Summer AD 124 – Hadrian tours Asia (part 2) and visits Pergamon and Sardis (#Hadrian1900) FOLLOWING HADRIAN

The second part of Hadrian’s journey through the province of Asia in the Summer of 124 took him southward to the great cities of Pergamon, Sardis, Smyrna and Ephesus. From Hadrianotherae, where the Emperor had a successful bear hunt (see here), his route would have taken him up along the rugged Caicus River Valley, which joined Mysia’s fertile plains and lush forests to the Aegean Sea. Hadrian was accompanied by the great sophist and prominent figure of the province, Antonius Polemon, who was instrumental in Hadrian’s benefactions to the Ionian city of Smyrna (Philostr. VS 530–31).

Once I accompanied the greatest king, and while we were travelling with him from Thrace to Asia with his troops and vehicles…

Literary sources do not provide information about Hadrian’s visit to Pergamon in 124. However, the city’s rich ancient history and abundant religious sites would have likely attracted the Emperor’s attention, whose love of Hellenic culture accounted for a great surge in public construction in the city and the province (Birley, 1997). Pergamon served as the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of the Attalids, which ruled over large parts of Asia Minor during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The city was a spiritual centre of the Greek world, aspiring to the prestige of classical Athens.

According to ancient sources, the city was founded by the hero Pergamus, son of the warrior Neoptolemus and Andromache, placing the origin of the settlement in the time of the Trojan War. Upon travelling to Asia Minor with his mother, Pergamus killed the king of Teuthrania, renamed the capital after himself to Pergamum, and ruled as king. Another myth attributes the city’s founding to Telephos, the son of Herakles, who later became king of Mysia and whose adventurous life and deeds adorned the walls of the inner courtyard of the famous Altar of Zeus (see here). Both origin myths connected Pergamon with a prominent Hellenistic hero whom the Attalid Dynasty used to strengthen their ancestry and legitimize their claim to power.

Pergamus crossed into Asia and when he had killed Areius, ruler of Teuthrania, after they had engaged in single combat for this man’s possessions he gave the name to the polis which still has that name today. (Paus., 1.11.2)

Pergamon began to gain real prominence during the reign of Attalos I (r. 241–197 BC) when the city defeated the Galatians, the Celtic Gauls that migrated to Galatia, the region of central Anatolia. The capital reached its apogee under Eumenes II (r. 197–159 BC) and his brother Attalos II (r. 159– 138 BC), becoming the most eminent centre of culture of the Hellenistic period for 150 years. Alongside Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch on the Orontes, Pergamon was one of the great centres of Hellenistic art. It was famed above all for its sculptures, drawing intellectuals and artists from around the Mediterranean. Its library, established by Eumenes II as an annexe to his Temple of Athena on the acropolis, rivalled the great Library of Alexandria with over 200,000 books, mostly written on parchment.

Pergamon was built high above the Kaikos (Caicus) Valley on extensive terraces and retaining walls with buildings adapted to the sloping terrain. The most important buildings on the Acropolis, including the defensive walls, the altar of Zeus, the great library, the palace, the Temple of Dionysus and the large theatre, were constructed during the reign of Eumenes II, who spent the last years of his life mainly carrying out developmental work. Pergamon’s oldest temple was the sanctuary of Athena Polias, built in the Anatolian Doric order at the sacred place on the left of the superior entry of the Acropolis in the 4th century BC.

The Asklepieion, established on the site of an earlier religious sanctuary southwest of the city at the beginning of the 4th century BC in a low area featuring springs, soon developed into the city’s most important suburban shrine. The early Asklepieion consisted of several temples, including the first temple of Asklepios Soter, an early treatment building, a fountain house, and several altars. Under Eumenes, the sanctuary was linked to the city by a sacred way and underwent major expansion with the construction of new stoas, temples, a gymnasium and an enlarged treatment building.

According to Pausanias (Paus. 2.26.8), the cult of Asklepios was founded by a certain Archias. Archias injured himself while hunting in the mountains near Pergamon and went to Epidaurus, where he was healed. He subsequently brought the worship of Asklepios to Pergamon out of gratitude for the god, presumably in the 4th century BC. By the imperial period, Asklepios had become Pergameus deus, the city’s principal god (Martial 9.16.2).

