Pergamon

Pergamon ran a Hellenistic kingdom from the top of a steep ridge, and the ruins still climb it in terraces: the sanctuary of Athena, the white marble columns of the Temple of Trajan re-erected on the summit, the bare foundations of the Great Altar whose sculpted frieze was taken to Berlin in the 19th century, and a theatre driven into the slope at a pitch that makes the seating feel vertical. The library here was famous enough that parchment carries the city's name. Down in the plain lie the Asklepion, a Roman healing sanctuary with a colonnaded sacred way and a tunnel to the treatment rooms, and the Red Basilica, a huge brick temple later reused as a church. UNESCO listed the layered landscape in 2014.

History

Pottery of the late 8th century BC shows early settlement, and the city enters literature in Xenophon's Anabasis, as the place where in 399 BC he handed over his Greek troops to Thibron. Lysimachus of Thrace took it in 301 BC, and when his kingdom fell apart in 281 BC his lieutenant Philetaerus founded the Attalid dynasty, which ruled until 133 BC; Attalus I defeated the Galatians and declared Pergamon fully independent, the Attalids became loyal allies of Rome and gained most of the former Seleucid lands in Asia Minor after the war against Antiochus III, and they made the city one of the cultural centres of the Greek world, with the Pergamon Altar as its masterpiece. Travellers described its ruins from the 15th century on, and the German engineer Carl Humann, who planned the road from Pergamon to Dikili, began studying them closely from 1869 (Wikipedia, Pergamon).

What to look for

• The theatre - some eighty rows driven into the hillside at a startling angle.
• The Temple of Trajan - re-erected marble columns on the highest terrace.
• The Asklepion - the healing sanctuary in the plain, with its sacred way and tunnel.
• The Red Basilica - the vast brick temple standing in the town below.

When to go

April to June and September to October give walkable temperatures; July and August turn the bare ridge into an oven with almost no shade. Go early, do the acropolis first and the Asklepion after lunch. The cable car runs through the day but queues build when tour coaches arrive mid-morning.

What to expect

Two separate sites means two tickets, two entrances and a taxi between them. The Great Altar is only a platform now, which disappoints people who came for it. The acropolis is steep, uneven and shadeless, the theatre stairs are genuinely alarming, and signage is thin without a guide.

Nearby

Bergama's bazaar and Ottoman quarter, with the Aegean coast at Ayvalik an hour north.

Key facts