Anatolia
Anatolia known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, the Anatolian peninsula or the Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Armenian Highlands to the east and the Aegean Sea to the west; the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. The eastern border of Anatolia is traditionally held to be a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea, bounded by the Armenian Highland to the east and Mesopotamia to the southeast. Thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. Nowadays, Anatolia is often considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, which comprises the entire country. By some definitions, the area called the Armenian highlands lies beyond the boundary of the Anatolian plateau.
The official name of this inland region is the Eastern Anatolia Region. The ancient inhabitants of Anatolia spoke the now-extinct Anatolian languages, which were replaced by the Greek language starting from classical antiquity and during the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. Major Anatolian languages included Hittite and Lydian among other more poorly attested relatives; the Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century and continued under the Ottoman Empire between the late 13th and early 20th centuries. However, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Neo-Aramaic, Arabic, Laz and Greek. Other ancient peoples in the region included Galatians, Assyrians, Cimmerians, as well as Ionian and Aeolian Greeks. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to an indefinite line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea, coterminous with the Anatolian Plateau; this traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia.
To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain. Following the Armenian genocide, Ottoman Armenia was renamed "Eastern Anatolia" by the newly established Turkish government. Vazken Davidian terms the expanded use of "Anatolia" to apply to territory referred to as Armenia an "ahistorical imposition", notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia". Most archeological sources consider the boundary of Anatolia to be Turkey's eastern border; the highest mountains in "Eastern Anatolia" are Mount Ararat. The Euphrates, Araxes and Murat rivers connect the Armenian plateau to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh, these rivers are the longest in "Eastern Anatolia"; the oldest known reference to Anatolia – as “Land of the Hatti” – appears on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of the Akkadian Empire. The first recorded name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula, Ἀσία echoed the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia.
As the name "Asia" broadened its scope to apply to other areas east of the Mediterranean, Greeks in Late Antiquity came to use the name Μικρὰ Ἀσία or Asia Minor, meaning "Lesser Asia" to refer to present-day Anatolia. The English-language name Anatolia itself derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more “sunrise”; the precise reference of this term has varied over time originally referring to the Aeolian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western and central parts of Turkey's present-day Central Anatolia Region; the term "Anatolia" is Medieval Latin. The modern Turkish form of Anatolia, derives from the Greek name Aνατολή; the Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin. The term "Anatolia" referred to a northwestern Byzantine province. By the 12th century Europeans had started referring to Anatolia as Turchia, it has also been called "Asia Minor". In earlier times, it was called" Rûm" by the Seljuqs.
During the era of the Ottoman Empire mapmakers outside the Empire referred to the mountainous plateau in eastern Anatolia as Armenia. Other contemporary sources called the same area Kurdistan. Geographers have variously used the terms east Anatolian plateau and Armenian plateau to refer to the region, although the territory encompassed by each term overlaps with the other. According to archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian this difference in terminology "primarily result from the shifting political fortunes and cultural trajectories of the region since the nineteenth century."Turkey's First Geography Congress in 1941 created two regions to the east of the Gulf of Iskenderun-Black Sea line named the Eastern Anatolia Region and the Southeastern Anatolia Region, the former corresponding to the weste
Amyntas of Galatia
Not to be confounded with Amyntas, Tetrarch of the Tectosagii. Amyntas, Tetrarch of the Trocmi was a King of Galatia and of several adjacent countries between 36 and 25 BC, mentioned by Strabo as contemporary with himself, he was the son of Brogitarus, king of Galatia, Adobogiona, daughter of king Deiotarus Philoromaeus. Amyntas seems to have first possessed Lycaonia. To this he added the territory of Derbe by the murder of its prince, Antipater of Derbe, the friend of Cicero, Isaura and Cappadocia by Roman favour, he had been the king of Cappadocia Deiotarus secretary, was made by Amyntas commander in chief of the Galatian auxiliaries sent to help Brutus and Cassius against the Triumvires, but deserted to Mark Anthony just before the battle of Philippi in 42 BC. After the death of Deiotarus, Amyntas was made king of Cappadocia in 37 as a client ruler of Mark Antony. Plutarch enumerates him among the adherents of Mark Antony at Actium and is mentioned as deserting to Octavian, just before the battle.
