SIDE
(Selimiye, formerly Eski Antalya) Turkey.
City in Pamphylia 6 km SW of Manavgat, the chief
port on the coast until supplanted by Attaleia. According
to Strabo (
667) and Arrian (1.26) Side was colonized
from Aiolian Kyme, presumably in the 7th or 6th c.
B.C., and Arrian adds that on landing the colonists forgot
their Greek and began to speak a barbarous tongue
peculiar to themselves. This is evidently the language,
unknown elsewhere, which appears on coins and in three
inscriptions found locally, but is not yet satisfactorily
deciphered. It is no doubt the original language of
Pamphylia, which survived at Side when the other cities
were speaking a form of Greek introduced by the colonists under Mopsos and others after the Trojan War. Of
an earlier Side nothing is known except that Eusebios
places its foundation in 1405 B.C.
Side submitted peaceably to Alexander in 333 B.C. and
accepted a garrison from him (Arr.
l.c.). Relations with
neighboring Aspendos were not good, and in 219 B.C.,
when the Aspendians contributed 4000 men to Garsyeris'
force, the Sidetans refused to make any contribution
(Polyb. 5.73). In 190 B.C. an indecisive sea battle was
fought off Side between the Rhodians and Antiochos III.
The Cilician pirates, powerful during the 2d c., used
Side as a base and as a market for their prisoners until
their suppression by Pompey in 67 B.C. For the first three
centuries of the Roman Empire Side continued prosperous, but it declined in the 4th c. largely because of the
inroads of barbarians from Isauria, and the size of the
city was reduced. In the 5th c. the original area was
reoccupied, but with the Arab invasions of the 7th c.
the final decline began.
The harbor, on which the city's prosperity mainly depended, was almost entirely artificial; half the basin is
now sanded up, though the mole still stands, with an
entrance passage less than 10 m wide. The harbor was
notorious for both the difficulty of entering and the constant necessity of dredging; the expression “a harbor of
Side” became proverbial for a task that needed to be
done again and again.
The city wall is thought to date from the 2d c. B.C.,
though the part along the S shore is much later. The E
side is the best preserved, but its S end is buried by the
drifting sand that has covered the SE corner of the site.
The outer face of the wall, in regular ashlar masonry,
carries a decorative cornice molding and has towers at
unequal intervals; the inner side is in three stories. The
lowest of these serves merely to raise the upper parts
from the ground; the middle story consists of a series
of casemates, and the top story, only partly preserved,
was simply a parapet with windows. Each story was set
back from the one below, so as to provide two passages
for the defenders.
There are two gates in this part of the wall. The main
gate, towards the N end, has a plan similar to the main
gates of Sillyon and Perge, for example, a horseshoe-shaped court flanked by towers. In Imperial times it was
adorned with niches, statues, and pillars; many fragments
of these have been found, but almost nothing of the
building itself survives above ground. The present road
passes through this gate.
The second gate is near the S end. It was buried under
sand, but excavation has revealed a plan different from
that of the N gate. A row of reliefs representing pieces
of armor, almost certainly spoils taken from an enemy,
was found on a terrace above the gate; these are now
in the museum.
In Roman times an aqueduct 32 km long brought water to the city from the N; in some places the channel was cut in the rock, in others it was carried on high arches, some of which still stand. It entered the city a
little N of the main gate. Just outside this gate is a large
nymphaeum, evidently fed from the aqueduct; it has the
familiar form of a water basin enclosed by a high back
wall, with projecting wings on either side. The decoration was rich. Both aqueduct and nymphaeum probably
date from the 2d c. A.D., and the nymphaeum was restored about the middle of the 3d c. How the city was supplied with water in earlier times is not clear; the natural sources on the site are scanty and of poor quality.
Inside the main gate the present road follows the line
of an ancient colonnaded street towards the theater; a
second similar street ran S from the gate, but this has
not been cleared and soon disappears under the sand.
Before reaching the theater the street passes on the right
(N) a bath, now a museum, and on the left the entrance
to the agora. The bath, probably of the 5th c. A.D., has
the usual features—frigidarium, tepidarium, caldarium,
sudatorium—with a small circular bathing pool adjoining; it was fed from the aqueduct, which ends close by.
Of the agora and its surrounding buildings only the
foundations remain. It was some 100 m square and
enclosed by a stoa backed by shops; it was entered from
the street by a monumental gateway. In its W corner is
a latrine, a semicircular vaulted passage, with a water
channel below the seats. Near the center of the agora
stood a round building of the 2d c. A.D., very probably
a temple of Tyche. Only the core of the podium remains
in place, with a flight of steps in front; above this was
a circular chamber surrounded by 12 Corinthian columns. The ceiling was adorned with the signs of the
zodiac, and above this was a roof in the form of a 12-sided pyramid. Surprisingly, no statue bases have been found in the agora.
When the size of the city was reduced in the 4th c.
a wall was built across the narrow neck of the peninsula
immediately W of the agora; the colonnaded street
passes through it just N of the theater. At this point
there stood in Roman times a high arched gateway which
became the main city gate; the arch was blocked with
masonry and a smaller gate inserted in it. The arch still
stands, but the smaller gate has recently been removed.
Close to the gate is the monument of Vespasian, but
this is not in its original position. It was erected elsewhere in the city in honor of Vespasian and Titus; the
fragmentary inscription gives the date 74. After the
building of the 4th c. wall it was put in its present place
and converted into a fountain house; it has two water
basins in front and a pipe in the central niche where the
statue of Vespasian originally stood. Projecting wings
enclose the basins on either side.
