Kyzikos

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the mythological figure of the same name, see Kyzikos (mythology)

Cyzicus is a redirect to this article. For the titular bishopric see Titular Archbishopric Cyzicus .

Coordinates: 40 ° 24 '  N , 27 ° 48'  E

Kyzikos​

Turkey

Kyzikos ( Greek  Κύζικος , Latinized Cyzicus) was a Greek city ​​on the south coast of the Marmara Sea in the ancient landscape of Mysia ; today Balız bei Erdek in the province of Balıkesir ( Turkey ). The city was located on the isthmos of the Arktonnesos ( Kapıdağ ) peninsula and owed its prosperity to the double port and large territory it created.

Location of Mysia

The city is named after the eponymous founder Kyzikos , the king of the Dolions , who was supposedly killed by the Argonauts .

history

Kyzikos was founded by settlers from Miletus . The Chronicle of Eusebius gives three different founding dates, two of which - 756 and 679 BC. BC - may be considered historical. Since the 5th century BC The city played an important role in the Thracian sea ​​trade. The electron coins from Kyzikos ( Kyzikener ) played in international trade from the 6th to the 4th century BC. An important role.

At first the city was ruled by tyrants under Persian rule; later she became a member of the Attisch-Delischen Seebund and the 2nd Attic Seebund . At Kyzikos was 410 BC A sea ​​battle took place in the Peloponnesian War . The Spartan fleet under Mindaros was completely destroyed by the Athenian fleet under the command of Alcibiades . At the time of the Diadochi , Kyzikos was incorporated into the Seleucid Empire and belonged to the territories of the Seleucid Empire, which in 190 BC. The Attalids were struck . As an inheritance of the Pergamene Empire to Rome, Cyzicus also fell in 130 BC. Under Roman rule.

In 74 BC The city was by Mithridates VI. (Pontus) besieged unsuccessfully. Sulla , and later confirmed by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus , gave it the status of a free city after the Mithridatic Wars . After the city had temporarily lost its freedom under Augustus , it was finally incorporated into the province of Asia under Tiberius . In the 4th century the Patriarch of Constantinople established a church province of Cyzicus with at least seven bishoprics, including Miletopolis , a titular bishopric of the Roman Catholic Church that was renewed in the 18th century . The city was severely hit by earthquakes several times, for example under Hadrian , Antoninus Pius and in 544 under Justinian I , finally destroyed by the earthquakes in 675 and 1063 AD.

The city was temporarily conquered by the Arabs in 670 as part of the Islamic expansion and served them as a naval base during the siege of Constantinople from 674 to 678 in the following years .

Emperor Justinian II moved 690 residents from Cyprus to Kyzikos. The fact that the surviving resettlers returned to Cyprus after a shipwreck on the transport to Kyzikos, or better: the newly founded city of Nea Justinianopolis , suggests that they did not leave the island voluntarily. Other residents fled to Syria to avoid resettlement.

Famous residents

• Agathocles of Cyzicus , historian
• Apollodorus of Kyzikos , pre-Socratic philosopher
• Apollonis , wife of Attalus I of Pergamon
• Eudoxos from Kyzikos , seafarer
• Gelasios of Kyzikos , church historian from late antiquity
• Helicon of Kyzikos , astronomer and mathematician
• Iaia , painter
• Callippos of Cyzicus , astronomer and mathematician

literature

• Joachim Marquardt : Cyzicus and his area. Enslin, Berlin 1836 ( full text ).
• Frederick William Hasluck : Cyzicus, being some account of the history and antiquities of that city, and of the district adjacent to it, with the towns of Apollonia ad Rhyndacum, Miletupolis, Hadrianutherae, Priapus, Zeleia, etc. 1910.
• Ekrem Akurgal :  Kyzikos (Belkis or Balkiz) Turkey . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
• Walther Ruge : Kyzikos . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 1, Stuttgart 1924, Sp. 228-233.
• Elmar Schwertheim : The inscriptions of Kyzikos and the surrounding area ( inscriptions of Greek cities from Asia Minor , vol. 18, 26).
  • Vol. 1. Grave texts . Bonn 1980, ISBN 3-7749-1637-3 .
  • Vol. 2. Miletupolis, inscriptions and monuments . Bonn 1983, ISBN 3-7749-2034-6 .

Web links

• Coins of Kyzikos

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A third, 1267 BC. B.C., is considered mythical in research, see e.g. Vanessa B. Gorman: Miletos, the Ornament of Ionia: A History of the City to 400 BCE , University of Michigan 2001, p. 246.