Aigai (Aeolis): Ancient Greek Polis and Roman City in Türkiye
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Turkey
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval
- Civilizations
- Ancient Greek, Byzantine, Kingdom of Pergamon, Roman
- Site type
- City
On this page16 sections
History
Aigai, also known as Nemrutkale, was an ancient Greek city in Türkiye, established no earlier than the late eighth century BC near modern Yuntdağı Köseler in Manisa Province. It stood on mountainous Gün Dağı, about 12 kilometres inland from the Aegean coast and approximately 35 kilometres south of Pergamon. Aigai later became a Roman city and bishopric, and its history reflects the changing political landscape of western Anatolia.
Aeolian and Lydian origins
Herodotus included Aigai among the twelve cities traditionally founded by Aeolian settlers who reached northwestern Anatolia after about 1100 BC. Archaeological evidence places the city’s establishment later, no earlier than the late eighth century BC, while its exact foundation date remains uncertain. The Aeolian dodecapolis was a traditional league of twelve Greek cities in Aeolis, and Aigai formed part of this wider cultural and political world.
The city’s name appears in several ancient forms, including Aigaiai, Aegae, Aegaeae, Aigai, and Aigaion. It derives from the Ancient Greek word for “goat,” while Aspordenos was another ancient name for the settlement. Ancient writers emphasized Aigai’s inland and mountainous character. Its communities placed greater weight on agriculture and livestock than on maritime trade, a pattern also reflected in the city’s later coinage and references to goatskins.
Aigai was first connected with the Lydian kingdom and later with the Achaemenid Persian Empire. After about 547 BC, it appears to have resisted Persian rule together with nearby Temnos. In the fifth century BC, the city did not pay tribute to the Attic–Delian League, the alliance led by Athens during the struggle against Persian power. During the classical period, Themistocles passed through Aigai while fleeing Greece for Persia and was received by his friend Nikogenes, who belonged to the local population.
Hellenistic development and Pergamene rule
Until the early third century BC, Aigai remained a small fortified settlement. It was then redeveloped with substantial assistance from Philetairos, the founder of the Attalid dynasty, the royal house that ruled the Kingdom of Pergamon during the third and second centuries BC. The settlement acquired the character of a Hellenic city, with public buildings, terraces, and an urban plan resembling Pergamon. Philetairos was also associated with assistance for the nearby sanctuary of Apollo Khresterios.
Aigai changed political allegiance during the struggles between Pergamon and the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic kingdom established by the successors of Alexander the Great in much of western Asia. Attalos I captured the city in 228 BC and recovered it permanently in 218 BC, after Aigai and the Aeolian coast had earlier been lost to the Seleucids during attacks commanded by the general Achaeus.
Prusias II of Bithynia destroyed Aigai in 156 BC during his war against Attalos II. Roman intervention brought a peace settlement, after which Aigai received compensation of 100 silver talents. Publius Servilius Isauricus, Roman proconsul of Asia from 48 to 46 BC and an associate of Julius Caesar, later gave substantial assistance to the city and to the sanctuary of Apollo Khresterios. An inscribed statue base records Aigai’s honor for him.
Roman city and later occupation
In 133 BC, Aigai became part of the Roman province of Asia when the Kingdom of Pergamon was incorporated into the Roman Empire. A major earthquake destroyed the city in AD 17. Emperor Tiberius provided financial assistance for its reconstruction, and the affected cities expressed their gratitude by erecting a statue of him in Italy.
Aigai continued to mint coins until approximately the middle of the second century AD. Its name appears in fifth-century episcopal lists and in the travel guide of Hierocles, reflecting its continuing place in the administrative and ecclesiastical geography of the later Roman world. The city appears to have been abandoned rapidly in the late second century AD, possibly because of the approach of the Goths.
A limited late Byzantine fortress-settlement occupied the area during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. A small church represents this phase. The settlement was later abandoned as Turkish powers expanded into the region.
Exploration and archaeological work
William Mitchell Ramsay and Salomon Reinach were the first recorded Western visitors to Aigai, in 1880. Richard Bohn and Carl Schuchhardt later examined the site in connection with excavations at Pergamon. Archaeological excavation has continued since 2004 under Ersin Doğer of Ege University and Yusuf Sezgin of Celal Bayar University, with the Manisa Museum Directorate responsible for the site. By 2010, work had uncovered the access road, bouleuterion, odeon, shops, numerous water pipes, and much of the market hall.