The theater, apart from the stage building, is remarkably well preserved, probably dating from the 2d c. A.D.
and replacing an earlier Hellenistic theater. It is among
the largest known. Its position takes advantage of the
slight rise in the ground W of the agora, but this sufficed
only for the lower half of the building; the upper part is
freestanding. This upper part is surrounded by two concentric corridors, the outer one with vaulted roof supported on massive piers; the openings between these lead either to the inner corridor or to covered chambers of
uncertain purpose. The inner corridor opens to the diazoma. The cavea contains 29 rows of seats below the diazoma, divided by 12 stairways into 11 cunei; above the diazoma there were probably another 29 rows, but a few
are lost at the top; here the number of stairways is
doubled. The upper seats were accessible not from the
diazoma but by staircases in the outer walls. The stage
building still stands at the back to a height of some 23 m,
but its decorated facade is ruined. The bottom story comprises nine rooms, five of which open through to the
agora behind; the proscenium projects about 6 m. The
scaenae frons is in two stories, the lower carrying a long
frieze with reliefs now unrecognizable, but apparently of
mythological scenes. The richness of the decoration is
evident from the architectural blocks now lying in the
orchestra. In the later Roman age a wall 2 m high was
erected around the orchestra for wild beast shows and
similar exhibitions. In the 5th c., during the city's revived prosperity, the fabric of the outer corridor, which
had apparently suffered from earthquakes, was extensively repaired. When the 4th c. wall was built the back
of the stage building became in effect a part of it, and
the openings to the agora were blocked.
Between the theater and the colonnaded street are the
scanty remains of a small temple. Only a part of the
podium is visible, but this indicates that the cella was
pseudoperipteral. It has been thought that this may be
a temple of Dionysos, but there is no actual evidence
apart from its proximity to the theater. It is dated by the
excavators to the 1st c. B.C.
To the SE of the theater, just outside the 4th c. wall,
is a complex which has been identified as a gymnasium.
The palaestra is an open court over 60 m square, surrounded by a stoa now destroyed; on its E side is a
building comprising three rooms. That on the N has not
been excavated; that on the S may have been a library;
the principal room, richly decorated, was in the middle.
Its front was open, separated from the palaestra by a
row of six columns; on the other sides niches and projecting bases alternated; they were two stories high and
held statues. The bases also supported columns and an
entablature. Many of the statues have been recovered;
they are mostly copies of Greek works representing deities and athletes, and are now in the museum, except for a statue of Nemesis which has been left in the SE corner.
The central niche, however, was occupied by a statue
of a Roman emperor; this seems to have been Antoninus
Pius, but the face has been altered to that of another
emperor, possibly Gordian III. The building as a whole
dates apparently from the 2d c. A.D. It is not certain,
however, that it is in fact a gymnasium, though no other
building has been found at Side which can be so identified. There is no visible provision for a supply of water,
still less any bathing establishment, and the usual lecture
rooms and rooms for the athletes are lacking. Possibly
therefore we should recognize a second agora.
At the S end of the city the outstanding buildings were
the two temples which stood side by side on a platform
overlooking the sea and harbor. In form, though not in
size, they are virtually identical, dating probably from
the late 2d c. A.D. In each case the order is Corinthian,
with 11 columns by 6, and each comprises a pronaos and
cella but no opisthodomos. Hardly more than the foundations survives in place, but numerous architectural
members have been recovered. Even without definite evidence there can be little doubt that these were the temples of Athena and Apollo, the principal deities of the city; and this is to some extent confirmed by a series of
3d c. inscriptions relating to a Landing Festival of Athena
and Apollo, with which the position of the temples by
the harbor would accord. At some time during the 5th or
6th c. a large basilica was erected just E of the two temples, which must have been in ruins by that time, since
the forecourt of the basilica occupied the ground on
which they stood. The N temple was then entirely removed, but the S one seems to have survived somewhat
longer, as the building of the forecourt was not completed
on that side. The basilica, still largely preserved, was of
the usual form, with three aisles and apsis containing a
synthronon; a smaller building attached to it on the S
appears to have been a martyrium.
The main colonnaded street, running SW from the
theater among the houses of the modern village, ended
near the shore a little E of the basilica. Here stood a
small temple. On a podium 2 m high, approached by a
flight of steps, was a semicircular chamber facing W,
with a platform in front which carried a row of six columns with entablature; little more than the podium now survives. The temple has been tentatively attributed, without much evidence, to Men.
The necropolis lay E of the city, extending from the
N shore to the S, an area now cultivated, so that the
tombs have suffered greatly. Several sarcophagi have
been unearthed and installed in the museum, but many
others—built tombs, altars, and cippi—have been removed or destroyed. The most impressive is a fine mausoleum still standing in large part some 400 m W of the city close to the shore. It is in temple form, on a high
podium surrounded by a courtyard, with a much larger
courtyard in front extending to the shore. The date is
thought to be around A.D. 300, and the richness of the
decoration is remarkable.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Fellows,
Asia Minor (1838) 203-4;
C. Lanckoronski,
Die Städte Pamphyliens (1890) 125-52;
A. M. Mansel,
Die Ruinen von Side (1963)
MI; G. E.
Bean,
Turkey's Southern Shore (1968) 78-100; excavation reports, Türk Tarih Kurumu publications, Ser. 5, nos. 11, 15, 20.
G. E. BEAN