Cyzicus. Detailed history

As with other cities in antiquity, Cyzicus and its history are wrapped in mythology. Located on the Sea of Marmara (known as the Propontis in ancient history), Cyzicus was located on a tombolo, a narrow piece of land attaching the mainland Mysia to an island called Arctonnesus, on the northern coast of modern Turkey. The city was originally on the island, and over time, either by means of natural phenomena or human activity, the island became connected to the mainland. Located on the westward side of the original island, the city was ideally located for trade for ships coming from the west.

The city was said to have been founded by the Pelasgians, who had come from Thessaly. The Greeks used the term Pelasgians to mean either preclassical Greek indigenous inhabitants or the ancestors of the ancient Greeks. They seemingly used the term to distinguish these populations from the barbarians, non-Greeks who may have entered the geographical region. Although during the Classical Age, Greek writers often described the remaining enclaves as speaking barbaric languages, they nevertheless viewed them as Greek. They should be seen as the original Neolithic inhabitants of the region.

In Homer’s Iliad, the Pelasgians are allies of Troy from Larisa in Thrace. The city was also involved with the Argonauts. According to tradition, Jason and his followers, traveling to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece, stopped at the island of Bear Mountain, where the Doliones tribe lived on the shore of the Sea of Marmara. They were ruled by their king, Cyzicus, the son of Aeneus, founder of the city of Cyzicus, and Aenete, the daughter of Eusorus. Cyzicus received the Argonauts as guests, giving them a feast and supplies.

After the Argonauts left, a terrible storm drove them back to the island, where the Doliones believed them to be Pelasgians who had constantly attacked them and engaged them in battle. The gods Pan, Cybele, and Bellona caused the battle because Cyzicus had killed one of Cybele’s lions, and she wanted revenge so neither the Argonauts or Cyzicus and his men recognized the other combatants. During the battle, Cyzicus was killed by either Jason or Heracles. Afterward, realizing what had happened, Jason gave Cyzicus a burial fit for a king and handed the kingdom over to his sons.

This mythological account of the city and its inhabitants places its foundation at about 1300, a century or so before the Trojan War. The archaeological evidence indicates that the city’s oldest settlement layer came from the late eighth and early seventh centuries. The semihistorical records indicate that colonists arrived from Miletus about 756 from the southern coast of Asia Minor, although a later date of 679 is also possible. These colonists established an outpost for its trading network throughout the Black Sea.

Located on the southern shore of the Hellespont, the more hospitable shore, Cyzicus was well situated to control trade from both the Black Sea to the east and the Aegean Sea to the west. It was located in a fertile region, allowing it to support its population. The city enjoyed good inland communications and two chief routes, which allowed it to trade with interior cities. But its main fame lay in its two excellent flanking harbors connected by a canal, which allowed the city to prosper from the merchant ships going to and from the Hellespont.

In addition to these economic bounties, the city was engaged in the profitable fishing of tunny—so much so that the fish appeared as symbols on its coins beginning in 600. The Cyzicene coinage became dominant in the east during the next century. Its gold staters were only superseded by those of Philip II of Macedon. Its coin known as the cyzecenus was worth twenty-eight drachmas.

The city soon lost its independence due to its strategic location. The Lydians took it over, and after the defeat of Croesus, the Persians installed a local tyrant, Aristagoras. When Darius I attempted to take over Europe in 513-512 by marching toward the Danube and engaging the Scythians, Aristagoras refused to rebel when rumors reached Asia that Darius had been lost. With the rumors being false, Cyzicus was able to maintain some of its autonomy since they remained loyal to Darius, while the other states that rebelled were suppressed. When Ionia rebelled in 499, Cyzicus was tempted to join with it, but the arrival of a Persian fleet kept the city in check.

Its most important phase began during the Peloponnesian War, when Cyzicus was originally an ally of Athens. Due to its convenient location for controlling the grain trade from southern Russia through the Black Sea, whoever controlled Cyzicus could determine Athens’s food supply. The city was in danger of falling under Spartan control in 411, when the Spartan fleet under Mindarus was attacked by the Athenian fleet, led by Alcibiades. Athens won a tremendous victory, thereby keeping the Spartans at bay for two years. After the war, Cyzicus was ceded to Persia and was only later retaken by Alexander the Great in 334. It became an important school of philosophy when Eudoxus of Cnidus established his school there.

Eudoxus was an astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher who studied with Plato for a short time. He then went to Egypt, where he lived for over a year studying astronomy and math. He then arrived in Cyzicus and established his school. Eudoxus developed several mathematical ideas, including the method of exhaustion, a precursor of integral calculus in which an area of shapes can be determined by a sequence of polygons creating an ever-diminishing open area, or exhaustion, until the remaining unknown area is irrelevant.

He worked out proofs for areas of circles, volumes of spheres, and volumes of pyramids with this method. He used geometry instead of arithmetic to create proofs, thereby going against the Pythagoreans, who argued that only arithmetic could be used in proofs. His work on astronomy is not as well known, but he seems to have examined eclipses and planetary motions. His school flourished until his death in 355.

Cyzicus was a crucial city that controlled the main routes in the Hellespont. It sent its grain to Athens, which allowed it to continue to survive as part of the Athenian Empire.