While pursuing his schemes of aggrandizement, endeavoring to reduce the refractory highlanders around him, Amyntas made himself master of Homonada or Hoinona, slew the prince of that place. On his death Galatia became a Roman province. Amyntas was the father of Artemidoros of the Trocmi, a Galatian nobleman, who married a princess of the Tectosagi, the daughter of Amyntas, Tetrarch of the Tectosagii, they were the parents of Gaius Julius Severus, a nobleman from Acmonia in Galatia, in turn the father of Gaius Julius Bassus, proconsul of Bithynia in 98, Gaius Julius Severus, a Tribune of the Legio VI Ferrata. Smith, William; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed.. "Amyntas". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
Drainage divide
A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighbouring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, may be in the form of a single range of hills or mountains, known as a dividing range. On flat terrain where the ground is marshy, the divide may be harder to discern. A triple divide is a point a summit, where two drainage divides intersect. A valley floor divide is a low drainage divide that runs across a valley, sometimes created by deposition or stream capture. Major divides separating rivers that drain to different seas or oceans are called continental divides; the term height of land is a phrase used in Canada and the United States to refer to the divide between two drainage basins. Height of land is used in border descriptions, which are set according to the "doctrine of natural boundaries". In glaciated areas it refers to a low point on a divide where it is possible to portage a canoe from one river system to another.
Drainage divides can be divided into three types: Continental divide in which waters on each side flow to different oceans, such as the Congo-Nile Divide. Every continent except Antarctica has one or more continental divides. Major drainage divide in which waters on each side of the divide never meet but flow into the same ocean, such as the divide between the Yellow River basin and the Yangtze. Another, more subtle, example is the Schuylkill-Lehigh divide at Pisgah Mountain in Pennsylvania in which two minor creeks divide to flow and grow east and west joining the Lehigh River and Delaware River or the Susquehanna River and Potomac River, with each tributary complex having separate outlets into the Atlantic. Minor drainage divide in which waters part but rejoin at a river confluence, such as the Mississippi River and the Missouri River drainage divides. A valley-floor divide occurs on the bottom of a valley and arises as a result of subsequent depositions, such as scree, in a valley through which a river flowed continuously.
Examples include the Kartitsch Saddle in the Gail valley in East Tyrol, which forms the watershed between the Drau and the Gail, the divides in the Toblacher Feld between Innichen and Toblach in Italy, where the Drau empties into the Black Sea and the Rienz into the Adriatic. Settlements are built on valley-floor divides in the Alps. Examples are Eben im Kirchberg in Tirol and Waidring. Low divides with heights of less than two metres are found on the North German Plain within the Urstromtäler, for example, between Havel and Finow in the Eberswalde Urstromtal. In marsh deltas such as the Okavango, the largest drainage area on earth, or in large lakes areas, such as the Finnish Lakeland, it is difficult to find a meaningful definition of a watershed. Another case is bifurcation, where the watershed is in the river bed, a wetland or underground; the largest watershed of this type is the bifurcation of the Orinoco in the north of South America, whose main stream empties into the Caribbean, but which drains into the South Atlantic via the Casiquiare canal and Amazon River.
Since ridgelines are sometimes easy to see and agree about, drainage divides may form natural borders defining political boundaries, as with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 in British North America which coincided with the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains forming the Eastern Continental Divide that separated settled colonial lands in the east from Indian Territory to the west. Drainage divides hinder waterway navigation. In pre-industrial times, water divides were crossed at portages. Canals connected adjoining drainage basins. Important examples are the Chicago Portage, connecting the Great Lakes and Mississippi by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Canal des Deux Mers in France, connecting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; the name is enshrined at the Height of Land Portage which joins the Great Lakes to the rivers of western Canada. List of watershed topics River source – The starting point of a riverCategories: Category:Drainage basins
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic and military force in Europe. Both the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm. Several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empire's Greek East and Latin West diverged. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, legalised Christianity. Under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed.
Under the reign of Heraclius, the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use in place of Latin. Thus, although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was centred on Constantinople, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity; the borders of the empire evolved over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Justinian I, the empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering much of the Roman western Mediterranean coast, including North Africa and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries; the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 exhausted the empire's resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when it lost its richest provinces and Syria, to the Arab caliphate. During the Macedonian dynasty, the empire expanded again and experienced the two-century long Macedonian Renaissance, which came to an end with the loss of much of Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia. The empire recovered during the Komnenian restoration, by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. However, it was delivered a mortal blow during the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and the territories that the empire governed were divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small rival states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence, its remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 ended the Byzantine Empire; the last of the imperial Byzantine successor states, the Empire of Trebizond, would be conquered by the Ottomans eight years in the 1461 Siege of Trebizond. The first use of the term "Byzantine" to label the years of the Roman Empire was in 1557, when the German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of historical sources.