Having forged a close alliance with Rome, the last Attalos bequeathed his empire to the Roman Republic in 133 BC, and a part of the Pergamene Kingdom was declared the province of Asia. Pergamon became the official capital of Asia, although the governor had moved his headquarters to Ephesus. In the next century, up until the time of Augustus, Roman influence in the region continued to expand. Pergamon remained a cultural centre and a highly valued health resort in Roman imperial times thanks to the Asklepieion. It was the first city in the province to have a temple dedicated to the cult of the emperor.

The Greek communities of Asia had always competed with each other for status and power, and this rivalry continued under the empire. A highly sought-after privilege was the title neokoros (temple warden), which was only granted to communities with a provincial imperial cult temple. Although the title was not officially applied to Pergamon until the end of the 1st century AD, the first of the three temples that would ultimately make Pergamon neokoros was the temple of Rome and Augustus.

In AD 114, Trajan granted Pergamon a second provincial temple, making it the first city to become neokoros for the second time (SEG 18:558). This second temple was dedicated to Zeus Philios (Latin: Jupiter Amicalis) and is sometimes called the Trajaneum. The epithet Philios (friendly), previously unknown at Pergamon, may signify the god’s patronage over the bond of friendship between Rome and the Greek cities of Asia (Burrell, 2004). The initial finance for this ambitious project was provided by A. Iulius Quadratus (cos. II suff. 105), a citizen of Pergamon and Trajan’s ‘most illustrious friend., who was proconsul of Asia in 109/110 (IvP no. 441). Anthony Birley suggested that Zeus’ epithet Philios was chosen to symbolize the close relationship between Trajan and Iulius Quadratus (Birley, 2007).

The temple of Zeus Philios and Trajan was constructed on vaults on a new terrace (68 x 58 m) at one of the highest points of the Acropolis, overlooking the city. It was surrounded by stoas on three sides, with a 23 m. high wall retaining its open front. The temple stood some 18 m tall, featured 6 × 10 Corinthian columns, and was richly decorated with acanthus motifs and gorgoneia. It was set up on a marble-covered podium swept out on either side to flank a flight of steps. The temple appears on bronze coins of the city of Pergamon from late in the reign of Trajan consisting of two coin types. The first depicts the bust of Trajan on the obverse and that of Zeus on the reverse (RPC III, 1719). The other type reveals the interior of a tetrastyle temple within which Zeus Philios sat on his throne while Trajan stood next to him in the guise of a military leader wearing the cuirass (RPC III, 1716).

The Trajaneum was completed under Hadrian, likely in the year AD 129. Hadrian made significant changes to the temple’s precinct, adding the colonnade enclosing the temple. During excavations in the late 19th century, fragments of an inscription were found in the vaults of the Trajaneum substructures. The inscription was a copy of a letter written by Hadrian in 137 AD. In the letter, Hadrian refused permission for Pergamenes to build a temple for him but agreed to have his portrait erected in the temple of his father. His disapproval was based on the fact that the city had already been granted two imperial cult temples (Burrell, 2004).

Fragments of three colossal cult statues were discovered during the reconstruction process of the Trajaneum. The statues were acrolithic, composed of bodies with a wooden core, perhaps encased with bronze, and with marble heads and extremities. The parts of the statue of Zeus Philios that have been found indicate that the god was seated on a throne. The portrait heads of Hadrian and Trajan and their body fragments revealed that there were standing statues. Both emperors were depicted in a similar pose, with the right arm raised and the left arm lowered, and both were dressed in armour (Burrell, 2004).

During Hadrian’s reign, Pergamon struck a single, small-sized coin type relating to the new temple in the name of Iulius Pollio. The obverse depicts the first neocorate temple, while the reverse shows the Trajaneum with Augustus and Trajan inside their respective temple (RPC III, 1739).

In AD 124, Emperor Hadrian granted Pergamon the title of metropolis (mother city), putting it in direct rivalry with Ephesus and Smyrna. This led to a surge in construction activity, resulting in the simultaneous completion of several buildings and public works, including the Red Basilica temple dedicated to the Egyptian gods, the stadium, and the amphitheatre. Additionally, Hadrian rebuilt the Asklepieion, the shrine dedicated to Asclepius, the god of medicine and healing, and expanded it into a lavish health resort and medical centre widely renowned in Roman times.

