SMYRNA, smeena (Turkish, Izmni), Asia Minor, an ancient city and the most important seaport of Asia Minor, on the west coast of Anatolia, at the head of the Gulf of Smyrna (a sheltered inlet of the Łean Sea extending inward for about 45 miles). A broad quay and artificial harbor, the former traversed by a tramway, borders the sea-front. The city is divided into four quarters — Frank, Turk, Greek and Armenian. The pub lic buildings include the palace of the governor, a large barrack, a number of mosques and sev eral Greek, Armenian, Roman Catholic, and Protestant places of worship, the British con sular chapel, an American and two English churches. There is a British seamen's hospital here, for which a new building was erected in 1897. New waterworks were completed in 1898. Smyrna has been for centuries the most important place of trade in the Levant. This trade is carried on partly by shipping, partly by caravans from the interior, and is now supple mented by railways. The chief imports are cotton and woolen manufactured goods; colo nial goods, mostly coffee and sugar; iron, coal, hardware goods, leather, timber, glass-ware, butter and margarine, drugs, jute bags, petro leum, etc. The principal exports are raisins, figs, valonia, cereals, tobacco, gum-arabic, opium, carpets, cotton, wool, liquorice, olive-oil. Smyrna has been frequently injured by earth quakes and has also suffered severely from fire. The climate is variable, and fever (usually of a mild type) is prevalent. There are conflict ing accounts of the origin of this city; the most probable is that which represents it as an 2Eolian colony from Cyme. About 688 B.C. it
fell into the hands of the Ionians of Colophon. This earliest city, called by the Greeks Old Smyrna, was situated on the banks of the Meles, on the northeast side of the Herman Gulf (now the Gulf of Smyrna). It laid claim to the honor of being the birthplace of Homer, and its coins bore his image. This old city was abandoned and was succeeded by a new town on the southeast side of the gulf (the present site), which was said to have been built by Antigonus, and enlarged and embellished by Lysimachus, both generals of Alexander the Great. It was laid out with great mag nificence, and adorned with several splendid buildings, among which was the Homereum, where the poet was honored as a god. It soon became one of the greatest and most prosperous cities in the world. It was especially favored by the Romans on account of the aid it lent them in the Syrian and Mithridatic wars. In the civil wars it was taken and partly destroyed by Dolabella, but it soon recovered. It is one of the two among the seven churches in Asia which Saint John addresses without rebuke, and it was the scene of the labors and martyr dom of Polycarp. In the 13th century only the ruins of its former splendor were left; but after the Turks became masters of the country it began to revive until it became the most flourishing city of Asia Minor. As a result of the European War, Smyrna was handed over to Greece as the mandatory by the Peace Confer ence. Greece took charge of the city in May 1919. Pop. about 250,000, fully dialf being Greeks.