Pergamon was such an ancient city in Anatolia, some 25 kilometers from the Aegean Sea in what is now Bergama, Turkey’s Izmir Province. Because it faced the Caicus River Valley (current name Bakrçay), which gave access from Pergamon to the Aegean shore, the city had enormous strategic significance. During the Hellenistic period, Pergamon reached that level of its power, becoming the capital of the Attalid rulers. During the Roman era, the city served as the initial capital of the Asian province, although it was soon surpassed by Ephesus, a local competitor. UNESCO has designated Pergamon as a World Heritage Site.

Alexander’s generals split the area he had conquered after he died in 323 BCE, resulting in a power struggle between them. Pergamon was hardly more than a hilltop citadel with a town on its southern side about this period. After years of strife, the city was taken under the power of Lysimachus, one of the Macedonian generals. Pergamon had adopted the polis (or city-state) model of municipal organization at this time.

Pergamon was turned up to the Roman republic to be fully administered by the Roman people during the reign of Attalus III (r. 138-133 BCE), and the kingdom was converted into the Roman province of Asia with Pergamon as its inaugural capital. However, not everyone welcomed the new Roman government, and there were a series of revolts. The Romans, who had a poor tolerance for civic unrest, finally restored order, but Pergamon quickly lost its position, and Ephesus, a nearby city, became the new provincial capital.

The archaeological location of Pergamon has produced numerous great works of Hellenistic and Roman art, but the altar in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin is possibly the most remarkable. The Great Altar was built during the reign of Eumenes II (see above) and is 36 by 34 meters in size. It is one of the most stunning pieces of art from antiquity that has survived. The altar was built around a stairway, with a colonnaded chamber atop the 2.3-meter-high and 120-meter-long frieze. The frieze, sculpted in high relief, represents Zeus, Artemis, and other Olympian gods fighting the Giants, symbolizing the triumph of order over chaos. This massive monument stands as a persuasive and hard tribute to the city’s former strength and status.

The ruins of the library have also been identified by archaeologists. The reading room alone had a storage capacity of 20,000 papyri, according to an examination of the holes for mounting the shelves (many were written on parchment, see above). This is thought to represent less than 10 percent of the whole library collection.