Pessinus
Encyclopedia
Pessinus was a city in Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

, the Asian part of 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...

 on the upper course of the river Sakarya River (Sangarios), from which the mythological King Midas is said to have ruled a greater Phrygia
Phrygia
In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...

n realm. The city has been proven to have been in existence as far back as 700 BC.

Pessinus, the present village Ballıhisar is situated at 13 km from Sivrihisar
Sivrihisar
Sivrihisar is a town and district of Eskişehir Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. According to 2010 census, population of the district is 23 488 of which 9,817 live in the town of Sivrihisar...

 a small town on the road Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

- Eskişehir
Eskisehir
Eskişehir is a city in northwestern Turkey and the capital of the Eskişehir Province. According to the 2009 census, the population of the city is 631,905. The city is located on the banks of the Porsuk River, 792 m above sea level, where it overlooks the fertile Phrygian Valley. In the nearby...

 at the junction with the road to Afyon-İzmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

, at 120 km SW of Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

.

History

Pessinus was the mythological capital of King Midas, the ruler who wished for everything that he touched be turned into gold, and who was, in the myth, the founder of the temple of Cybele
Cybele
Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...

, Midas’s mother. Cybele is the mother of the Gods in the Phrygian tradition and her importance is the reason for the existence of Pessinus.

Following the conquests of Alexander the Great and the settlement of the Tolistobogii
Tolistobogii
Tolistobogii is the name used by the Roman historian, Livy, for one of the three ancient Celtic tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Trocmi and Tectosages...

, a Celtic tribe, around Pessinus and Gordium in the 270s BC, the city became a major Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...

 center in the region of Galatia
Galatia
Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...

. The Seleucids
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...

 defeated the Celts, but the region was eventually lost by Antiochus Hierax
Antiochus Hierax
Antiochus Hierax , or Antiochus III, , so called from his grasping and ambitious character, was the younger son of Antiochus II and Laodice I and separatist leader in the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom, who ruled as king of Syria during his brother's reign.On the death of his father, in 246 BCE,...

 to the Attalid
Attalid dynasty
The Attalid dynasty was a Hellenistic dynasty that ruled the city of Pergamon after the death of Lysimachus, a general of Alexander the Great. The Attalid kingdom was the rump state left after the collapse of the Lysimachian Empire. One of Lysimachus' officers, Philetaerus, took control of the city...

 Kingdom of Pergamon. In 133 BC, Attalus III
Attalus III
Attalus III Philometor Euergetes was the last Attalid king of Pergamon, ruling from 138 BC to 133 BC....

 bequeathed his kingdom, and Pessinus with it, to Rome
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

.

Roman involvement in Pessinus however had earlier roots. In 205 BC, alarmed by a number of meteor showers during the ongoing Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

, the Romans, after consulting the Sibylline Books
Sibylline Books
The Sibylline Books or Libri Sibyllini were a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameters, purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, and consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Republic and the Empire...

, decided to introduce the cult of the Great Mother of Ida (Magna Mater Idaea, also known as Cybele
Cybele
Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...

) to the city. They sought the aid of their ally Attalus I, and following his instructions, they went to Pessinus and removed the goddess' most important image, a large black stone that was said to have fallen from the sky, to Rome.

The stone was first placed in the Temple of Victory
Victoria (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion, Victoria was the personified goddess of victory. She is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Nike, and was associated with Bellona. She was adapted from the Sabine agricultural goddess Vacuna and had a temple on the Palatine Hill...

 on the Palatine Hill
Palatine Hill
The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city...

, but in 191 BC a new sanctuary was built for the goddess on the summit of the Palatine Hill
Palatine Hill
The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city...

, one of the most sacred places in Rome. Along with the black stone, a throne was brought to Rome. The throne was destroyed twice by fire in 111 BC and 3 AD, both times being restored, in the latter case by the emperor Augustus.

Roman culture emerged in Pessinus again around 45 AD, when the Emperor Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...

 sold the temple-state to the Galatian tetrarch Brogitarus. This was a fundraising tactic used by the Roman emperors, starting with Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 around 45 BC.

Christianity reached the area in the 3rd century, and gradually, the temple was abandoned, although the emperor Julian the Apostate
Julian the Apostate
Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....

 made a pilgrimage there. In ca. 398, Pessinus was established as the capital of the newly-established province
Roman province
In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

 of Galatia Salutaris
Galatia (Roman province)
Galatia was the name of a province of the Roman Empire in Anatolia . It was established by the first emperor, Augustus , in 25 BC, covering most of formerly independent Celtic Galatia, with its capital at Ancyra....

, and became the seat of the a metropolitan bishop
Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...

. Under Justinian I
Justinian I
Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...

, it was renamed to Ioustinianoupolis, a name which continued to be occasionally used for a long time. The region later became part of the Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 Anatolic Theme
Anatolic Theme
The Anatolic Theme , more properly known as the Theme of the Anatolics was a Byzantine theme in central Asia Minor...

. In late 715 AD, the city of Pessinus was destroyed by an Arab raid, along with the neighboring city Orkistos. The area remained under Byzantine control until lost to the Seljuk Turks in the latter 11th century, after which Pessinus became an inconspicuous mountain village at 900m height, gradually getting depopulated since it was fully protected.

The last constructions from Antiquity were pulled down in the 19th century, but archeologists from the Ghent University
Ghent University
Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university located in Ghent, Belgium. It is one of the larger Flemish universities, consisting of 32,000 students and 7,100 staff members. The current rector is Paul Van Cauwenberge.It was established in 1817 by King William I of the Netherlands...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, have been digging there since 1967, and have unearthed the ancient temple of Cybele and many other buildings, such as a theatre and bath houses.

The Kybele Archaeological Culture Center, located in Ballihisar Village of Eskişehir's Sivrihisar district, has on display artifacts dating to the Phrygian and Roman eras from the ancient city of Pessinus.

Sources and references

  • Pessinus at www.archaeology.ugent.be
  • Westermann Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte
  • De Standaard (Flemish newspaper, Dutch language) August 9, 2005
  • Pauly-Wissowa
    Pauly-Wissowa
    The Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, commonly called the Pauly–Wissowa or simply RE, is a German encyclopedia of classical scholarship. With its supplements it comprises over eighty volumes....

  • Cambridge Ancient History, vols. VII, VIII, IX, XI, and XIII
  • Ghent University website
  • JSTOR
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