The healing sanctuary started in the 4th century BC as a small shrine with a pool, fountain buildings, several altars and three temples, one of which held a cult image of Asklepios Soter sculpted by Phyromachos of Athens (Polyb. 32.15.3-4 and Diod. Sic. 31.35). Over time, the site was expanded and experienced monumental changes (18 building phases have been identified) with additional incubation buildings, a rectangular plaza bordered by stoas, and a sacred road (Via Tecta) connecting the sanctuary to the city. Hadrian initiated a large-scale reconstruction of the Hellenistic sacred precinct, adding completely new buildings on the east side between 124 and 138: a library, a porticoed propylon, a monumental courtyard, a large round temple dedicated to Zeus Asclepius, and, in a slightly later phase (around AD 140), a rotunda (treatment building). According to its preserved inscription, the propylon was dedicated by A. Claudius Charax (see here). Behind the north portico, a 3,000-seat theatre was added, while the Sacred Way (Via Tecta) leading to the sanctuary was redesigned to include a colonnaded street.

The new temple of Zeus Asclepius, dedicated by L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus, was modelled after Hadrian’s Pantheon in Rome, although it is portrayed on the coins as a standard temple (RPC IV.2, 3233). The stepped porch, which led to a broader and higher pronaos, had four columns and was Corinthian, similar to the depiction on the coins. The almost 24-metre diameter hall was originally decorated with variegated marble revetment. The hall had a 2 x 2-metre plinth for a cult statue in a 9.15-metre tall niche opposite the entry (Burrell, 2004).

The new buildings, such as the theatre and library, turned the Asklepieion into a centre of learning, resembling Hadrian’s library in Athens. The library, paid for and dedicated by a woman named Flavia Melitine, was a well-decorated room. Its most prominent feature was a niche at the centre of the rear wall where a statue of “the god Hadrian” stood (IvP III 38). This statue was linked to the Emperor’s worship because of its divine nudity and inscription to theos Hadrianos (Θεὸω Ἁδριανὸω).

Hadrian was also to be given the title Soter Olympios (Olympios the saviour) and be honoured as “the new Asclepius”. A dedication, probably from Asklepieion, assimilates the Emperor with the healing god (IvP II 365). The inscription is dated to between 129 and 138, on account of the epithet Olympios. The term epiphanestatos (the one whose power is most visible) makes Hadrian’s presence in Pergamum very likely (Birley, 1997).

‘To Hadrian Olympios the saviour, Lord of all men, king of the regions of the earth, the most manifest New Asclepius’.

Asclepius does appear on some Hadrianic cistophori assigned to the mint of Pergamon (RPC III, 1324). The figure of Telesphorus, son of Asclepius, was also portrayed (RPC III, 1325) on a cistophorus. They were struck probably during Hadrian’s second trip through the province of Asia in AD 129.

It was believed that Asclepius either healed devotees during their sleep or communicated cures to them. The orator and rhetorician Aelius Aristides, born at the beginning of Hadrian’s reign in Hadriani in Asia Minor, spent nearly two years as a patient at the Pergamene Asklepieion after arriving in Smyrna from Italy in October 144. He recounted his dreams and experiences in his Sacred Tales (or Hieroi Logoi). Aelius Aristides’ writings contain detailed descriptions of the ritual practices (sacrifices, dedications, singing, prayers, anointing, incubating) that took place in the sanctuary in the 2nd century AD.

The Asklepion acquired great fame in the second half of the 2nd century AD thanks to Galen, the renowned physician whose patients included some of the empire’s most influential individuals and their families, including the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Born in Pergamon in AD 129, Galen considered himself a follower of Asclepius and worked in the Asklepieion for many years. His father, Aelius Nico, was an architect and builder with an interest in mathematics, logic, and astronomy and a fondness for exotic mathematical and literary recreations. His name, Aelius, indicates the grant of citizenship from Hadrian.

