HISTORY •• Classical Empires: Greece & Persia 31
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© Lonely Planet Publications 30 lonelyplanet.com HISTORY •• Classical Empires: Greece & Persia 31 the kingdom, having endured internal ructions, was reborn as an empire. In creating the first great Anatolian empire, the Hittites were necessarily war- History like, but also displayed other imperial trappings – they ruled over myriad vassal states and princelings while also being noted for their sense of ethics Homer, the Greek author Fate has put Turkey at the junction of two continents. As a land bridge, a and an occasional penchant for diplomacy. This didn’t prevent them from of The Iliad, which told meeting point and a battleground, it has seen peoples moving in both direc- overrunning Ramses II of Egypt in 1298 BC, but did allow them to patch the story of the Trojan tions between Europe and Asia throughout recorded history. That human things up with the crestfallen Ramses by dividing up Syria with him and War, is believed to have traffic has left monuments and debris, dynasties and lasting cultural legacies, marrying him to a Hittite princess. been born in Smyrna Anatolia is so named all of which have contributed to the character of modern Turkey. Turkish The Hittite empire was harassed in its later stages by subject principalities, (present-day İzmir), for the Greek word history is such a hugely rich patchwork of overlapping eras and empires that including Troy ( p203 ) on the Aegean coast. The final straw was the invasion before 700 BC. anatolē meaning ‘rising it boasts figures, events and phenomena familiar even to the layperson. of the iron-smelting Greeks, generally known as the ‘sea peoples’. The Hittites of the sun’. The Turkish found themselves landlocked – hence disadvantaged during an era of bur- ‘anadolu’ translates, very EARLY CULTURES, CITIES & CLASHES geoning sea trade – and lacking in the use of the latest technology: iron. roughly, as ‘motherlode’. Archaeological finds indicate that the earliest Anatolian hunter-gatherers Meanwhile a new dynasty at Troy was establishing itself as a regional lived in caves during the Palaeolithic era. By around the 7th millennium BC power. The Trojans in turn were harried by the Greeks, which inevitably some folk had abandoned their nomadic existence and formed settlements. lead to the Trojan War (1250 BC). This allowed the Hittites some breathing Çatalhöyük ( p489 ), which arose around 6500 BC, may well be the first ever space. However, later arrivals, from both east and west, sped the demise of the city. It was certainly a centre of innovation – here locals developed crop Hittites. Some pockets of Hittite culture persisted in the Taurus Mountains, The most enduring irrigation and were the first to domesticate pigs and sheep, as well as create but the great empire was dead. Later city states created a Neo-Hittite culture, reminder of the Phrygians distinctive pottery and what is thought to have been the first-ever landscape which attracted Greek merchants of the Iron Age and became the conduit is the Phrygian cap, a picture. Relics from this settlement can be seen at Ankara’s Museum of through which Mesopotamian religion and art forms were transmitted to conical cloth cap with the Anatolian Civilisations ( p443 ). the Greeks. top jauntily pulled forward. It was recorded Archaeologist Ian The Chalcolithic age saw the rise of Hacılar, near current-day Burdur in on Greek vase paintings Hodder’s Catalhoyuk: Central Anatolia, as well as communities in the southeast, which absorbed CLASSICAL EMPIRES: GREECE & PERSIA and tomb carvings, and The Leopard’s Tale is an Mesopotamian influences, including the use of metal tools. Across Anatolia Post-Hittite Anatolia consisted of a patchwork of peoples, both indigenous was adopted as a symbol account of the excavation more and larger communities sprung up and interacted – not always happily: Anatolians and recent interlopers. In the east the Urartians, descendants of of liberty during the of the site, which vividly settlements tended to be fortified. earlier Anatolian Hurrians, forged a kingdom near Lake Van (Van Gölü). By French Revolution and portrays life as it was By 3000 BC advances in metallurgy allowed power to be concentrated in the 8th century BC the Phrygians arrived in western Anatolia from Thrace. in various anticolonial during the city’s heyday. certain hands, leading to the creation of various Anatolian kingdoms. One Under King Gordius, he of the Gordian knot, the Phrygians created a capital such kingdom was at Alacahöyük ( p467 ). Alacahöyük was in the heart of at Gordion (Yassıhöyük, p454 ), their power peaking later under King Midas. revolutions in Latin Anatolia, yet even this place showed Caucasian influence, evidence of trade In 725 BC Gordion was put to the sword by horse-borne Cimmerians, a America. far beyond the Anatolian plateau. fate that even King Midas’ golden touch couldn’t avert, and the Phrygians Trade, too, was increasing on the southern and western coasts, with Troy were no more. trading with the Aegean