ELAIA
(Kazikbağlari) Turkey.
Town in Aiolis
24 km SW of Bergama. Said to have been founded by
the Athenian Menestheus at the time of the Trojan War
(Strab. 622), but not a member of the Aiolian League.
Assessed in the Delian Confederacy at one-sixth of a
talent, Elaia acquired importance in the Hellenistic period as the port of the Pergamene kings. Coins are known
from the 5th and 4th c. B.C., and from the time of Augustus to the 3d c. A.D. Later it was a bishopric under the
metropolitan of Ephesos.
The ruins are scanty. Of the city wall, originally 3 m
thick and built in 234 B.C., only a few stray blocks can
now be seen. The acropolis hill is barely 20 m high. The
sea has receded since antiquity; harbor works were formerly visible, but all that now remains is a solid wall
some 200 m long runniflg out into the mudflats. Nothing
survives above ground in the necropolis to the N. Some
ancient stones turned up by the plough can be seen at the
local coffee-house.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Schuchhardt,
Altertümer von Pergamon I, 1 (1912) 111-13; G. E. Bean,
Aegean Turkey
(1966) 112-14.
G. E. BEAN
