Elaea or Elaia was an ancient city of Aeolis

Aeolis

Aeolis or Aeolia was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor, mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islands , where the Aeolian Greek city-states were located...

, Asia, the port of Pergamum; the site is not precisely determined but is near Zeytindağ

Zeytindağ

- Geography :Zeytindağ is a town in Bergama district of İzmir Province, Turkey. At it is situted east of Aegean Sea side and south of Bakırçay valley. The distance to Bergama is and to İzmir is . The population of the town is 3208 as of 2010. -History:...

, İzmir Province

Izmir Province

İzmir Province is a province of Turkey in western Anatolia on the Aegean coast, whose capital is the city of İzmir. On the west it is surrounded by the Aegean sea, and it encloses the Gulf of İzmir. Its area is 11,973 km.2, population 3.948.848 . The population was 3,370,866 in 2000...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

.

According to the present text of Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephanus of Byzantium

Stephen of Byzantium, also known as Stephanus Byzantinus , was the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled Ethnica...

, it was also called Cidaenis (Greek: Κιδαινίς), and was founded by Menestheus

Menestheus

Menestheus , the son of Peteus, son of Orneus, son of Erechtheus, was a legendary King of Athens during the Trojan War. He was set up as king by the Dioscuri when Theseus travelled to the underworld, and at his return Menestheus exiled him from the city.Menestheus was one of the suitors of Helen of...

; but it seems likely that there is some error in the reading Cidaenis. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 places Elaea south of the river Caicus

Caicus

Bakırçay is the ancient name of a river of Asia Minor that rises in the Temnus mountains and flows through Lydia, Mysia, and Aeolis before it debouches into the Elatic Gulf. To the Hittites, it was the Seha river...

, 12 stadia from the river, and 120 stadia from Pergamum. The Caicus enters a bay, which was called Elaiticus Sinus, or the bay of Elaea. Strabo calls the bay of Elaea part of the bay of Adramyttium, but incorrectly. He has the story, which Stephanus has taken from him, that Elaea was a settlement made by Menestheus and the Athenians

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 with him, who joined the war against Troy; but Strabo does not explain how it could be an Aeolian

Aeolians

The Aeolians were one of the four major ancient Greek tribes comprising Ancient Greeks. Their name derives from Aeolus, the mythical ancestor of the Aeolic branch and son of Hellen, the mythical patriarch of the Greek nation...

 city, if this story was true. Elaea minted coins, which bear the head and name of Menestheus. Some argue that these are some evidence of its Athenian origin; but others, including William Smith

William Smith (lexicographer)

Sir William Smith Kt. was a noted English lexicographer.-Early life:Born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents, he was originally destined for a theological career, but instead was articled to a solicitor. In his spare time he taught himself classics, and when he entered University College...

 discount the connection. Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 (i. 149) does not name Elaea among the Aeolian cities. Strabo makes the bay of Elaea terminate on one side in a point called Hydra, and on the other in a promontory Harmatus; and he estimates the width between these points at 80 stadia. Thucydides

Thucydides

Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...

 (viii. 101) places Harmatus opposite to Methymna, from which, and the rest of the narrative, it is clear that he fixes Harmatus in a different place from Strabo. The exact site of Elaea seems to be uncertain. William Martin Leake

William Martin Leake

William Martin Leake, FRS , British antiquarian and topographer, was born in London.After completing his education at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and spending four years in the West Indies as lieutenant of marine artillery, he was sent by the government to Constantinople to instruct the...

, in his map, fixes it at a place marked Kliseli, on the road from the south to Pergamum. Scylax (p. 35), Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela

Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera and died c. AD 45.His short work occupies less than one hundred pages of ordinary print. It is laconic in style and deficient in method, but of pure Latinity, and occasionally relieved by pleasing...

 (i. 18), Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 (v. 32), and Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

 (v. 2), all of whom mention Elaea, do not help us to the precise place; all we learn from them is, that the Caicus flowed between Pitane

Pitane

Pitane may refer to:* Pitane , an ancient coastal city of Aeolis, currently the site of Çandarlı, İzmir Province, Turkey* Pitane , a nymph* Pitane , mythological eponym of Pitane * Pitane , a moth genus...

 and Elaea.

Elaea was located near the modern town of Zeytindağ, according to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from archaic Greek civilization through Late Antiquity . The atlas was published by Princeton...

.

The name of Elaea occurs in the history of the kings of Pergamum. According to Strabo, from Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 (xxxv. 13), travellers who would reach Pergamum from the sea, would land at Elaea. One of the passages of Livy shows that there was a small hill (tumulus) near Elaea, and that the town was in a plain and walled. Elaea was damaged by an earthquake in the reign of Trajan

Trajan

Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...

, at the same time that Pitane suffered.