KLAZOMENAI
(Klazümen) Ionia, Turkey.
At the scala of Urla, 36 km W of Izmir. (The modern
name has only lately been in use; the ancient name survived until recently 9 km to the E at the village of Kilisman, now Kizilbahce.) The main site, though not the
original site, is on a small island joined to the mainland
by a causeway. Pausanias (
3.8.9) records that a band of
Ionian settlers built a city on the mainland, but later they
crossed to the island from fear of the Persians. From the
sherds found on the site it appears that this move came
not after the fall of Sardis in 546 but rather at the time
of the Ionian Revolt. The city remained in Persian hands
until the formation of the Delian Confederacy. By the
King's Peace of 386 B.C. all the cities of Asia were surrendered to the Persians, and “of the islands Cyprus and
Klazomenai.” Persian rule ended with Alexander, who
displayed some interest in the city. By the treaty of
Apamea in 188 B.C. Klazomenai was granted immunity
by the Romans. At the end of the first Mithridatic War,
about 84 B.C., Klazomenai is mentioned by Appian
(
Mithr. 63) together with other cities as having been
sacked by pirates “in Sulla's presence.” Klazomenian
coinage began (apparently) in the 6th c. B.C. and continued to Gallienus; standard types are the winged boar
and the swan.
The most distinguished citizens of Klazomenai were the
philosophers Anaxagoras and Scopelianus.
Not much remains of the city today, and of the original mainland site virtually nothing apart from the well-known sarcophagi of painted terracotta which have been
found over a wide area near the coast, but not on the
island. The causeway survives alongside its modern replacement, but normally only a few blocks are visible
above water. On the island the ring wall stands only for
a short stretch at the N end; the masonry is ashlar, the
blocks on the small side. There are some remains of a
harbor on the W shore, and the emplacement of a theater
facing N. Near the SW corner is a cave comprising four
chambers, most of which has now collapsed; it contains
a well, and may be the “cave of Pyrrhos' mother” referred to by Pausanias (
7.5.11).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. M. Cook in
ArchEph (1953-54)
M;
G. E. Bean,
Aegean Turkey (1967) 128-36.
G. E. BEAN