Remains
Aigai occupied a plateau near the summit of steep Gün Dağı. Its acropolis was arranged in terraces, while fortifications enclosed the urban area. Stone-paved streets and lanes crossed the settlement, with channels beneath the paving directing rainwater into hundreds of cisterns of different sizes. High terrace walls created level ground on the western and southern slopes for public buildings. The remains include the agora, council house, odeon, shops, gymnasium, stadium, baths, theatre, macellum, temples, and fortification walls, many of them partly overgrown.
Fortifications and approaches
The defensive circuit combined polygonal and rectangular masonry. An inner wall about 1 kilometre long enclosed a roughly triangular area, while a larger outer wall is attributed to the period of Eumenes II. The complete fortification circuit is described as approximately 1.5 kilometres long. Paved approaches climbed the mountain from the northeast and southwest, connecting the elevated settlement with its surrounding landscape.
Civic center and market buildings
Agora and market hall
The agora formed the civic center of Aigai. Along its eastern side stood a three-storey market hall approximately 80 metres long and 10 to 11 metres high. The lower floor contained sixteen two-room commercial units, each with a door and a window opening eastward. Rooms occupied the second floor, while the third level formed a more open, colonnaded space. The upper floor was renovated during the Roman period.
Bouleuterion and civic facilities
The bouleuterion, the meeting building of the Greek city council, stood on the northern side of the agora. An odeon, shops, a gymnasium, a stadium, and baths formed other parts of the urban complex. The stadium lay south of the theatre, while the odeon and the council building were among the structures uncovered through excavation.
Macellum and economic evidence
A macellum, a market specializing in foodstuffs such as meat and fish, was excavated in 2018. A marble inscription from the second century AD, found in the bouleuterion and deciphered in 2022, records complaints about the greed of Roman tax officials. It describes Fortunatus being sent to the Roman emperor over differing taxes on goatskins. The emperor fixed the tax at one-sixth and ordered that rate to be enforced.
Theatre and religious buildings
Theatre and stadium
The theatre occupied a terrace northwest of the settlement, on the same terrace as the Demeter–Kore temple. It was a Roman theatre, and its best-preserved elements are the vaulted passages beneath the seating. The stadium extended south of the theatre, forming part of the public buildings arranged on the city’s terraces.
Demeter–Kore temple
The temple of Demeter and Kore stood northwest of the settlement. Demeter was associated with agriculture and grain, while Kore, also known as Persephone, was connected with seasonal renewal and the underworld. Inscriptions from the site date to the second century BC and support the identification of the cult. The temple itself was probably built near the end of the third century or at the beginning of the second century BC.
Built in the Doric order from trachyte, the temple was aligned north to south, with its facade facing south toward the theatre and agora. It followed an in-antis plan, with columns set between the projecting side walls of the entrance porch. The two-step substructure supported a platform measuring approximately 9.70 by 6.70 metres. The nearly square cella, the principal enclosed chamber, measured about 5.20 by 5.20 metres, while the pronaos, or entrance porch, was about 3.12 metres deep and 5.20 metres wide.
A doorway about 1.60 metres wide led from the pronaos into the cella, with doorjambs approximately 3.29 metres high. The cella occupied about half the building’s overall length, and the pronaos about one-third. Fluted columns between the projecting walls were made from three drums. With a capital found near the temple, they would have reached approximately 4.33 metres in height. Their lower diameter was about 0.57 metres and their upper diameter about 0.45 metres. The columns were widely spaced, with the central gap wider than the spaces beside the antae.
The entablature used a four-metope system. A weathered thirteen-line inscription carved on the right anta preserves information about the temple’s cult and construction. Although the names of Demeter and Kore are partly illegible, their dedication is the prevailing interpretation.
Sanctuary of Apollo Khresterios
About 5 kilometres east of Aigai, beside the river flowing around the ruins, stood the sanctuary of Apollo Khresterios. Apollo was a major Greek god associated with prophecy, and the epithet Khresterios relates to prophetic or oracular activity. Its temple was an Ionic peripteros, meaning a temple surrounded by a single external colonnade, constructed in 46 BC under Publius Servilius Isauricus. The surviving remains include a cella about 6 metres high, the cella doorway, and three monolithic elements.
Baths, water systems, and movable remains
The streets were paved with stone, and channels beneath them carried rainwater into the settlement’s many cisterns. This water system supported an urban community on the high, mountainous plateau. In 2016, a mosaic depicting Poseidon was discovered in the frigidarium, the cold-water room of the ancient bath complex. Its partly ruined Greek inscription offers the greeting, “Greetings to all of you bathing.” The mosaic has been dated to the third or fourth century BC.
Aigai’s coinage first showed Apollo’s head on one side and a goat’s head on the other. Later issues included figures such as Athena and Nike. Together with the goatskin tax inscription, these coins provide material evidence for the importance of goats and goatskins in the city’s economy.
