Under the Seleucid and Pergamene kingdoms

Immediately upon the death of Alexander, his quondam empire was broken up into individual kingdoms by his successors. One of these was the kingdom of Seleucus. Tralles and its vicinity became an important part of this kingdom in western Anatolia and, as its administrative center, the city began to be called Seleucei. In order to ensure the security of trade routes, King Antiochos I established the city of Antiochia, named after himself, at the eastern extremity of the Maeander valley.
As one consequence of the attempts of the Romans to spread their influence into Anatolia, the Seleucids were expelled from the Maeander valley under the treaty of Apamea in 188 B.C. and the region came under the control of the Kingdom of Pergamon, Rome’s ally.
Among the Hellenistic kingdoms in Anatolia, Pergamon was the most advanced in science, art, and civil engineering. After the death of KingEumenes II, he was succeeded by Attalos Ml who, though not entirely of sound mind, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome in his will after his death in 133 B.C. Aristonicus, the son of Eumenes II, rejected the validity of the bequest and assumed the throne himself. Despite his resistance to Rome however, he was taken prisoner three years later and put to death. In 129 B.C., the Pergamene kingdom — and with it, its territory in the Maeander valley — became the Roman province of Asia.
The kings of Pergamon were avid builders of public works and thus Tralles (Aydin) and its vicinity were developed substantially. Such famous works as the temple to Apollo in Didyma (Didim), the temple to Athena in Priene, and the temple to were all built during this period.

Alexander the Great: Macedonia brings an end to Persian domination of Ionia

Angered by the attempts of the cities of mainland Greece to provide the Ionian city-states in western Aantolia with material and moral support, the Persian kings Darius I and Xerxes both organized punitive campaigns against Athens and Sparta, one consequence of which was Xerxes’s destruction of Athens in 480 B.C. After a lengthy struggle Persian aggression was successfully stymied. But now the Greek city-states, polarized around the competing cities of Athens and Sparta, engaged in a seriees of bloody fratricidal wars that left them politically and economically exhausted and easy prey for a new aggressor from the north: Macedonia.
The process of uniting Greece begun by Philip II of Macedonia was continued by his son, the twenty year-old Alexander whose main goal was to put a final end to Persian rule of the region. In 334 B.C. he landed in Anatolia with a small force of well-trained men near the site of ancient Troy and defeated the Persian satraps at the Granicus (Kocabas. Qayi). Unable to withstand Alexander’s a rapid and determined campaign, the Persians suffered defeat after defeat and in less than five years, the Macedonians reached their capital city of Persepolis, which Alexander burned and destroyed in retaliation for the destruction of Athens a century and a half earlier. Conquering the entire Persian Empire — the greatest of its day — the young Macedonian king himself become emperor worthy of the title “Alexander the Great”.
In western Anatolia, the Persian-enthralled cities of Tralles, Magnesia, and Nysa surrendered without resistance to Alexander. The Persian garrison and fleet at Miletos were much stronger however and so opposed his advances. During the siege of this city — which controlled entrance to the Maeander valley, Alexander established his headquarters at Priene where the people showed him much affection. In gratitude, the young king donated money for the rebuilding of the city of Priene. Today, remains known as the “House of Alexander” and the “Temple of Alexander” are to be found in Priene.
The city of Alinda, to which King Mausolos (the Persian satrap of Caria) had exiled his sister Ada also opened its doors to Alexander and as a reward, Alexander declared Ada queen of Caria. Tralles, owing to its central location during the Carian and Lycian campaigns, served as a base for Alexander’s forces.
Alexander however died in 323 B.C., his plans to establish a single worldwide state unrealized. His hastily put-together empire fell apart just as rapidly upon his untimely death.