According to Galen, an incident took place at Pergamon. The “emperor Hadrian struck one of his attendants in the eye with a pen. When he realized that the man had become blind in one eye as a result of this stroke, he summoned him and invited him to request a gift. But the man stayed silent. Hadrian repeated the offer, but the man declined and said that all he wanted was his eye back —for what gift could provide compensation for the loss of an eye?.”

Another structure that may have been built during Hadrian’s reign is the so-called Red Basilica (or Red Hall), a monumental temple complex at the base of the Acropolis hill in Pergamon’s lower city. It is thought to have been dedicated to the worship of the Graeco-Egyptian god Serapis and the Egyptian goddess Isis. To accommodate the large temenos (ca. 200×100 m), the sanctuary had to span the Selinus River and was supported by two vaulted tunnels crossing diagonally for about 150 metres. The temple, measuring 60×26 metres, was constructed with massive red brick masonry and concrete, a unique feature in Asia Minor, and was adorned with various colours of marble. It rose two stories high at over 19 metres, although the wooden roof is no longer present. The temple was entered from the west through an immense door measuring more than 7 metres wide by at least 14 metres high. A cult statue, perhaps of Serapis, stood on a tall podium, with a hole allowing entrance to the statue’s interior, where priests would make the deity ‘speak’ during ceremonies.

Two rotundas stood within courtyards to the north and south of the main temple. Although they have been stripped of their original marble cladding, they are still substantially intact. In the early Byzantine period, the central hall was converted into a three-aisled Christian basilica dedicated to the apostles John or Paul with a semicircular apse, galleries and a narthex.

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Hadrian’s next stop on his journey was Sardis in Lydia, possibly after a brief visit to Thyateira, where the games Hadrianeia Olympia commemorated the emperor’s visit (IGR IV 1260). Hadrian granted the city some privileges and donations, as the city erected altars to him with the titles Soter (saviour) and Ktistes (founder). The Emperor most likely travelled through the fertile Hermus River valley (modern Gediz) to reach his destination, passing through the Lydian city of Saittai, where coins were minted to commemorate the imperial visit (Birley, 1997). One of the coins shows Hadrian shaking hands with Tyche, the personification of the city, wearing the mural crown (RPC III, 2543A).

Only one inscription testifies to the Emperor’s presence in the Lydian metropolis. It was found outside the city at the foot of Mount Tmolus, a mountain range south of Sardis on the Saittai–Sardis–Smyrna road, which Hadrian would take to reach his next destination. The inscription is dedicated to Hadrian and Sabina and suggests that the empress was escorting him, at least at this phase of the journey. Another crucial inscription is an eighteen-line dedication in Greek on a marble statue base of Hadrian discovered in Sardis in 2000 (see here). The dedication and the statue almost certainly commemorated Hadrian’s visit to the city, as argued by F. Yegül here. One further inscription in Hadrian’s honour, which named the proconsul Falco, was found in Trocetta (SEG 17:532). However, it predates Hadrian’s arrival, as Falco’s term of office ended in the spring of 124 (Birley, 1997).

“The Council and [the People] of the Sardians have dedicated the (honorary statue of) Imperator Caesar, son of divus Traianus Parthicus, grandson of [divus] Nerva, Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, father of his country, master of land and sea…”

Sardis was among the most ancient and eminent cities in the province of Asia, lying at the foothills of Mount Tmolus on the banks of the Pactolus River. As the capital of the flourishing Kingdom of Lydia of the 7th century BC, Sardis achieved fame and wealth, especially under the last Lydian king, Croesus, before succumbing to the Persian conquest in the mid-6th century BC. Sardis fell, in turn, to the Athenians, the Seleucids, and the Attalids until it was conquered by the Romans in 133 BC.

Under the Achaemenid Persians (547 – 334 BC), Sardis was the capital of Anatolia’s major satrapy (province). It formed the end station for the Persian Royal Road, which began in Susa in present-day Iran. After Alexander the Great’s conquest, Sardis was incorporated into the Hellenistic kingdoms and formed the western capital of the Seleucid empire when it acquired status as a Greek city-state. The monumental temple to the goddess Artemis on the site dates to this period. The theatre of Sardis, now sadly in ruins, was also built during this period.

