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 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.

The earliest social events of which we have any significant record in our province begin with the Dorian invasions of Greece in the 1442th centuries B.C.
Under the steady pressure of these invasions, masses of peoples migrated to the shores of Anatolia. While these newcomers consisted mostly of Phrygians, Achaeans, lonians, and Cretans, who were the local people that dwelt before them in these lands in which these newcomers were taking refuge and how did they live? When we examine the research that has been carried out so far within the province of Aydin as well as the various information, resources, and documents that have been made available for study and publication we find it impossible to learn anything adequate or clear about this subject other than that provided by the prehistorical investigations being conducted at Afrodesias.
The ancient Greeks themselves made reference to a number of tribes with names such as “Carians”, “Lelegians”, and “Plasgians” who lived in the Aegean region before them. In his epic poems, Homer makes it clear that these tribes spoke a language other than Greek.
While a number of references to groups of people inhabiting and to geographical places located in the Aegean littoral have been found in tablets from the 14th century B.C. reigns of the Hittite kings Mursil I! and Tuthalia IV in Bogazkoy, these consist of no more than vague information pertaining to various military expenditions that was entered into the chronicles.
It is believed that the regions referred to during the time of the Hatti kingdom as “Karhisa”, “Uilusa”. and “Asuva” were located in western Anatolia.
The first immigrants to establish a definite state in the region were the Phrygians who invaded the valley in great waves. This tribe, which overthrew the Hittite empire in the 12th century B.C., was concentrated in the regions around theSakarya river and its center was Gor-dion (nowYassihdyuk). While the Phrygians dominated mostly western and central Anatolia, the southern limits of their authority did extend into the Menderes valley though no trace of Phrygian settlement has yet been found within the borders of the province of present-day Aydin.
When the Cimmerians, a clan of Turkic horsemen/raiders from the steppes of central Asia, penetrated as far as western Anatolia, the result was the overthrow of the Phrygian civilization in the 7th century B.C. and the emergence of its replacement, Lydia.