Sardes: History, Architecture and Urbanization
Fikret K. YegülSardis is located on the northern foothills of Tmolos Mountains in western Anatolia. It was the capital of the Lydian Kingdom until its defeat by the Persians in 547 BCE. The city became the western capital of the Seleucid Empire in 280 BCE. The Lydian city featured massive fortifications with terraced structures. Hellenistic and Roman Sardis followed the organic planning principles of its predecessor, never adopting the grid plan. The foremost monument of the ancient city is the Temple of Artemis, the largest pseudodipteros of the ancient world, started under the Seleucids (ca. 280-260 BCE) and completed under Hadrian.
Sardes: Tarih, Mimarlık ve Şehircilik
Fikret K. YegülAntik Sardes Tmolos Dağları’nın (=Bozdağlar) kuzey etekleri ile Hermos (=Gediz Çayı) ovasının güney uzantısı arasında, Paktolos Çayı’nın (=Sart Çayı) vadisinin doğusunda kurulmuştur. Eski doğu-Batı Pers ‘Kral Yolu’ Sardes’i akropolünün kuzey yamaçlarına yaslanmış “yukarı kent” ve ovaya yayılan “aşağı kent” olarak ikiye ayırıyordu. Arkaik/Lidya devrine tarihlenen taş ve kerpiç kent surları 108 hektarlık bir alanı içine alıyordu. Lidya devri kalıntıları (surlar, tümülüsler, mezarlar, teras duvarları, Paktolos Vadisindeki altın arıtma tesisleri) MÖ 7-6 yüzyıla tarihlenebilir. Kent’de Pers hâkimiyeti MÖ (Buradaki “o” ö harfine teknik bir nedenden dolayı dönüştürülemiyor)547’den Büyük İskender’in MÖ 334’de kenti fethedip, “kurtarması”na kadar sürmüştür. Kentte Iskender sonrası başlayan Helen/Ionia kültürü, özellike MÖ 281’de I. Seleukos’un Sardes’i ve bölgeyi alması ve Sardes’i, imparatorluğunun bati ucunda bir başkent yapmasıyla devam etmiştir. Kentin en görkemli mimari ve dini anıtı Artemis Tapınağının da MÖ 280-260 arası kral I. Antiochos ve kraliçe Stratonike tarafından yapıldığını sanıyoruz. Hellenistik devirde sadece cella’sı bitirilen tapınak, ancak Hadrianus’un Sardes’i MS 123/124’de ziyareti sonucu kazanılan İmparatorluk kültünü içerisine alarak devasa bir Ionik pseudodipteros halinde getirilmiş, fakat bitirilememiştir. Hellenistik devirde büyük bir tiyatro; Roma devrinde de onunla bir grup yapan stadyum ve sütunlu bir teras ortasında yükselen bir İmparatorluk kültü tapınağı ve ovada mermer caddenin üstünde devasa bir hamam-gymnasion yapılmıştır.
The ancient city is located between the Tmolos Mountains and the Hermus Plain east of the Pactolus River valley. A massive stone and mudbrick fortification wall of the late Lydian period, some 18-20 m thick, extends down from the slopes of the acropolis, one of the northern spurs of the Tmolos, towards the plain enclosing an area of 108 hectares. According to Herodotus, Herakles was the legendary founder of the city and the Heraklid dynasty going back to the late Bronze Age (Herodotus I.7). Croesus, the last Lydian king was defeated by the Persian King Cyrus in 547 BCE. The Persian rule at Sardis, lasted two centuries until the city was “liberated” by Alexander the Great in 334 BCE (Arrianus, Anabasis, 1.17.3-6). The city and the region were made a part of the Seleucid Empire when Seleukos I Nikator defeated Lysimachus in the Battle of Kourepedion in 281 BCE. Upon Seleukos’ death, his son Antiochus I and his queen Stratonike settled in Sardis it a regional western capital of the Seleukid Kingdom until its defeat in the Battle of Magnesia in 189 BCE by the combined forces of Pergamon and Rome. We believe that the construction of the temple in the Artemis sanctuary commenced soon after the conquest of Sardis by Seleukos, possibly under the leadership of queen Stratonike who lived in Sardis.
City planning of Sardis never followed popular grid-iron models; rather, topographical opportunities seem to have dictated the shape of the city producing a more flexible and organic arrangement. A major east-west road marking the course of the Persian Royal Road connecting the coast with the inland divided the plain and the northern foothills of the acropolis – in effect, creating an “upper city” and a “lower city.” The upper city was probably the preferred neighborhood of the wealthier classes. Lydian era terrace walls of fine limestone preserved up to 6-7 m high and possibly connected to each other by stairs, ramps, and tunnels, were uncovered at several locations on acropolis slopes. Massive terraces probably supported large residences or palaces, one being possibly the ‘Lydian Palace’ (mentioned in Pliny and Vitruvius as Croesus’ palace later turned into a gerousia or senior’s meeting place: Pliny, NH 35, 172; Vitruvius, 2.8.9- 10). A major addition of the Hellenistic period was the theater, enlarged with a two-story columnar skene frons during the Roman period; the stadium that extends west beyond the stage building was added around the same time. Inscriptions and ancient sources mention an agora and stoa, gymnasium, and a mint from Lydian and Hellenistic periods, but their locations are unknown. There was considerable settlement outside the city walls at all periods (the latter removed during the Persian period), especially along the Pactolus valley, including a gold refining workshop/sanctuary presided over by a Lydian altar of Kybebe from the sixth century BCE.
The Roman era was ushered in by the devastating earthquake of AD 17 which elicited fiscal relief from Rome. Many Roman era buildings are characterized by large, vaulted structures typical of Roman construction, such as the stadium. Notable among them is a midfirst century CE Imperial cult temple (Vadi-B temple, an octastyle Corinthian pseudodipteros) elevated on a vast rectangular colonnaded enclosure approached by an axial, monumental staircase; an early second century bath-gymnasium complex of the symmetrical imperial type featuring a ceremonial hall displaying a colonnaded aediculae in two stories; an eastwest marble colonnaded avenue which received a monumental city gate in late Roman times. For monumentality and cultural importance, the most outstanding monument of GrecoRoman Sardis was the Temple of Artemis. The cult of Artemis was introduced to the city from Ephesus in the late sixth century or so, when a monumental altar was built in the sanctuary against the backdrop of the acropolis. The temple, started ca. 280-270 BCE, might have been intended to be a dipteros like the archaic dipteroi of Ionia. Only the long allmarble cella, facing west, was finished. Work resumed to complete the temple as an Ionic peripteros after the visit of Sardis by Hadrian and Sabina in AD 123/24, an honor which culminated by the granting of the city its second neokoros privilege. Besides starting the construction of the monumental peripteros the cella was divided into two, Artemis retaining her western chamber while the cult of the emperors (with their colossal portrait icons) moved into the new eastern one. The east side seems to have been finished with all its columns, but ironically, the western, Artemis side was never completed. With a pteroma of unequal with around the cella, and spacious and open six-column pronaos porches at the ends, the plan of the Artemis temple at Sardis does not follow the standard pseudodipteral plan of Hermogenes at Magnesia or its Hellenistic and Roman followers.
