Abstract
The article is devoted to the problematic subjects in the history of the Archaic Smyrna. One of them is the foundation of the settlement by the Aeolians and the time of entry into the Panioniоn League.
The author believes the accession of Smyrna to Paninion was not in Hellenistic times, as it was affi rmed by Vitruvius, but in the early Archaic period, when it was a bone of contention between Ionian and Aeolian tribes. The paper also examines the archaeological data, supplementing missing evidence of the narrative tradition concerning “the Dark Ages” in the history of Smyrna: from its destruction by the Lydian king Alyattes until the new foundation by Alexander the Great or his successors.
The archaeological studies of the late 20th – early 21th centuries, taken by English and Turkish archaeologists, show that the Lydian conquest was short-time and not catastrophic. There was large urbanization in Smyrna at the beginning of the 6th century BC, indicated with the restoration of old defensive walls and creation of new those, the reconstruction of the temple of Athena, the appearance of the new public buildings and private household complexes. The rich and diverse funerary equipment of the necropolis at the southeastern walls of the city demonstrates the growth of the welfare of the townspeople.
The conquest of the Asia Minor Greek cities by the Persians led to signifi cant material losses: the temple of Athena was destroyed and was not reconstructed in the same scale, the walls and houses of the townspeople were damaged. However, according to archaeology, the polis’s economy continues to develop in the 5th – 4th centuries BC: Smyrna imported wine and ceramics from the Ionian cities, Corinth, Sparta and Central Italy, minted electrum coins, extended the boundaries of city’s chora to the southeast, sold grain to the neighboring Ionian cities. At the same time throughout the Archaic period Smyrna was neither involved in colonization, nor manifested itself in an external policy and representing the example of autonomy and selfsuffi cient polis, focused exclusively on the development of agriculture, trade and construction of defensive structures.
Keywords
Smyrna, Ionia, Homer, Panionion, Alyattes, Ionian Revolt
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