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THE PHRYGIANS AND KING MIDAS
The Phrygians (750-300 BC) settled in Central
and Western Anatolia, in the Afyon-Ankara-Eskisehir
triangle, declaring Gordion on the Sakarya river
to be their capital. Their civilization met its
apogee in the second half of the 8th century BC,
under the famous King Midas whom, according to
Greek mythology, Apollo ridiculed by having him
grow ears of a donkey, and whom Dionysus invested
with the power to turn everything he touched into
gold. Gordion fell to Persian domination around
550 BC and was liberated in 333 BC by Alexander
the Great.
THE LYDIANS INVENT MONEY
In the east of Izmir, lived another people, the
Lydians, thought to have invented money between
800 and 650 BC. In the 6th century BC, Croesus,
the King of Lydia, agreed with the advancing Persians
to divide Anatolia along the river Kizilirmak.
The Persians, however, did not keep this commitment
and continued to encroach on Lydian territory.
They remained the sovereign power in Anatolia
until the arrival of Alexander the Great in 333
BC.
THE ROMAN PERIOD BEGINS
After the death of Alexander the Great, Anatolia
became the hub of the Seleucid Empire. Bergama
grew at the expense of its neighbors, and snatched
part of Phrygia in 241 BC. The kingdom became
prodigiously rich, the emporium of Anotolia and
a brilliant intellectual center.
THE ROMAN PERIOD BEGINS
The Roman period of Anatolia began with the death
of king Attalus III of Bergama who willed his
country to the Romans because he had no direct
heir. Anatolia then lived through a period of
peace and prosperity, particularly in the 1st
and 2nd centuries AD.
The pax Romana proved to be an extra ordinary
period of urban development. Ephesus served as
the seat of the Roman governor of Asia and as
a great commercial and cultural center.
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