NICAEA
(Iznik) Bithynia, Turkey.
In legend,
the God Dionysos was Nicaea's founder; according to
record, some inhabitants of a small town of the same
name near Thermopylai may have colonized it (Nonnus
Dion. 15.170; 16.403-5; Dio Chrys.
Or. 39.1 & 8). Moreover, in that locality is noted an ancient military camp
of Bottiei; and the city was named Elikore, Ankore, when
in 316 B.C. Antigonos Monophthalmos founded Antigoneia there (Strab.
Geogr. 12.565; Eust.
Il. 2.863).
After the battle of Issos, in 301 B.C., Lysimachos conquered the city and refounded it with the name of his
wife, daughter of Antipater. In 282-81 B.C. Nicaea came
under the rulers of Bithynia and regained great importance (App.
Mith. 6 & 77). It was only in 72 B.C. that
Bithynia came under Roman domination at the conclusion of the Mithridatic war (App.
BCiv. 5.139.1). Embellished under Augustus to the point of contending with Nicomedia for the seat of the provincial governor, Nicaea
became the first city of the eparchy under Claudius, as
we know from the coinage. Pliny the Younger, governor
under Trajan, further enlarged the city. Hadrian visited
Nicaea in 123 and undertook works of fortification that
were finished in the 3d c. A.D. under Claudius II (Gothicus), after the Goths had already caused serious damage
to the city in 258. Constantine continued the work of
embellishment of his predecessors, and held the first
council at Nicaea in 325. Justinian took particular interest in the city (Amm. Marc., 26.1.3.5; 2.2; 22.9.5), which
was again chosen in 787 for the second council.
The geographical situation of Nicaea was particularly
fortunate (Plin.
HN 6.34.217; Strab.
Geogr. 2.134; Ptol.
Geogr. 5.1.3). Its position on the shore of Lake Ascania
(Iznik Gölü), on level and fertile ground, with wide
roads for traffic that radiated from the city, made Nicaea
a great Hellenistic center. Strabo (
Geogr. 12.565) minutely described the foundation of the new Lysimachan
city: It had a square plan 700 m to a side; the roads were
arranged with perpendicular axes, following the perfect
regularity of the rectangular scheme; two large arteries
crossed at right angles at the center of the inhabited area;
the extensions of the roads led to the four gates of the
city, visible from a fixed stone placed at the center of the
gymnasium, a building that thus must be supposed at the
heart of the urban plan.
The following monuments are listed by written history
and inscriptions: a theater, a Sanctuary of the goddess
Roma and of Caesar (built under Augustus), an Apolloneion, a market (built under Hadrian), an aqueduct, and
churches and a palace erected by Justinian (Procop.
De
aed. 5.3). The coinage, from the period of Marcus
Aurelius onward, commemorates a number of other monuments, among them the temples of Asklepios, of Dionysos, and of Tyche. The theater was to the SW of the city, though little remains of the building itself. Its recognizable dimensions reach a maximum of 85 x 55 m, and only
part of the cavea is conserved; the orchestra and the
skene have been lost. Its plan must have been Hellenistic
but has been repeatedly modified (Plin.
Ep. 10.48). A
curious monument, the obelisk of C. Cassius Philieus,
rises barely outside Nicaea on the road to Nicomedia,
and must have been a family tomb. The obelisk, triangular in section, is 12 m tall, and is placed on a rectangular
base 2 x 3 m. The Byzantine city, which rendered unrecognizable with its new constructions the ancient
Nicaea, overlaid the Hellenistic-Roman city plan. The
imposing earlier walls had by the 5th c. A.D. already
undergone major renovation. This Byzantine construction has two aspects. The gates, with triple openings, and
several towers, seem still to follow the Roman plan; but
often the superstructures are Byzantine, and the definitive system is Turkish. The principal churches of Nicaea
included the Cathedral of Haghia Sophia, originally a
basilica with three aisles of the 5th c., that underwent
repeated restoration until the 14th c.; and the Church of
the Dormition of the Virgin, whose controversial chronology varies between the 6th-7th and the 8th-9th c., with
the earlier more probable. Of notable interest were the
rich mosaics of the cupola and the narthex, destroyed
during the Graeco-Turkish War, known only from photographs and watercolors made at the beginning of this century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Texier,
Description de l'Asie Min. I
(1839); M. Schede,
Führer durch Iznik (
Nikaia) (1935);
N. Firatli,
Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri Yilliği 11-12
(1964); C. Artuk,
VI Turk Tarih Kongresi, Ankara 1961
(1967).
For the Graeco-Roman city: A. Fick & K. O. Dolman,
AA 45 (1930); A. M. Schneider,
Forsch. und Fortschritte
II (1935); id. in
Antiquity 12 (1938); id. with W. Karnapp,
Die Stadtmauern von Iznik (
Istanb. Forsch. 9, 1938).
N. BONACASA