The term comes from "Byzantium", the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantine's capital. This older name of the city would be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts; the publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, in 1680 of Du Cange's Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of "Byzantine" among French authors, such as Montesquieu. However, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world; the Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the "Roman Empire", the "Empire of the Romans", "Romania", the "Roman Republic", as "Rhōmais". The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and as late as the 19th century Greeks referred to Modern Greek as Romaiika "Romaic." After 1204 when the Byzantine Empire was confined to its purely Greek provinces the term'Hellenes' was used instead. While the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during most of its history and preserved Romano-Hellenistic traditions, it became identified by its western and northern contemporaries with its predominant Greek element.
The occasional use of the term "Empire of the Greeks" in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Byzantine Emperor as Imperator Graecorum were used to separate it from the prestige of the Roman Empire within the new kingdoms of the West. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known as Rûm; the name millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans through the 20th century to refer to the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire
Ancient Rome
In historiography, ancient Rome is Roman civilization from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, encompassing the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire. The civilization began as an Italic settlement in the Italian Peninsula, conventionally founded in 753 BC, that grew into the city of Rome and which subsequently gave its name to the empire over which it ruled and to the widespread civilisation the empire developed; the Roman Empire expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world, though still ruled from the city, with an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants and covering 5.0 million square kilometres at its height in AD 117. In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and to an autocratic semi-elective empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it dominated the North African coast and most of Western Europe, the Balkans and much of the Middle East.
It is grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern language, society, law, government, art, literature and engineering. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France, it achieved impressive technological and architectural feats, such as the construction of an extensive system of aqueducts and roads, as well as the construction of large monuments and public facilities. The Punic Wars with Carthage were decisive in establishing Rome as a world power. In this series of wars Rome gained control of the strategic islands of Corsica and Sicily. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond: its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia and from the mouth of the Rhine to North Africa.
The Roman Empire emerged with the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman–Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia. It would become the longest conflict in human history, have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, it stretched from the entire Mediterranean Basin to the beaches of the North Sea in the north, to the shores of the Red and Caspian Seas in the East. Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would temporarily divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the western part of the empire broke up into independent "barbarian" kingdoms in the 5th century; this splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of universal history from the pre-medieval "Dark Ages" of Europe.
The eastern part of the empire endured through the 5th century and remained a power throughout the "Dark Ages" and medieval times until its fall in 1453 AD. Although the citizens of the empire made no distinction, the empire is most referred to as the "Byzantine Empire" by modern historians during the Middle Ages to differentiate between the state of antiquity and the nation it grew into. According to the founding myth of Rome, the city was founded on 21 April 753 BC on the banks of the river Tiber in central Italy, by the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who descended from the Trojan prince Aeneas, who were grandsons of the Latin King Numitor of Alba Longa. King Numitor was deposed by his brother, while Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, gave birth to the twins. Since Rhea Silvia had been raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine; the new king, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, so he ordered them to be drowned. A she-wolf saved and raised them, when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor.
The twins founded their own city, but Romulus killed Remus in a quarrel over the location of the Roman Kingdom, though some sources state the quarrel was about, going to rule or give his name to the city. Romulus became the source of the city's name. In order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent and unwanted; this caused a problem, in that Rome was bereft of women. Romulus visited neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables he was refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins with the Sabines. Another legend, recorded by Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, says that Prince Aeneas led a group of Trojans on a sea voyage to found a new Troy, since the original was destroyed at the end of the Trojan War. After a long time in rough seas, they landed on the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, but the women who were traveling with them did not want to leave.
One woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent their leaving
Phrygia
In classical antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. After its conquest, it became a region of the great empires of the time. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Phrygian kings: Gordias, whose Gordian Knot would be cut by Alexander the Great Midas, who turned whatever he touched to gold Mygdon, who warred with the AmazonsAccording to Homer's Iliad, the Phrygians participated in the Trojan War as close allies of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans. Phrygian power reached its peak in the late 8th century BC under another, king: Midas, who dominated most of western and central Anatolia and rivaled Assyria and Urartu for power in eastern Anatolia; this Midas was, however the last independent king of Phrygia before Cimmerians sacked the Phrygian capital, around 695 BC. Phrygia became subject to Lydia, successively to Persia and his Hellenistic successors, Pergamon and Byzantium.
Phrygians became assimilated into other cultures by the early medieval era. Phrygia describes an area on the western end of the high Anatolian plateau, an arid region quite unlike the forested lands to the north and west. Phrygia begins in the northwest where an area of dry steppe is watered by the Sakarya and Porsuk river system and is home to the settlements of Dorylaeum near modern Eskisehir, the Phrygian capital Gordion; the climate is harsh with cold winters. South of Dorylaeum, there is another important Phrygian settlement, Midas City, situated in an area of hills and columns of volcanic tuff. To the south again, central Phrygia includes the cities of Afyonkarahisar with its marble quarries at nearby Docimium, the town of Synnada. At the western end of Phrygia stood the towns of Aizanoi and Acmonia. From here to the southwest lies the hilly area of Phrygia that contrasts to the bare plains of the region's heartland. Southwestern Phrygia is watered by the Maeander and its tributary the Lycus, contains the towns of Laodicea on the Lycus and Hierapolis.
Inscriptions found at Gordium make clear that Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language with at least some vocabulary similar to Greek, not belonging to the family of Anatolian languages spoken by most of Phrygia's neighbors. One of the so-called Homeric Hymns describes the Phrygian language as not mutually intelligible with that of Troy. According to ancient tradition among Greek historians, the Phrygians anciently migrated to Anatolia from the Balkans. Herodotus says, he and other Greek writers recorded legends about King Midas that associated him with or put his origin in Macedonia. Some classical writers connected the Phrygians with the Mygdones, the name of two groups of people, one of which lived in northern Macedonia and another in Mysia; the Phrygians have been identified with the Bebryces, a people said to have warred with Mysia before the Trojan War and who had a king named Mygdon at the same time as the Phrygians were said to have had a king named Mygdon. The classical historian Strabo groups Phrygians, Mysians and Bithynians together as peoples that migrated to Anatolia from the Balkans.
This image of Phrygians as part of a related group of northwest Anatolian cultures seems the most explanation for the confusion over whether Phrygians and Anatolian Mygdones were or were not the same people. The apparent similarity of the Phrygian language to Greek and its dissimilarity with the Anatolian languages spoken by most of their neighbors is taken as support for a European origin of the Phrygians. Phrygian continued to be spoken until the 6th century AD, though its distinctive alphabet was lost earlier than those of most Anatolian cultures; some scholars have theorized that such a migration could have occurred more than classical sources suggest, have sought to fit the Phrygian arrival into a narrative explaining the downfall of the Hittite Empire and the end of the high Bronze Age in Anatolia. According to this "recent migration" theory, the Phrygians invaded just before or after the collapse of the Hittite Empire at the beginning of the 12th century BC, filling the political vacuum in central-western Anatolia, may have been counted among the "Sea Peoples" that Egyptian records credit with bringing about the Hittite collapse.
The so-called Handmade Knobbed Ware found in Western Anatolia during this period has been tentatively identified as an import connected to this invasion. However, most scholars reject such a recent Phrygian migration and accept as factual the Iliad's account that the Phrygians were established on the Sakarya River before the Trojan War, thus must have been there during the stages of the Hittite Empire, earlier; these scholars seek instead to trace the Phrygians' origins among the many nations of western Anatolia who were subject to the Hittites. This interpretation gets support from Greek legends about the founding of Phrygia's main city Gordium by Gordias and of Ancyra by Midas, which suggest that Gordium and Ancyra were believed to date from the distant past before the Trojan War; some scholars dismiss the claim of a Phrygian migration
Pisidia
Pisidia was a region of ancient Asia Minor located north of Lycia, bordering Caria, Lydia and Pamphylia, corresponding to the modern-day province of Antalya in Turkey. Among Pisidia's settlements were Antioch, Cremna, Etenna, Selge, Laodiceia Katakekaumene and Philomelium. Although Pisidia is close to the Mediterranean Sea, the warm climate of the south cannot pass the height of the Taurus Mountains; the climate is too dry for timberland, but crop plants grow in areas provided with water from the mountains, whose annual average rainfall is c. 1000 mm on the peaks and 500 mm on the slopes. This water feeds the plateau; the Pisidian cities founded on the slopes, benefited from this fertility. The irrigated soil is suitable for growing fruit and for husbandry; the area of Pisidia has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age, with some settlements known from historical times ranging in age from the eighth to third millennium BC. The ancestors of the classical Pisidians were present in the region before the 14th century BC, when Hittite records refer to a mountain site of Salawassa, identified with the site of Sagalassos.
