Two More Smyrna Maps

#smyrna #history #geography

I've been searching through Google image to find the most useful maps to share with you.

I quite like this old map because it clearly shows the location of the site of the Hellenistic city in an area now a suburb of the modern city. Plus silting is indicated and the surrounding hills  and how the Ionian colonists and later Hellenistic era Greeks sensibly built their cities and harbours north and south of the river deltas.

History and Geography interact.

This is why a GOOD Classicist truly is a generalist who knows some science too?!

One more map showing the surrounding areas and how very lucky or careful the colonists were picking their site!

Miletus and Mud

#Miletos #Miletus #Balat #turkey #Greekcolony #Ionia

I was looking for more town plans showing agoras when I came across this map that shows the the intersection of #history and #geography.

Yes now that gray green area in the middle was once open water!

Now Miletus has been occupied since at least the Bronze Age and hence probably even earlier. Who was there before the Minoans and Mycenaeans I don't know but it was a city and port both multicultural and yet a classic Ionian Greek Polis too! However like Ephesus silting turned it from a major port to a declining backwater now in ruins near the modern Turkish village of Balat.

Odd that the Romans who could drain lakes and build canals and breakwaters for their ports never turned their engineering skills to divert the silt behind dykes.

Of the ancient note that Smyrna now Izmir is still a port but it lies in a narrower river valley in which the river flows straight with less silt buildup.

Back to Miletus home of philosophers and the Milesians.

They had a double agora and no not because the Romans expanded the agora area building a forum next to the Greek agora as happened in many cities.

While the bay marked D was the primary port the other bays and coves were probably used too by fishermen. However with the silt buildup moving the shore line closer and closer what was once a sheltered bay with great anchorage and clear views of any enemy fleets became an indefensible site. 

Poor Miletus conquered by geography!

The nearby fertile riverlands that attracted Greek colonists  ended up becoming a bane instead of a blessing!

Philippi Agora to Forum

The ruins of Ancient Philippi are an excellent and compact example of how an agora can change to a forum and then a Byzatine town centre.

Fortunately for archaeologists it seems to have been abandoned some time after 1345 despite having fortifications as the population shifted to other towns in the region or possibly just around the mountain to what became modern Krinides?

There may have been a Thracian settlement nearby and the original Greek colony from the nearby island of Thasos was called the Fountains Kreenidees so perhaps the wetlands that have now been drained for agriculture were once fed by springs whose surface outlets have disappeared. The Thracians were noted for horse raising so if those wetlands dried up to grasslands in summer and autumn ...

Here's the most useful map and photo I could find on the web.

If you want more images make sure you specify Philippi in Greece!

The city acquired its name from a Macedonian ruler.

The "Acropolis" seems to have mainly been used as a watch post with a clear post over the road a major trade route later incorporated into the Roman Via Egnatia. The Roman forum was built right next to an older agora and various public buildings. There were also several Byzantine churches and chapels and the modern village of Krinides may have been the "garden suburb" outside the walls of the main polis.  Drama is an actual city on Thrace! Not shown on the map are shrines to Bendis and several tombs.

As with many Greek cities the original larger agora acquired more and more public structures over the centuries. 

Google Earth has an aerial view but I rather like this photo !

I rather suspect the original Agora covered most of the area in the middle of that shot with the "Library" Basilicas and Roman era Forum replacing older stoas or council buildings. 

Yes this is the Philippi of the New Testament! 

Remember however this one is in Thrace in modern Greece!

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