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Greek city of Termessos Major in Pisidia
Bronze 22mm (6.82 grams) Struck circa 2nd-3rd Century A.D.
TЄPMHCЄΩN, Helmeted and cuirassed bust of Ares (Mars) right.
AYT/ONO/MΩN in three lines within distyle temple.
An important city of south-western Pisidia, high up in the Tauros mountains, in the pass through which the river Catarrhactes flowed. It was almost impregnable by nature and art, so that even Alexander the Great did not attempt to take it. Termessos at one time controlled a large area of territory extending into northern Lycia. Its position was given recognition by the Romans in 71 B.C. from which era its earliest coins date.
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 Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.
The Greeks were ambivalent toward Ares: although he embodied the physical valor necessary for success in war, he was a dangerous force, “overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering.” Fear (Phobos) and Terror (Deimos) were yoked to his battle chariot. In the Iliad his father Zeus tells him that he is the god most hateful to him. An association with Ares endows places and objects with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality. His value as a war god is even placed in doubt: during the Trojan War, Ares was on the losing side, while Athena, often depicted in Greek art as holding Nike (Victory) in her hand, favored the triumphant Greeks.
Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narratives, though his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to. When Ares does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation. He is well known as the lover of Aphrodite, the goddess of love who was married to Hephaestus, god of craftsmanship, but the most famous story involving the couple shows them exposed to ridicule through the wronged husband’s clever device.
The counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, who as a father of the Roman people held a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion for his agricultural and tutelary functions. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares. Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures becomes virtually indistinguishable.
Pisidia was a region of ancient Asia Minor located north of Lycia, and bordering Caria, Lydia, Phrygia and Pamphylia. It corresponds roughly to the modern-day province of Antalya in Turkey. Among Pisidia’s settlements were Termessus, Selge, Cremna, Sagalassos, Etenna, Antiochia, Neapolis, Tyriacum, Laodiceia Katakekaumene and Philomelium.
Amphiteatre of Termessos
Geography
Although close to Mediterranean Sea on the map, the warm climate of the south cannot pass the height of the Taurus Mountains. Owing to the climate, there is no timberland but crop plants grow in areas provided with water from the mountains, whose annual average rainfall is c. 1000 mm on the peaks and 500 mm on the slopes. This water feeds the plateau. The Pisidian cities, mostly founded on the slopes, benefited from this fertility. The irrigated soil of the land is very suitable for growing fruit and for husbandry.
History
Early history
The area of Pisidia has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age, with some settlements known from historical times ranging in age from the eighth to third millennium BC. The ancestors of the classical Pisidians were likely present in the region before the 14th century BC, when Hittite records refer to a mountain site of Salawassa, identified with the later site of Sagalassos. At that time, Pisidia appears to have been part of the region the Hittites called Arzawa. The Pisidian language is poorly known, but is assumed to be a member of the Anatolian branch of Indo-European languages.
Herodotus mentioned the Pisidic people in the text which they were called “Lakuna” but this was one of the names given to Pisidic tribes, which occupied a little mountainous region north to the Antalya Bay. Pisidians are known to be among the nations which helped the Persians in their war against Greece.
There can be little doubt that the Pisidians and Pamphylians were the same people, but the distinction between the two seems to have been established at an early period. Herodotus, who does not mention the Pisidians, enumerates the Pamphylians among the nations of Asia Minor, while Ephorus mentions them both, correctly including the one among the nations on the interior, the other among those of the coast. Pamphylia early received colonies from Greece and other lands, and from this cause, combined with the greater fertility of their territory, became more civilized than its neighbor in the interior. Pisidia remained a wild, mountainous region, and one of the most difficult for outside powers to rule.
As far back as the Hittite period, Pisidia was host to independent communities not under the Hittite yoke. Known for its warlike factions, it remained largely independent of the Lydians, and even the Persians, who conquered Anatolia in the 6th century BC, and divided the area into satrapies for greater control, were unable to cope with constant uprisings and turmoil.
Hellenistic period
Alexander the Great had somewhat better fortune, conquering Sagalassos on his way to Persia, though the city of Termessos defied him. After Alexander died, the region became part of territories of Antigonus Monophthalmus, and possibly Lysimachus of Thrace, after which Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the Seleucid Dynasty of Syria, took control of Pisidia. Under the Selucids Greek colonies were founded at strategically important places and the local people Hellenised. Even so, the Hellenistic kings were never in complete control, in part because Anatolia was contested between the Selucids, the Attalids of Pergamon, and the Galatians, invading Celts from Europe. The cities in Pisidia were among the last in western Anatolia to fully adopt Greek culture and to coin their own money.
Pisidia officially passed from the Selucids to the Attalids as a result of the Treaty of Apamea, forced on Antiochos III of Syria by the Romans in 188 BC. After Attalos III, the last king of Pergamon, bequeathed his kingdom to Rome in 133 BC as the province of Asia, Pisidia was given to the Kingdom of Cappadocia, which proved unable to govern it. The Pisidians cast their lot with pirate-dominated Cilicia and Pamphylia until Roman rule was restored in 102 BC.
In 39 BC Marcus Antonius entrusted Pisidia to the Galatian client king Amyntas and charged him with putting down the bandit Homonadesians of the Taurus Mountains, who threatened the roads connecting Pisidia to Pamphylia. After Amyntas was killed in the struggle 25 BC, Rome made Pisidia part of the new province of Galatia. The Homonadesians were finally wiped out in 3 BC.
Roman and Byzantine period
During the Roman period Pisidia was colonized the area with veterans of its legions to maintain control. For the colonists, who came from poorer parts of Italy, agriculture must have been the area’s main attraction. Under Augustus, eight colonies were established in Pisidia, and Antioch and Sagalassos became the most important urban centers. The province was gradually Latinised. Latin remained the formal language of the area until the end of the 3rd century.
Pisidia was important in the early spread of Christianity. St. Paul visited Antioch on each of his missionary journeys, helping to make it a center of the new faith in Anatolia. After the Emperor Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in 311 it played an important role as a metropolitan city. Afterwards it became the capital city of the Christian Pisidian Province, founded in the 4th century; Parlais became its titular see. Most Pisidian cities were heavily fortified at that time due to civil wars and foreign invasions.
The area was devastated by earthquake in 518, a plague around 541-543, and another earthquake and Arab raids in the middle of the 7th century. After the Muslim conquest of Syria disrupted trade routes, the area declined in importance. In the 8th century the raids increased. In the 11th century the Seljuk Turks captured the area and founded the Seljuk Sultanate in Central Anatolia. Pisidia constantly changed hands between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Turks until 1176, when the Great Sultan Kılıçarslan defeated Manuel Commenos in the Myriokephalon (thousand heads), which ended Roman rule and cemented Turkish rule of the area.
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