In 133 BC, Sardis came under Roman rule when the last king of Pergamon, Attalus III Philometor, died and bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. The city became the metropolitan capital and centre of judicial administration of the Roman province of Lydia. Sardis was rebuilt after being destroyed by an earthquake in AD 17. According to Tacitus (Annals 2.47), Tiberius awarded ten million sesterces for its reconstruction and agreed to waive all taxes due from Sardis and the other cities for five years after the earthquake.

Sardis constructed a provincial temple and was granted the title neokoros for it. However, we do not know under which Emperor Sardis received its first neokorate honours and provincial imperial cult temple. No known documents, inscriptions, or coins confirm the existence of Sardis’ first koinon temple. Before Hadrian’s reign, the policy was to have one temple for each emperor in each province. As a result, we can eliminate some emperors from consideration. Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula had already been honoured at Pergamon, Smyrna, and Miletus, while the Flavian cult was already well established at Ephesus. Additionally, Trajan’s temple, shared with Zeus Philios and later with Hadrian, was located in Pergamon. This leaves Claudius, Nero, Nerva or Hadrian as potential candidates to receive a provincial imperial cult at Sardis.

A large temple found on the northern slopes of the Sardian Acropolis (so-called Wadi B temple) may have been the first temple of the imperial cult of Sardis (Foss, 1986). However, the temple seems to have been destroyed around 140-150 AD and subsequently abandoned (Burrell, 2004). A decision may have been made to move the provincial imperial cult into an older temple. This is the earliest documented case of a provincial imperial cult being established in an already-existing building instead of a newly constructed one. T. Ritti and F. Yegül (read here) suppose that Sardis was granted the second neokoria under Hadrian’s reign. An inscription from Hierapolis of the time of Hadrian, recently published by Tullia Ritti, supports the theory that the second neokorate of Sardis was awarded under Hadrian. It lists Lucius Julius Libonianus as “High Priest of Asia, of the temples which are in Sardis.” Libonianus is known from another inscription from Sardis (Sardis 7,1 47).

Other (unpublished) inscriptions from Sardis mention the city as the “keeper of two Koinon temples of [the] Augusti [by virtue of the] decrees [of the sacred Senate]“ (Petzl, 2019), while a dedication on a statue base of Lucius Verus found in situ in the Bath-Gymnasium Complex (likely to have been set up in honour of his return from his eastern campaign in 166), declares Sardis’ twice neokoros’. The city’s third neokorate came under Elagabalus ca. AD 221, which was represented by large bronze coins showing the Emperor on the obverse and four temples, including the temple of Kore with the temples for which the city was neokoros (Burrell, 2004).

The Sanctuary of Artemis at Sardis was situated on the western slopes of the Acropolis below the Tmolus Mountains. It was started in the early 3rd century BC during the newly established Seleucid rule in Asia Minor. Construction continued over centuries, but the temple was never completed. It started as a lone marble cella in the Hellenistic period and was re-created during the Roman Imperial period as a pseudodipteros temple housing the dual cults of Artemis and the emperors. It was the fourth largest Ionic temple in the classical world (44 x 97m), with eight columns at the ends and twenty along the sides. The commencement of a major reconstruction effort to finish the temple probably started during the reign of Hadrian following the Emperor’s visit in 124.

The newly designed temple featured back-to-back cellas divided by a wall, the west-facing dedicated to Artemis and the new east-facing incorporating the cult of the emperor. Five colossal heads attributed to the Antonine family were discovered inside or close to the temple. These heads are identified as Antoninus Pius, Faustina the Elder, Lucilla and Commodus. They would have belonged to acroliths statues standing in the east cella between columns or as a two-figure group on the central platform. The heads of Hadrian and Sabina are missing, although male and female head fragments could be identified as the imperial couple. The colossal head of the Faustina the Elder is now part of the British Museum collection.

The Sardians later held penteteric games for Hadrian as the “new Dionysos“ (Sardis VII,1 13 & 14) and erected a small altar dedicated to “the Saviour and Founder Imperator Hadrianus Olympios“ (Sardis VII,2, 374). A stele reused as a water basin in the Byzantine Shops mentions a Hadrianeion (Sardis VII,2 319), which is otherwise unknown but may be connected to the city’s participation in the Hadrianic Panhellenion. It records a letter regarding one of Sardis’ citizens named Polybios, who was honoured for serving as the city’s delegate to the Panhellenion, a league of select Greek communities established by Hadrian in AD 131/2 and based in Athens.

