PERGAMUM or PERGAMUS (mod. Bergama), an ancient city of Teuthrania, a district in Mysia. It is usually named Ilipyai.tov by Greek writers, but Ptolemy has the form Mp-yaktog.
Little but mythology is known of the city till the time of Xenophon, but it had been striking coins since 420 B.C. at latest. Its importance began under Lysimachus. In 283 B.C. Philetaerus, governor of the fortress, rebelled, and Pergamum became the capital of a little principality. Philetaerus contrived to keep on good terms with his neighbours on all sides (283-263 B.c.). His nephew Eumenes (263-241) succeeded him, increased his power, and even defeated Antiochus II. of Syria near Sardis. His successor Attalus I. (241-197) won a battle over the Gauls, and assumed the title of king. Other Greek kings in Asia Minor reduced Pergamenian power to a very low ebb about 222. On the other hand, the influence of the Romans was beginning to make itself felt in the East. Attalus prudently connected himself with them and shared in their continuous success. Pergamum thus became the political and cultural capital of a considerable territory. The splendour of Pergamum was at its height under Eumenes II. (197-159). He continued true to the Romans during their wars with Antiochus and Perseus, and his kingdom spread over the greater part of western Asia Minor, including Mysia, Lydia, and a great part of Phrygia, Ionia and Caria. He left an infant son, Attalus (III.), and a brother, Attalus II. (Phila delphus), who ruled 159-138, and was succeeded by his nephew, Attalus III. (Philometor). The latter died in 133, and bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans, who erected part of it (excluding Great Phrygia, which they gave to Mithradates of Pontus) into a province under the name of Asia. Pergamum continued to rank for two centuries as the capital, and subsequently, with Ephesus and Smyrna, as one of the three great cities of the province; and the devotion of its former kings to the Roman cause was con tinued by its citizens, who erected on the Acropolis a temple to Augustus. It was the seat of a conventus, including the cities of the Cain's valley and some of those in the northern part of the Hermus valley. Under the Roman Empire Pergamum was one of the chief seats of the worship of Asclepius "the Saviour."
Pergamum was the chief centre of the imperial cult under the early empire, and in Rev. ii. 13 is referred to as the place of "Satan's throne." It was also an early seat of Christianity, and one of the Seven Churches. The place, re-fortified by the Byzan tines, and still retaining its name as Bergama, passed into Muslim hands early in the 14th century. The lower town was rebuilt, and in the 17th and 18th centuries became a chief seat of the great Dere Bey family of Kara Osman Oglu, which did not resign it to direct Ottoman control until about 1825. It is still an administrative and commercial centre of importance. Excavations in the late 19th century at the south end of the Acropolis led to the discovery of the Altar of Zeus erected by Eumenes II. in i8o B.C. to celebrate his victory over the Gauls. In very high relief and representing furious action, these altar sculptures are the finest which survive from the Pergamene school, which re placed the repose and breadth of earlier schools by excess of emphasis and detail. The summit of the Acropolis is crowded with public buildings, between the market place, which lies at the southern point, and the Royal Gardens on the north. In the inter val are the Zeus altar; the great hexastyle Doric temple of Athena flanked by the palace on the east, by the theatre and its long terrace on the west, and by a library on the north; and a large Corinthian temple of Trajan. The residential part of the Greek, and practically all the Roman city lay below the Acropolis on ground now mostly occupied by modern Bergama ; but west of the river Selinus, on rising ground facing the Acropolis, are the remains of a Roman theatre, an amphitheatre and a circus.
See, beside general authorities for Asia Minor, J. Dallawav, Constan tinop/e, etc. (1797) ; W. M. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Churches (1904) ; and especially the publication by the Royal Museum of Berlin, Alterthiimer von Pergamon (1885 sqq.) ; "Operations at Perga mon 1906-1907," in Athenische Mitteil. (1908), xxxiii. 4; G. Leroux, "La Pretendue basilique de Pergame" in Bull. Cor. Hell. (1909), pp. 238 sqq.