Location: 35 km (22 mi) Northwest of Antalya Map
Open:
summer 7:30am- 7:30pm daily
winter 7:30am- 4:30pm daily
Termesos, Termesos, Termissos or Telmissos (in ancient Greek Τερμησσός) was a city in Pisidia, famous for its impregnability as a fortress. Located in the Taurus Mountains at the entrance to a valley crossed by the Catarractes River, it was an essential communication hub between Pisidia, Pamphylia and Lycia. The top of the mountain on which the acropolis sat was called Solimo (present-day Mount Güllük). It is, something quite rare at the time, a city located at an altitude of 1050 meters, on a plateau. The road that crossed it passed through a very narrow gorge that could be defended by few men.
Tradition associates it with the hero Bellerophon, who fought against the Solimus. Near Termessus there was a place known as Bellerophon's stockade and a tomb attributed to his son Isander, who died in battle. Another tradition mentions a defeat of the Solimus against Memnon's army.
Its origins are poorly known. Its first inhabitants, the sólimos,
were Pisidians who lived from livestock, olive cultivation, but also
from banditry, which gave them an execrable reputation.
According
to Strabo, in 334 BC. C., Alexander the Great destroyed Termessus, since
he wanted to leave the gorges on the way to the region of Milia free. On
the other hand, Arrian indicates that Alexander's troops pushed back the
Thermiseans, who were protecting the access gorge, to their city, but
that seeing that the capture of Termessus could be prolonged for a long
time, they first headed against the city of Sagalaso.
In a
confrontation in the year 319 BC. C. between troops of the diadoch
Antigonus I Monophthalmos against Alcetas of Macedonia. The latter was
defeated and retired to Termessus. There the younger Pisidians of the
city were in favor of fighting for Alcetas, but the older men, fearing
the destruction of their city, were opposed and sent an embassy to
Antigonus promising to hand over Alcetas to him. While fighting was
taking place far from the city, the elders sent a slave to arrest
Alcetas but he committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of his
enemies. When the young men returned from the fighting, they became
enraged against their relatives, recovered the body of Alcetas, paid him
honors and decided to wage guerrilla war against the territories
controlled by Antigonus.
It later came under control of the
Ptolemaic dynasty. The city was quickly Hellenized in the 3rd century
BC. C., and had, at its peak, several tens of thousands of inhabitants.
In 189 BC C. an army from Termessus had laid siege to the city of
Isinda. The Romans came to the aid of the besieged and, after lifting
the siege, granted peace to Termessus in exchange for 50 talents of
silver.
It became the sovereignty of Rome and issued currency
until the time of Emperor Severus. Rome granted him a statute of
autonomy known as Lex Antonia de Termessibus in 72 or 68 BC. C. to thank
him for his alliance in the war against Mithridates VI (See third
Mithridatic war).
The city was prosperous during the Roman
period, but its decline began in the 5th century, when an earthquake
devastated the city and it was abandoned. In this same century, it was
the seat of a bishopric and had the neighboring cities of Jovia and
Eudocia under its jurisdiction.
Its remains, relatively well preserved, are within the Güllük Dağı
National Park, in the place called Karabunar Kiui, 34 km northwest of
Antalya, ruins that are located at the foot of the mountain where the
fortress was.
Today the monuments of the Hellenistic and Roman
era are still visible, such as the theater (4,200 seats), the odeon, the
gymnasium, the agora, fortifications, the cistern, six temples among
which are one dedicated to Artemis and another probably to Zeus Solimeus
and tombs, among which is one believed to be the one erected in honor of
Alcetas.
Among the cults that were performed in the city, the
cult of the medical Achilles is unique, documented in an epitaph found
in a sarcophagus from the Roman imperial period.
In Pisidia there
was another city of the same name, known as Lesser Termessos (Termessos
he mikra).