HERACLEIA
HERACLEIA (
Ἡράκλεια).
1.
A town of Caria of uncertain site. (
Strab. xiv. p.658;
Steph. B. sub voce ) Ptolemy (
5.2.19) describes it by the addition
πρὸς Ἀλβανῷ. (Comp.
Plin. Nat. 5.29; Suid. and Eudoc. s.v. where the town has the surname
Ἀλβάκη.) This town should not be confounded with the following.
2.
A town on the confines between Caria and Ionia, which is generally described as
πρὸς Λάτμῳ, or
ἡ ὑπὸ Λάτμῳ, from its situation at the western foot of mount Latmus, on the Sinus Latmicus.
It was a small place in the south-east of Miletus, and south-west of Amazon, and was sometimes designated simply by the name Latmus.
In its neighbourhood a cave was shown with the tomb of Endymion. (
Scylax, p. 39;
Strab. xiv. p.635;
Ptol. 5.2.9;
Plin. Nat. 5.31;
Polyaen. 7.23;
Paus. 5.1.4; Schol.
ad Apollon. Rhod. 4.57.) Ruins of this town still exist at the foot of mount Latmus on the borders of lake Baffi, which is probably a portion of the ancient Sinus Latmicus, formed by the deposits of the river Maeander. (Comp. Leake,
Asia Minor, p. 239; Fellowes,
Exc. in As. Min. p. 263, who, confounding the lake of Baffi with that of Myus, considers the ruins of Heracleia to be those of Myus.)
3.
A town on the coast of Aeolis, opposite to Hecatonnesi.
This town and the neighbouring Coryphantis are called villages of the Mytilenaeans. (
Strab. xiii. p.607;
Plin. Nat. 5.32, who speaks only of a
Heracleotes tracts; Steph. B. sub voce
4.
Surnamed
Pontica, on the coast of Phrygia, in the country of the Mariandyni, was a colony of the Megarians, in conjunction with Tanagraeans from Boeotia. (
Paus. 5.26.6;
Just. 16.3.) Strabo (
xii. p.542) erroneously calls the town a colony of Miletus.
It was situated a few miles to the north of the river Lycus, and had two excellent harbours, the smaller of which was made artificially. (
Xen. Anab. 6.2. 1;
Diod. 14.31; Arrian,
Peripl. p. 15; Memnon, p. 52.) Owing to its excellent situation, the town soon rose to a high degree of prosperity, and not only reduced the Mariandyni to subjection, but acquired the supremacy of several other Greek towns in its neighbourhood; so that, at the time of its highest prosperity, it ruled over the whole territory extending from the Sangarius in the west to the Parthenius in the east.
A protracted struggle between the aristocracy and the demos (
Aristot. Pol. 5.5) at last obliged the inhabitants to submit to a tyrannis.
In the reign of Dionysius, one of these tyrants, who was married to a relation of Darius Codomannus, Heracleia reached the zenith of its prosperity.
But this state of things did not last long; for the rising power of the Bithynian princes, who tried to reduce that prosperous maritime city, and the arrival of the Galatians in Asia, who were instigated by the kings of Bithynia against Heracleia, deprived the town gradually of a considerable part of its territory. Still, however, it continued to maintain a very prominent place among the Greek colonies in those parts, until, in the war of the Romans against Mithridates, it received its death blow; for Aurelius Cotta plundered and partly destroyed the town (Memnon, 100.54).
It was afterwards indeed restored, but remained a town of no importance ( “oppidum,”
Plin. Nat. 6.1; comp.
Strab. xii. p.543;
Scylax, p. 34;
Ptol. 5.1.7; Marcian. pp. 70, 73; Schol.
ad Apollon. Rhod. 2.748,
ad Nicand. Alex. 13;
Eustath. ad Dionys. Per. 791).
[p. 1.1050]Heracleia, which was the birthplace of Heraclides Ponticus and his disciple Dionysius Metathemenus, still exists under the name of
Herakie or
Erekli. For the history of this important colony see Justin,
16.3-
5; Polsberw,
de Rebus Heracleae, Brandenburg, 1833, 8vo. (Niebuhr,
Lect. on Anc. Hist. iii. pp. 113, fol.)
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| COIN OF HERACLEIA IN BITHYNIA. |
5.
A town of uncertain site in Lydia, perhaps not far from Magnesia at the foot of mount Sipylus. From this town the magnet derived its name of
Heracleus lapis. (
Steph. B. sub voce Hesych. sub voce Zenob.
Prov. 2.22, p. 90, ed. Leutsch.) [
L.S]
