Pergamum
Pergamum(see map: The Hellenistic world) in Mysia (NW Asia Minor) c.24 km. (15 miles) from the Aegean, a natural fortress of great strategic importance commanding the rich plain of the river Caïcus; important historically as the capital of the Attalid kings and, later, as one of the three leading cities of provincial Asia, and archaeologically as the best excavated Hellenistic royal capital outside Macedonia. First attested in Greek sources in 401 BC, Pergamum enters history's mainstream as a treasury of Lysimachus, who entrusted it (c.302) to Philetaerus, founder of Attalid fortunes. An indigenous community (in spite of the Attalid claim to foundation by the Heraclid Telephus), Pergamum had adopted Greek civic organization (see polis) by c.300 (Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 265) at...
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