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“Smyrna
was founded as a Greek colony more than a thousand years before
Christ; but that ancient Aeolian Smyrna was soon captured by Ionian
Greeks, and made into an Ionian colony. Ionian Smyrna was a great
city, whose dominion extended to the east far beyond the valley, and
whose armies contended on even terms against the power of Lydia.
Battles fought against the Lydians on the banks of the Hermus are
mentioned by the Smyrnaean poet Mimnermus in the seventh century. But
Lydian power with its centre at Sardis was increasing during that
period, and Smyrna gradually gave way before it, until finally the
Greek city was captured and destroyed about 600 BC by King Alyattes.
In one sense Smyrna was now dead; the Greek city had ceased to exist;
and it was only in the third century that it was restored to the
history of Hellenic enterprise in Asia. There was, however, a State
named Smyrna during that long interval, when the Ionian Smyrna was
merely a historical memory. It is mentioned in an inscription of 368
BC as a place of some consequence; but it was no longer what the
Greeks called a city. It was essential to the Greek idea of a city
that it should have internal freedom, that it should elect its own
magistrates to manage its own affairs, and that its citizens should
have the education and the spirit which spring from habitually
thinking imperially. This Asiatic Smyrna between about 600 and 290
was, as Strabo says, a loose aggregate of villagers living in various
settlements scattered over the plain and the surrounding hills; it
possessed no sovereign power or self-governing institutions; and it
has left no trace on history. Aristides, however, says that there was
a town in that period intermediate in position between the old and the
later city” (Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia,
Chapter 19).
On
our Holy Days 2000
Page, by following the Pentecost 2000 links,
you may access both audio
and transcripts
relating the significance of Smyrna
to church history. This series by Fred R. Coulter is
entitled The Seven Church Harvest.
This site offers
pictures of
Old
Smyrna
in 700 BC.
Visit
this site for a short history of ancient Smyrna, which was founded by
Amazon
Warriors.
Ephesus: The
City of Change
Pergamum: The Royal City: The
City of Authority
Thyatira: Weakness
Made Strong
Sardis: The
City of Death
Philadelphia: The
Missionary City
Laodicea: The
City of Compromise
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