The Persian Empire: Hordes of Asians descend upon the warm valleys of the Aegean from the Iranian highlands

Although Lydia’s hegemony extended as far east as the Halys river (Kizilirmak), prideful King Croesus was unable to resist the expansionism or the mercenary armies of the Persians who were becoming ever more powerful in the Iranian plateau. Surging down to the warm and fertile Aegean coast from their high and cold plateau, the Persians wiped out the golden kingdom of King Croesus of Lydia.
Thus the Ionian found themselves confronted byatotaly unexpected and enormous threat and while they sought to resist, King Cyrus’s general, Mazares, invaded the valley of the Maeander and subjugated the cities of Priene, Magnesia, Tralles, and Nysa.
The Ionian Revolt instigated by the Milesians in 500 B.C. proved to be quite bloody. The Persians were merciless in suppressing the rebellion. Miletos was razed and its inhabitants were either deported to Mesopotamia or else enslaved. Their Apollo temple was burned and its sacred objects and treasures were carried off to Persia. It was now the turn of the Persians to enjoy the abundance of western Anatolia. Over the famous “Royal Road”, which began in Sardis and extended as far as Susa in Persia, an enormous share of the resources of Anatolia and of the Aegean, Black Sea, and Mediterranean regions was carried back to the imperial palaces in Persepolis.
Persian hegemony over the Maeander river basin lasted about 213 years. The Persians divided Anatolia into administrative regions (called satrapies). They ensured the establishment of political order and ruled their empire through governors (satraps) who were vested with royal powers.

The Lydians established a powerful state in western Anatolia that was centered in the basin of the Gediz (ancient Hermus) river and they had already become active in the valley of the Menderes by the 7th century B.C. It is known for example that King Gyges of Lydia ruled Magnesia on the Maeander (near present-day Ortaklar) and that in the 6th century B.C., King Alyattes rescued Orthasia (near present-day Yenipazar) from the marauding Cimmerians.
The most outstanding Lydian king however was Croesus and it was during his reign (560-546 B.C.) that Lydia experienced its brightest period. Under the protection and careful watch of Lydia, the city-states of Ionia and Caria grew and prospered, though in return for this they had to pay a hefty price to King Croesus.
The city of Tralles (modern Aydin) was a distribution and transit center where goods coming from Caria, Cilicia, Syria, Persia, and farther east were collected and from which they were sent to Aegean seaports. At the same time, olives, figs, raisins, acorns, and other produce from the valley of the Maeander were shipped from Miletos harbor to Greece, Italy, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Lydia became extraordinarily enriched due not only to its own resources but also to the taxes it collected and it can hardly be a coincidence that it was the first country in the world to mint a standardized and widely-recognized coinage.

Among the tribes migrating from the Aegean were the lonians. Reaching as far north as the middle coast of western Anadolia, they settled down around the Kusadasi gulf where the Maeander rivers discharged into the Mediterranean, and the ancient Latmian gulf, now the entrance to the Soke plain. The lonians appear to have fused with the local inhabitants and then proceeded to establish twelve seaside settlements, among them Miletos and Priene.
Through expanded maritime trade and colonization, they eventually established a strong trading network that encompassed the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Black Sea and they rapidly grew wealthy. The original small settlements grew, each one becoming an independent city-state.
Under the protective wing of the powerful Lydian kingdom, these city-states flourished in freedom, achieving high levels of activity in the fields of trade, art, scholarship, philosophy, architecture, and the political and social sciences. Rich and prosperous cities of gleaming white marble like Miletos and Priene apeared.
Yet these city-states failed to establish any political unity among themselves and thus in the 6th century B.C., at a time when they were at the peak of their development, they were forced to submit to the might of the Persian armies from the Iranian plateau and the bright and legendary sunlight of Ionian civilization was dimmed. Nevertheless it had a deep-rooted influence that persisted for ages. The uniquely Anatolian structures of the Graeco-Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods appeared as a continuation of Ionian culture and art on a much larger scale.
The western reaches of the province of Aydin today encompass an important part of what was known in ancient times as Ionia and we will be providing more detailed information on this in the pages that follow.