Priene
Priene is an ancient city located in Ionia, western Asia Minor, renowned for its historical significance and urban planning. Believed to have been founded in the 11th century BC, Priene originally overlooked a harbor by the river Maeander. The city was strategically important, being a member of the Ionian League and the Delian League, with its citizens recognized for their contributions to agriculture and boundary litigation. After suffering invasions from various groups and experiencing a decline in prominence, Priene was reconstructed during the time of Alexander the Great around 334 BC, moving to a location on Mount Mycale.
The second Priene is celebrated for its systematic urban layout, designed to accommodate around 5,000 residents. Among its architectural highlights is the Sanctuary of Athena Polias, noted for its monumental altar and sculptural adornments. The city features an extensive water supply system, a colonnaded agora, a theater, a gymnasium, and well-preserved private houses dating back to the 3rd century BC, showcasing the daily life of its inhabitants. Despite its decline due to silting of the nearby river, Priene remains a prominent archaeological site, offering insight into ancient urban life and architecture.
Priene
later Naulochon (Turunçlar)
A city in Ionia (western Asia Minor). The original settlement is believed to have stood on a crag 1250 feet above sea level (the Teloneia), overlooking a harbor, or a pair of harbors, beside the mouth of the river Maeander (Büyük Menderes). According to tradition Priene was founded in the eleventh century BC by Aepytus, grandson of the legendary Athenian King Codrus, in association with the Theban Philotas. Dominating a local native population—the Pedieis, who became serfs like the Spartan helots—the town was a member of the Ionian League, and, at most times, controlled the common sanctuary of Ionian cities, the Panionion (see Mycale). The city suffered serious damage from the Cimmerians, Lydians and Persians; but the wisdom of its sixth-century leader Bias earned him a place among the Seven Sages. It supplied twelve ships to the Ionian rebellion against Persia, terminating disastrously in the battle of Lade (495). After the Persian Wars it became a member of the Delian League led by Athens, which intervened in 441 during a war between Miletus and Samos, in which the issue at stake was the control of Priene.
Later the place faded into comparative insignificance at the expense of the harbor town of Naulochus (three miles to the southwest). But it seems to have been in the time of Alexander the Great that Priene was reconstructed on a different site; he himself was a visitor c 334, and it was then that the transfer occurred, accompanied, according to an inscription, by an exemption from tribute. The new city occupied a series of terraces on the steep slope of Mount Mycale, facing Miletus and overshadowed by its acropolis on the Teloneia hill, where the garrison was stationed. This revived Priene produced leading authorities on agriculture, and its citizens gained a reputation as experts in boundary litigation. Its subsequent prosperity, however, was gradually hampered by the silting of the river mouth, which by the time of Strabo had already caused the sea to recede five miles (it has now withdrawn three miles further). Nevertheless local coinage of Roman imperial date—on which the wise Bias figures prominently—continued until the time of Valerian (AD 253–60).
This second Priene, of the fourth and later centuries BC, is a model of urban planning and the best surviving example of a town of this period. With its walls extending across a broad spur, sloping down from the precipitous face of the Teloneia toward what must have been the estuary of the Maeander, the new foundation displayed a systematic, symmetrical grid layout designed for a population of perhaps 5,000. The most conspicuous building, towering above a lofty terrace, was a sanctuary of Athena Polias, designed, according to Vitruvius, by Pytheus, the architect of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; it was first dedicated to Alexander the Great (although not completed at that time), and later rededicated to Athena and Augustus. The shrine was adorned with a number of different sculptural groups, ranging in date from the later fourth century BC to the early second century AD—and recently reexamined, after the rediscovery of excavation records of AD 1868/9. In front of the temple stood a monumental altar designed by the renowned Hermogenes of Priene (c 150 BC), of which little has survived.
The city's water supply was elaborate and long-lived. Its colonnaded agora contained numerous monuments and was flanked by public offices, including the council or assembly chamber. A theater is also to be seen (the manner in which its proscenium was employed is much disputed). There is also a large gymnasium, incorporating a palaestra (athletics school) and stadium. But Priene is especially noteworthy for the survival, in varying degrees of completeness, of four hundred private houses, many or most as early as the third century BC. The usual plan of these dwellings comprises an entrance with a vestibule and open courtyard leading to an antechamber and principal living room. Roofs were tiled, and the walls of the rooms plastered in imitation of marble. External windows seem to have been few, small and high. A few remains of staircases exist but no second storeys are preserved. A three-aisled episcopal basilica dates from the Byzantine epoch.
See map ofAsia Minor.