An hour north of Izmir, above the modern town of Bergama, a thousand-foot hill carries the remains of a city that once rivaled Alexandria in learning and Athens in splendor. Pergamon is the ancient world showing off — a perfect hybrid of Greek daring and Roman engineering.
Its kings built a library of 200,000 scrolls, second only to Alexandria — so threatening that Egypt embargoed papyrus, forcing Pergamon to perfect parchment, which carries the city's name to this day (pergamena). Their sculptors carved the Great Altar of Zeus, whose titanic battle frieze is now the centerpiece of Berlin's Pergamon Museum; the altar's foundations still command the terrace here, with the plain of the Caicus spread below.
The theater that defies vertigo
Pergamon's Greek theater is the steepest surviving from antiquity: eighty rows plunging down the cliff face at an angle that makes the view part of the performance. Beside it stand the marble columns of Trajan's temple, re-erected against the sky, and the sanctuaries of Athena and Dionysus. For readers of Revelation the hill has another resonance — the letter to Pergamon speaks of the city "where Satan's throne is" (2:13), which many scholars connect to the Zeus altar or the imperial cult centered here.
Combine the acropolis with the Asclepion healing sanctuary at the hill's foot for one of the richest half-days in Aegean archaeology — or pair the whole city with Ephesus on our grand two-city tour.
Sources & further reading
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Pergamon — the official World Heritage listing