islands and mainland Greece. Around 2000 BC the On the southwest coast the Lycians established a confederation of inde- Hatti people created a capital at Kanesh (Kültepe, near Kayseri), ruling over pendent city states extending from modern-day Fethiye ( p353 ) to Antalya an extensive web of trading communities. Here for the first time Anatolian ( p382 ). Inland the similarly named Lydians dominated Western Anatolia history emerges from the realm of archaeological conjecture and becomes from their capital at Sardis ( p235 ) and are credited with creating the first- Until the rediscovery of ‘real’: clay tablets left at Kanesh provide written records of dates, events ever coinage. the ruins at Boğazkale and names. Meanwhile, Greek colonies were steadily spreading along the Mediter- For further discussion of in the 19th century, the No singular, significant Anatolian civilisation had yet emerged, but the ranean coast, and Greek cultural influence was spreading through Anatolia. the highs and lows of Hittites were known tone was set for the millennia to come: cultural interaction, trade and war Most of the peoples of the Anatolian patchwork were clearly influenced by life in ancient Lycia and only through an obscure were to become the recurring themes of Anatolian history. the Greeks: Phrygia’s King Midas had a Greek wife; the Lycians borrowed detailed information on reference in the Old the legend of the Chimera and cult of Leto (centred on Letoön, p365 ); and the sites of Turkey’s Testament. AGES OF BRONZE: THE HITTITES Lydian art acted as a conduit between Greek and Persian art forms. It seems Lycian coast, visit www The Hatti were only a temporary presence. As they declined, a new people, that at times admiration was mutual: the Lycians were the only Anatolian .lycianturkey.com. the Hittites, assumed their territory. From Alacahöyük, the Hittites shifted people whom the Greeks didn’t deride as ‘barbarians’, and the Greeks were their capital to Hattuşa (near present-day Boğazkale; p464 ) some time so impressed by the wealth of the Lydian king Croesus that they coined the around 1800 BC. expression ‘as rich as Croesus’. The Hittites’ legacy consisted of their great capital, as well as their state These increasing manifestations of Hellenic influence didn’t go unnoticed. archives (cuneiform clay tablets) and distinctive artistic styles. By 1450 BC Cyrus, the emperor of Persia, would not countenance such temerity in his TIMELINE c 7500 BC c 1180 BC c 1100 BC 547 BC Founding of settlement at Çatalhöyük Fall of Homer’s Troy Fall of Hittite Empire. Greek colonists start to land on coast of Cyrus of Persia overruns Anatolia and the Greek colonies Asia Minor. 32 HISTORY •• Alexander & After lonelyplanet.com lonelyplanet.com HISTORY •• Roman Rule & the Rise of Christianity 33 backyard. He invaded in 547 BC, initially putting paid to the Lydians, then In 279 BC the Celts romped in from southeastern Europe, establishing a barrelled on to extend control to the Aegean. Over a period of years under kingdom of Galatia centred on Ancyra (Ankara). To the northeast a certain emperors Darius I and Xerxes the Persians checked the expansion of coastal Mithridates had earlier established the kingdom of Pontus, centred on Greek trading colonies. They also subdued the interior, bringing to an end Amasya, and the Armenians, long established in the Lake Van region, and the era of home-grown Anatolian kingdoms. thought by some to be descendants of the earlier Urartians, re-established Ruling Anatolia through compliant local satrapies, the Persians didn’t themselves having been granted autonomy under Alexander. have it all their own way. They had to contend with periodic resistance from Meanwhile, across the Aegean Sea, the increasingly powerful Romans feisty Anatolians, such as the revolt of the Ionian city of Miletus ( p268 ) in were casting covetous eyes on the rich resources and trade networks of 494 BC. Allegedly fomented from Athens, the revolt was abruptly put down Anatolia. According to legend, both and the locals massacred. The Persians used the connivance of Athens as a of Alexander’s parents pretext to invade mainland Greece, only to be routed at Marathon (whence ROMAN RULE & THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY foresaw his birth. His the endurance event arose). Ironically, Pergamum, the greatest of the post-Alexandrian cities, became mother dreamed that the mechanism by which the Romans came to control Anatolia. The Roman a lightning strike had ALEXANDER & AFTER legions had defeated the armies of a Seleucid king at Magnesia (Manisa) struck her womb, while Persian control of Anatolia continued until 334 BC when a new force stormed in 190 BC, but Pergamum became the beachhead from which the Roman To get the background his father dreamed that across Anatolia. Alexander and his Macedonian adventurers crossed the embrace of Anatolia began in earnest when King Attalus III died in 133 BC, on the search for, his wife’s womb had Dardanelles at Çanakkale, initially intent on relieving Anatolia of the Per- bequeathing the city to Rome.