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Following Hadrian

@carolemadge

Oct 31

THREAD 🧵Celebrating #Halloween with some ancient monsters. Let's start with the Gorgon, perhaps the best-known monster from Classical Mythology. The snake-haired Medusa was one of the three Gorgons. Anyone who looked at her face was turned to stone.

The Minotaur was a bull-headed monster that devoured human flesh deep within the twisting maze of the Labyrinth. It was the offspring of the Cretan Queen Pasiphae and a snow-white bull. The monster was eventually slain by the Athenian hero Theseus.

The Chimera was a ferocious fire-breathing hybrid monster from Lycia in Asia Minor. It is usually depicted with a lion body, a goat head on its back and a tail that ends with a snake's head. The Chimera was killed by Bellerophon.

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Following Hadrian

@carolemadge

Oct 9

After Pergamon and Sardis, two other great cities of western Asia had their turn to receive Hadrian and his party, Smyrna and Ephesus. Both metropoleis were perennial rivals, competing with each other for first place in the province and the granting of the acclaimed title neokoros. Travelling with Hadrian was one of the most renowned sophists of his time, Marcus Antonius Polemon, who was to use his rhetorical skills for the benefit of his adopted home, the Ionian city of Smyrna (Philostr. VS 530–31).

Born in Laodicea on the Lycus in Phrygia, Polemon attended Smyrna’s schools of rhetoric as a youth, where he received civic honours from the citizens for his services to the city. One of Polemon’s talents was to plead causes before the rulers of the Empire. Trajan granted the orator the privilege of unrestricted travel, a favour later extended by Hadrian. He then became an ambassador to Hadrian and served on many missions for the Emperor, including delivering the inauguration speech at the consecration of the Olympieion at Athens in 131/132. According to Philostratus (VS 1.25.1–4), Polemon persuaded Hadrian to spend ten million drachmae on Smyrna in a single day, from which the city built a “grain market, the most magnificent of all those in Asia” and “a temple that can be seen from afar”.

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Smyrna has a long history and is traditionally considered to be the birthplace of Homer (Strabo 14.1.37). It was founded by the Aeolians at the beginning of the first millennium BC and later by the Ionians. Smyrna quickly became an important seaport and a thriving commercial centre on the Aegean coast. It was renowned as one of the most magnificent cities in Asia Minor (Strabo 14.646). Located about forty miles north of Ephesus, it occupied a beautiful territory at the mouth of a gulf.

The Ionian city first rose to prominence during the Archaic Period as one of the principal ancient Greek settlements in western Anatolia. The original town, now called “Old Smyrna”, was located northeast of the Gulf of Smyrna. It was known for its magnificent temple, which was dedicated to Athena. However, Old Smyrna was attacked and destroyed by the Lydian king Alyattes around 627 BC, and it remained abandoned for 400 years.

Smyrna was re-established during the time of Alexander the Great. A new and larger city was built on the slope of Mount Pagus. Legend has it that while on a hunting expedition there, the Macedonian king fell asleep under a tree and had a dream in which two Nemeses instructed him to build a city on that very spot. Mount Pagus then became the acropolis of New Smyrna. However, Alexander did not live to carry this plan into effect, which was only accomplished by his successors Antigonus and Lysimachus. Nemesis first appeared on Smyrnean coins in the 1st century AD and became more frequent in the 2nd century, with the introduction of the double Nemesis during the reign of Hadrian.

Smyrna’s founding myth of Alexander’s hunt on Mount Pagos must have caught the attention of the Emperor, who had just experienced a successful bear hunt in Mysia. His hunting activities in the area also left such a deep impression on the citizens of Stratonicea-Hadrianopolis that they later worshipped him as Zeus Kynegesios (Zeus the Hunter).

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Following Hadrian

@carolemadge

Mar 31

Messene… what an amazing site!! This is a hidden gem, truly extraordinary. 😍

The first evidence of human activity in Ancient Messene goes back to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. A residential settlement of the 9th-8th century BC is detected at the Asklepieion while at the same time the sanctuary of Zeus Ithomatas is operating on the top of mount Ithome. The Messenian wars and the continuous uprisings of the Messenians against the dominant Spartans took place during the 8th-5th century BC.

In 369 BC, the Theban general Epaminondas ended the long Spartan occupation and founded the city of Messene, bringing back the exiled Messenians from Italy (Rhegium), Sicily (Zankle-Messene, Messina) and Cyrenaica (Euesperides). The new Messenian capital was founded in the foothills of Mount Ithome, a place inextricably linked to the local political and religious history.

The city was named after the mythical queen Messene and developed into a notable political, religious and cultural centre mainly during the Hellenistic and Early Imperial years (3rd century BC-1st century AD).

From the 3rd century AD, the city declined and shrank in size. However, during the Early Byzantine years (5th-7th c. AD) until the beginning of the 15th century AD, Messene remained a remarkable centre in the southwestern Peloponnese, known from the written sources of the 10th century AD, and thereafter under the name “Vourkano".