At that time, Pisidia appears to have been part of the region. The Pisidian language is poorly known, but is assumed to be a member of the Anatolian branch of Indo-European languages. Herodotus mentioned the Pisidic people in the text which they were called "Lakuna" but this was one of the names given to Pisidic tribes, which occupied a little mountainous region north to the Antalya Bay. Pisidians are known to be among the nations. There can be little doubt that the Pisidians and Pamphylians were the same people, but a distinction between the two seems to have been established at an early period. Herodotus, who does not mention the Pisidians, enumerates the Pamphylians among the nations of Asia Minor, while Ephorus mentions them both including the one among the nations on the interior, the other among those of the coast. Pamphylia early received colonies from Greece and other lands, from this cause, combined with the greater fertility of their territory, became more civilized than its neighbor in the interior.
Pisidia remained a wild, mountainous region, one of the most difficult for outside powers to rule. As far back as the Hittite period, Pisidia was host to independent communities not under the Hittite yoke. Known for its warlike factions, it remained independent of the Lydians, the Persians, who conquered Anatolia in the 6th century BC, divided the area into satrapies for greater control, were unable to cope with constant uprisings and turmoil. Alexander the Great had a somewhat better fortune, conquering Sagalassos on his way to Persia, though the city of Termessos defied him. After Alexander died, the region became part of territories of Antigonus Monophthalmus, Lysimachus of Thrace, after which Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Dynasty of Syria, took control of Pisidia. Under the Seleucids, Greek colonies were founded at strategically important places and the local people Hellenised. So, the Hellenistic kings were never in complete control, in part because Anatolia was contested between the Seleucids, the Attalids of Pergamon, the Galatians, invading Celts from Europe.
The cities in Pisidia were among the last in western Anatolia to adopt Greek culture and to coin their own money. Pisidia passed from the Seleucids to the Attalids as a result of the Treaty of Apamea, forced on Antiochos III of Syria by the Romans in 188 BC. After Attalos III, the last king of Pergamon, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome in 133 BC as the province of Asia, Pisidia was given to the Kingdom of Cappadocia, which proved unable to govern it; the Pisidians cast their lot with pirate-dominated Cilicia and Pamphylia until the Roman rule was restored in 102 BC. In 39 BC Marcus Antonius entrusted Pisidia to the Galatian client king Amyntas and charged him with suppressing a people of the Taurus Mountains known as the Homonadesians, who sometimes controlled the roads connecting Pisidia to Pamphylia. After king Amyntas of Galatia was killed in the struggle in 25 BC, Rome made Pisidia part of the new province of Galatia; the Homonadesians were wiped out in 3 BC. During the Roman period Pisidia was colonized with veterans of its legions to maintain control.
For the colonists, who came from poorer parts of Italy, agriculture must have been the area’s main attraction. Under Augustus, eight such colonies were established in Pisidia, Antioch and Sagalassos became the most important cities; the province was Latinised. Latin remained the formal language of the area until the end of the 3rd century. Pisidia became an important early Christian centre. Paul the Apostle preached in Antioch on his first journey, he visited the area in his second and third journeys. After the Emperor Constantine's legalization of Christianity in 311, Antioch in Pisidia played an important role as the Christian metropolitan see as well as being the capital of the civil province of Pisidia. Most Pisidian cities were fortified at that time due to civil wars and foreign invasions; the area was devastated by an earthquake in 518, a plague around 541–543, another earthquake and Arab raids in the middle of the 7th century. After the Muslim conquest of Syria disrupted the trade routes, the area declined in importance.
In the 8th century the raids increased. In the 11th century the Seljuk Turks captured the area and founded the Seljuk Sultanate in Central Anatolia. Pisidia changed hands between the Byzantine Emp
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