Seleucid and Pergamene control (281 BC). When the Kingdom of Pergamon was annexed by Rome in 133 BC, Cyzicus became part of the Roman world and entered a period of prosperity. It was a loyal and powerful ally of Rome in the Mithridatic Wars. When consul Lucullus won a victory over Mithridates in the Third Mithridatic War (74-67 BC) after the Siege of Cyzicus in 73 BC, he liberated Cyzicus and declared it a free city.

The city’s strategic location and economic significance made it a valuable asset for the Roman Empire, which sought to control key trade routes and resources in the eastern Mediterranean. The Romans further developed the city’s infrastructure, expanding its harbour facilities and enhancing its commercial capabilities. Cyzicus continued to mint its own coins, widely used in trade and commerce throughout the Roman world.

Cyzicus was known for its skilled shipbuilders and seafarers, who navigated the waters of the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea to establish trade networks with other Greek cities and beyond. The city’s prosperity was also fueled by its agricultural wealth, as the fertile lands surrounding Cyzicus allowed for the cultivation of crops such as grain, olives, and grapes. Cyzicus was also an important centre of letters and sciences.

Cyzicus remained an important Roman city in Mysia, becoming the capital of the Hellespont province during Diocletian‘s reign (r. AD 284-305) and later, becoming part of the Eastern Empire. The city’s fate was intertwined with the invasions by barbarian tribes and successive devastating earthquakes. Because of its location on the south branch of the North Anatolian Fault zone in the Marmara Sea, the ancient city was destroyed by a series of earthquakes. Fifteen destructive earthquakes occurred between AD 29 and 1887, including one during the reign of Hadrian. The final blow was given by the Arabs, who besieged the city (AD 675), and an earthquake (AD 1063), which devastated the city completely.

Many ancient writers wrote about the grandeur of the ancient city of Cyzicus. Strabo thinks that “this city rivals the foremost of the cities of Asia in size, in beauty, and in its excellent administration of affairs both in peace and in war” and that “its adornment appears to be of a type similar to that of Rhodes and Massalia and ancient Carthage.” (Strabo 12.8.11). Unfortunately, Cyzicus remains the least studied and excavated city among the other major cities of Asia Minor. Little research has been done in the area, and only a few sparse ruins remain today.

Among the ruins of Cyzicus, outside the city walls and to the north, are very few traces of the 2nd-century AD Roman amphitheatre. However, on the plain outside the western walls are scattered remains of particular importance, belonging to a temple dedicated to Hadrian (perhaps originally a temple of Zeus begun by the kings of Pergamon), the city’s greatest monument. In AD 124, during his travels to Asia Minor, Hadrian visited Cyzicus. The city had just been struck by a devastating earthquake, and the emperor made large donations to help rebuild it.

The history and general character of the Temple are well-documented in literary sources. The Chronicon Paschale states that Hadrian founded a temple there and paved a marketplace with marble (Chronicon Paschale 475.10). The Byzantine chronicler John Malalas called the temple “a very large temple, one of the wonders,” with a massive bust of Hadrian on the roof and a marble stele inscribed “of Divine Hadrian” (Malalas, Chronography Bks 1-7, 10-18). Cassius Dio called it “the largest and most beautiful of all temples,” writing that “in general, the details were more to be wondered at than praised.” (Dio 70.4.1–2).

The Temple was a monumental octastyle (8 x 15) building of the Corinthian order, about as big as the Ephesus’ Artemision or Apollo’s Temple at Didyma. It measured 120 m in length and 50 m across. The sixty massive columns surrounding the cella were well over 2 m in diameter and more than 21 m high. The Temple was topped with the largest Corinthian capitals ever sculpted, one of which, 2.5 metres in height, 1.9 metres in diameter and 20 tons in weight, was unearthed in 2013.

The Temple was probably still unfinished when it was thrown down by an earthquake late in Antoninus Pius‘ reign, and was finally dedicated in 166 or 167, when the orator Aelius Aristides delivered a speech in the city of Cyzicus at a festival celebrating the restoration of the Temple of Hadrian. The most important attribute of the Temple of Hadrian, according to Aristides, was its extreme size, which made it appear ‘beyond the power of man to accomplish”, and it was this element that may have led Nicetas of Heraclea, an 11th-century Greek clergyman and writer, to compare the Temple with the Seven Wonders.

Cyriacus of Ancona, an Italian traveller and antiquarian, visited the site of Cyzicus in 1431 and reported that thirty-one of its columns were still standing (half of the original total), but the splendid ruin was being used as a stone quarry for nearby Bursa. Fifty-four years later, only twenty-six columns stood, and by the 19th century, the Temple’s superstructure was gone. Cyriacus of Ancona created detailed sketches of what remained of the Temple, which helped archaeologists recognise the Temple’s fragment among the ruins and restore the building’s plan, together with the reverses of coins showing the Temple (RPC IV.2, 11185).

With the new Temple that Hadrian allowed to be built for his cult, the city of Cyzicus was granted the role of neokoros, temple warden of the imperial cult, joining Pergamon, Ephesus, Smyrna, and Sardis. In his Antilogy about Julian to the sophist Libanius, the 5th-century AD church historian Socrates of Constantinople states that the people of Cyzicus declared Hadrian the 13th god (Socr. Hist. Eccl. 3,23) while Antinous was also worshipped with heroic honours. Olympios was, therefore, an epithet associated with Hadrian, and there were dedications to Hadrian Olympios as the saviour and founder of the city. Linked with the city’s new status as neocoros in 124 (or later) was a Hadrianic festival called Hadrianeia Olympia, in which Aelius Aristides participated.

The Temple is today represented only by the substructures of the podium, with fragments of decorative and architectural elements scattered around, including marble roof tiles measuring 105 x 85 cm, marble gutters with lion heads, and the largest Corinthian capitals ever sculpted. While excavation works continue at the Temple of Hadrian, numerous stone objects have been found, including sculptures from the Temple with traces of red and blue paint and gold gilding.

An exceptionally large amphitheatre was situated in the valley on both sides of the sloping hills beneath the Acropolis. Its elliptical shape may be traced from the few pilasters and arches rising from the thickly wooded slopes of the old cavea. As at Pergamon, a small stream flowed through the building, presumably for use in naumachiae (naval spectacular displays) and for the cleansing of the arena. The amphitheatre was oval and surrounded by two tiers of arcading. There were originally thirty-two vomitoria (entrances). The central axis measured around 140 meters. Hadrianic inscriptions found among the ruins of the amphitheatre have allowed its dating in the reign of Hadrian.

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Links:

• Turkish Archaeology News
• Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
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