The traveller Pausanias visited the city between 155 and 160 B.C. and recorded significant information regarding its form and all public and holy buildings.
theoi.com/Text/Pausanias…

Arcadian Gate

Fountain of Arsinoe

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Following Hadrian

@carolemadge

Mar 6

🧵 In early AD 124, Hadrian toured Bithynia in Asia Minor. After sailing along the southern Black Sea coast, possibly visiting the Pontic towns of Amisus, Sinope and Amastris, Hadrian is thought to have spent the winter of 123/4 in Nicomedia or possibly Byzantium.

Nicomedia was the capital of the dual province of Pontus et Bithynia in what is now Izmit in northern Turkey. It was also the hometown of his lifelong friend Arrian, who may have been his host on this occasion, like in 117/8.

During his stay in the Bithynian province, the Emperor probably visited several major cities, including Heraclea Pontica, Claudiopolis (former Bythinium), Prusias ad Hypium and Nicaea. During one of these visits, Hadrian probably met Antinous, a beautiful young Greek boy who would accompany him on his many travels as a cherished lover and companion.

Early AD 124 – Hadrian spends the winter in Nicomedia, tours Bithynia and "meets" Antinous
👉
#Hadrian1900followinghadrian.com/2024/02/27/ear…

Nicomedia and Nicaea were only just recovering from the damage caused by an earthquake. The date of this earthquake is not certain. It probably took place in the fifth year of Hadrian's reign in 121, between August and December, as stated by Eusebius, but definitely before Hadrian visited the area in 124. Saint Jerome places it in the 224th Olympiad, the fourth year of Hadrian's reign, AD 120.

"After an earthquake had happened, Nicomedia lay in ruins, and many things were overturned in the city of Nicaea: for the reconstruction of which, Hadrian generously gave funds from the public treasury."
Jerome, Chronicle 180

Hadrian took special care of the province and contributed to the reconstruction of both cities, as suggested by the new set of coins celebrating Hadrian as Restitutor Bithyniae and Restitutor Nicomediae. Nicomedia also added the epithet 'Hadriane' (Ἁδριανή) to its titulature to express its gratitude (CIG 1720).

Hadrian is credited with reconstructing city walls, gates and markets in the two neighbouring towns, which had a long rivalry over which city held the rank of capital of the province. Nicomedia was the metropolis or 'first city' of Bithynia and wanted to be the only city claiming the title, which Nicaea also claimed. Hadrian also entrusted Patrocles, a Bithynian who had commanded two Roman cohorts, with overseeing the reconstruction of his native Nicaea (IK Iznik 56).

"[Hadrian] surrounded with strong walls Nicaea and Nicomedea, which had suffered in an earthquake."
Niceph. 256/i. 944epigraphy.packhum.org/text/277836?&b…

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Following Hadrian

@carolemadge

Oct 19, 2023

[New post] Autumn AD 123 – Hadrian reaches Trapezus and sails westwards along the Pontic coast #Hadrian1900
followinghadrian.com/2023/10/19/aut…

After his inspection tour of the eastern frontier provinces, Hadrian travelled through the Pontic mountains to the Black Sea port of Trapezus (present-day Trabzon), the northernmost end of the Cappadocian limes. Trapezus was one of the furthest points reached by Hadrian, and in the AD 130s, his friend L. Flavius Arrianus, as governor of the province of Cappadocia, would report on his visit, following in the footsteps of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand.

"We came in the course of our voyage to Trapezus, a Greek city in a maritime situation, a colony from Sinope, as we are informed by Xenophon, the celebrated historian. We surveyed the Euxine sea with the greater pleasure, as we viewed it from the same spot, whence both Xenophon and yourself had formerly observed it."

Xenophon and his later great admirer Arrian both described Trapezus as a Greek city settled on the sea and as a colony of Sinope. Eusebius, who lived in the 4th century AD, dated the foundation of Trebizond as 756 BC but may refer to an early emporium (a place of fishery and commerce) in the territory of Colchis. Settlers from Sinope of Paphlagonia (colonists from Miletus), a Greek city on the southern shore of the Euxine (Black Sea), about 400 kilometres to the west, refounded the city around 630 BC with the aim of trading with an inland tribe, the Mossynoeci, and taking advantage of the rich metal region of the east Euxine trade network (Doonan, 2010).

The city was laid out on a flat rock overlooking the sea and protected on either side by deep ravines, the shape of which occasioned the name of Trapezous, from the Greek word trapeza (“τράπεζα”), signifying a table. The table appears on the reverse of the city’s first coins minted in the 4th century BC, surmounted by a huge bunch of grapes. The obverse bears the head of a young bearded man, thought to represent the god Hermes. The town’s name has varied over the centuries: Trapezous, Trebizond, Trebisonda, Trapezunte, Tarabzundah and Trabzon.

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Following Hadrian

@carolemadge

Aug 3, 2023

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

#GeorgiaOdyssey Day 3 - Today, we visited Gelati Academy and Monastery, built by King David the Builder in 12th century AD. Gelati was the center of spiritual and scientific life of the Middle Ages, the tomb of Georgian kings, and the cult place for pilgrims. It is under UNESCO… https://t.co/tSbujVz76utwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

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