The Panhellenion attracted many cities and communities from Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Asia, Crete, and Cyrenaica (see here), all of which aimed to promote their Greek past (although ancestrally, the Lydians of Sardis were autochthonous, so it is unclear how the Sardians claimed the Greek descent). The member cities celebrated their admission by erecting decrees on the Athenian Acropolis, and Sardis was one of them (see here). They also appointed one or more delegates to the league, known as Panhellenes, to represent them on the league council (synedrion). Polybios was a Panhellene representing Sardis around AD 150. He is also known to have erected a bust of Cicero at Sardis (Sardis VII.1.49). Additionally, a festival called Hadrianeia is known to have taken place.

Surprisingly, Artemis does not appear in the cistophori or bronze coins of Hadrian assigned to Sardis. In fact, the goddess disappeared from the epigraphic evidence in the 1st century AD (de Hoz, 2016), and a new goddess appeared on the reverses of Sardian coins, Demeter/Ceres, as well as the cult statue of an ancient Lydian Kore (the Greek Persephone). Demeter is the goddess that Apollonius of Tyana, who lived in the 1st century AD, considers the goddess of Sardis when, in a letter addressed to its inhabitants (Epistulae 75), he says that the city «belongs to» Demeter. Some of the clearest representations of Demeter and Kore from Sardis are on the cistophori of Hadrian (RPC III, 1385 & RPC III, 1386). Additionally, the Eleusinian myth became a usual coin motif with the depiction of the abduction of Persephone by Hades (RPC III, 1387).

Modern scholars have suggested various possibilities for the sudden appearance of these deities in the 2nd century AD and their enduring popularity into the 3rd century AD, one of which indicates a revival of local and archaic cults and myths (de Hoz, 2016). The Sardians in Lydian times worshipped a vegetation goddess, an Anatolian Kore, the Maiden. As De Hoz points out, the cult of Kore is difficult to separate from the other vegetation goddesses worshipped in Sardis. She also argues that “it is […] very unlikely that in the 2nd century AD the city would have selected a new goddess that did not have a long standing tradition in the area as symbol of its coins of alliance with other cities”. However, archaeology has as yet to provide direct evidence (source). An image of the archaic Kore also appears on the figured capital from the south hall of the Gymnasium (see here), while an inscription from Rome mentions a Sardian Kore and was accompanied by her statue (IGUR I 86).

The mint at Sardis also issued a coin featuring a portrait of Antinous on one side, referred to as HPΩC (Hero), and a scene on the other showing Silenus sitting on an altar with the infant Dionysus on his left knee (RPC III, 2407). Sardis’ choice of imagery was particularly appropriate, as the myth explaining how much gold ended up in the area surrounding Sardis was centred around Dionysos and his elderly companion Silenus (Ovid, Metamorphoses 11). As the story goes, Silenus, an old, drunken satyr, visited King Midas and was graciously received. In gratitude for Midas’s generous hospitality, Dionysos granted the king one wish. Midas asked for the power to turn everything that he touched into gold. During the Hadrianic period, Sardis minted at least one other coin type with this Silenus and baby Dionysus imagery but with Dionysus on the obverse (RPC III, 2408A).

From Sardis, Hadrian, Sabina and Antonius Polemo likely headed southwest, up and around the slopes of mythical Mount Tmolus, the highest peak in the region. Hadrian had a curious nature, and a fondness for climbing heights would have undoubtedly piqued his interest. Strabo describes Mount Tmolus as a blessed mountain with a lookout point at the summit, an exedra of white stone from which the plains can be viewed in a circle (Strabo 6.13.4–5). The dedication to Hadrian and Sabina found on its northern slope seems to support this itinerary. At any rate, it is the direction of Smyrna and Ephesus that the imperial party turned next. It is believed that before reaching Ephesus, Hadrian stayed at two more cities, Erythrae and Teos or Notion, the seaport of Colophon.

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Sources & references:

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