Greek City of Elaia in Asia Minor
Bronze 21mm (6.0 grams) Struck circa 200-100 B.C.
Head of Demeter right, wreathed with corn, star behind.
Torch; EΛ - AI / T - ΩΝ; all within corn wreath.
A coastal town situated south-west of Pergamon, Elaia served
as a port for its more important neighbor during the time of the Pergamene
Kingdom.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
Elaea or Elaia (Greek:
Έλαία) was an ancient city of
Aeolis,
Asia, the port of
Pergamum; the site is not precisely determined but is near
Zeytindağ,
İzmir Province,
Turkey.
According to the present text of
Stephanus of Byzantium, it was also called Cidaenis (Greek: Κιδαινίς),
and was founded by
Menestheus;
but it seems likely that there is some error in the reading Cidaenis.[1]
Strabo places
Elaea south of the river
Caicus, 12 stadia from the river, and 120 stadia from Pergamum. The Caicus
enters a bay, which was called
Elaiticus Sinus, or the bay of Elaea. Strabo calls the bay of Elaea part of
the bay of
Adramyttium, but incorrectly. He has the story, which Stephanus has taken
from him, that Elaea was a settlement made by Menestheus and the
Athenians with
him, who joined the war against Troy; but Strabo does not explain how it could
be an Aeolian
city, if this story was true. Elaea minted coins, which bear the head and name
of Menestheus. Some argue that these are some evidence of its Athenian origin;
but others, including
William Smith discount the connection.
Herodotus
(i. 149) does not name Elaea among the Aeolian cities. Strabo makes the bay of
Elaea terminate on one side in a point called Hydra, and on the other in a
promontory Harmatus; and he estimates the width between these points at 80
stadia.
Thucydides (viii. 101) places Harmatus opposite to Methymna, from which, and
the rest of the narrative, it is clear that he fixes Harmatus in a different
place from Strabo. The exact site of Elaea seems to be uncertain.
William Martin Leake, in his map, fixes it at a place marked Kliseli, on the
road from the south to Pergamum.
Scylax (p. 35),
Pomponius Mela (i. 18),
Pliny (v. 32), and
Ptolemy (v.
2), all of whom mention Elaea, do not help us to the precise place; all we learn
from them is, that the Caicus flowed between
Pitane and
Elaea.
Elaea was located near the modern town of Zeytindağ, according to the
Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World.
The name of Elaea occurs in the history of the kings of Pergamum. According
to Strabo, from Livy
(xxxv. 13), travellers who would reach Pergamum from the sea, would land at
Elaea.[2]
One of the passages of Livy shows that there was a small hill (tumulus) near
Elaea, and that the town was in a plain and walled. Elaea was damaged by an
earthquake in the reign of
Trajan, at the
same time that Pitane suffered.
|