HISTORY. Old Smyrna was an ..Eolian colony, but early in the seventh century B.C. was seized by exiles from Colophon. and thus brought into the Ionian League. Its situation, which com manded the route from Sardis to the coast, en abled it to develop a rich commerce, but excited the jealousy and aggressions of the Lydian kings. Gyges was defeated, but Alyattes about u.c. 575 captured and destroyed the city. Only a village remained at this point until after the Macedonian conquest. Antigonus began to build the new city on the shore a few miles southeast of the old site. His death ( a.c. 301) checked its growth. but it was completed by Lysimachus. It was laid out with great nlagnitieence, and adorned with several fine buildings, among which was the Homereum, where the poet was worshiped as a hero. The city had an excellent harbor and, from its admi rable situation, soon became one of the finest and most flourishing cities in Asia. It seems to have been favored by the Seleueithe and in B.C. 243 was declared by Seleuens II. sacred and invio lable. This position of neutrality must have aided its growth. It was treated with consideration by
the Romans, and when it suffered severely in A.D. 179 from an earthquake, the Emperor Mareus Aurelius helped to restore it. It is mentioned in the Apocalypse as the seat of a Christian church, and it is said to have been the scene of the martyrdom of Polycarp. Throughout. the greater part of the Middle Ages Smyrna belonged to the Byzantine Empire. In the fourteenth cen tury it passed into the possession of the Knights of Saint John. The Mongols under Tamerlane destroyed it in 1402. Since the early part of the fifteenth century the town has belonged to the Turks.
Consult : Scherzer. Smyrne (Leipzig, 1880) ; Georgiades, Smyrne et L'Asie Hineure an point de rue eeonomigue (Paris. 1885) : Bougon, Smyrna (ib.. 1889) ; Lane, Smyrnceoruin Res et Antiquitates (G0tting,en. 18611; and the inscriptions and other monuments published in the Movcreiov Kat 13t13XwOhrq Tim eba)"yeXocis crxoXis (Smyrna, 1874 et seq.).