The case of Alexander of Lyncestis

The name Alexander is already very popular in the days of Alexander the Great and may lead to confusion. 

For a start, there was King Alexander of Epirus, Olympias’ brother and Alexander’s uncle. I usually refer to him as Alexandros to make the difference. He is the one who married Alexander’s sister Cleopatra in 336 BC, the day King Philip of Macedonia was assassinated. 

[Expansion of Macedonia from Wikipedia]

Then there is Alexander of Lyncestis, in Upper Macedonia, son of Aeropus and son-in-law of the general and later regent Antipater. He had two brothers, Heromenes and Arrhabaeus, who were soon accused of plotting the murder of Philip II and put to death. Brother Alexander is said to have been the first to proclaim Alexander of Macedonia as king and thus avoided punishment, for now at least. 

In Alexander’s campaign, the Lyncestian was soon appointed to command the Thracian detachment and later the Thessalian cavalry. However, two years later, Parmenion, who was spending the winter near Gordion, caught a messenger carrying a secret letter from the Persian King Darius for Alexander of Lyncestis. It revealed that Darius promised to pay him a thousand talents of gold to kill Alexander and would proclaim him King of Macedonia instead! Parmenion sent the messenger with a trusted escort to Alexander, where the man repeated the same story. 

This was an extremely serious matter that Alexander put before his assembled Companions in order to make the appropriate decision. It was agreed to send a trusted man, a brother of Craterus, to Parmenion. He would travel incognito, dressed as a local and accompanied by guides from Perge, and deliver his message verbally, as it was thought better not to write down anything on a matter of this importance. Alexander’s envoy reached Parmenion without being detected and reported the instructions he was carrying. Alexander of Lyncestis was arrested and put in chains. He was tried for plotting against his king and put in prison. Being the son-in-law of Antipater, acting as the king’s Regent in Macedonia, was an important factor in his favor. 

The Lyncestian was dragged around for about three years, when in 330 BC, in the wake of Philotas’ trial and execution for a similar plot, the Macedonians demanded that he should be tried and punished accordingly as well. When he was brought in from confinement to plead his case, he was faltering and nervous, and found no words to reply and defend himself. This was perceived as a guilty conscience, and the bystanders ran him through with their spears. 

It should be noted that Queen Eurydice I, Alexander’s paternal grandmother, was born in Lyncestis. She married King Amynthas III of Macedonia, the father of Philip II, in 390 BC to consolidate the relations between the two countries.

A Phrygian tomb with a link to King Midas?

Last winter, a tomb was found inside an 8-meter-high and 60-meter-wide tumulus near Gordion, not too far from the famous tomb King Midas built for his father, Gordias (see: Gordion, a name with a resonance). 

[Picture from Turkiye Today, AA Photo]

Archaeologists suspect this burial site has links to the Phrygian royal family. A tumulus listed as T26 has yielded a wooden burial chamber closely resembling the structure inside the Midas Tumulus. It contained human remains, possibly a member of the dynasty of King Midas. 

Over one hundred grave goods were exposed, including bronze and iron cauldrons, tripods, and incense burners not unlike those retrieved from the Midas Tumulus.  Despite the chamber having been crushed over the millennia under layers of stone and soil, a bronze jug covered with linen (a rare find by itself) helped to date the site to the 8th century BC. 

It has been established that this tomb clearly has a link to Phrygian Royalty. 

An unknown kingdom in Turkey, lost in time

The time of great discoveries is not behind us. The world still holds many surprises to be unveiled, believe it or not! 

As recently as last winter, a farmer in southern Turkey unearthed a large stone stuck in an irrigation canal. This stone carried mysterious inscriptions belonging to an ancient, lost civilization. 

The archaeologists determined that the writing was in Luwian, an ancient Indo-European language from Anatolia. It was used by the people living in western and southern Asia Minor from the 2^nd millennium BC, prior to the arrival of the Hittites. The hieroglyphic symbols were read in alternating sequences from right to left and left to right.

This newly discovered inscription mentions an ancient civilization that might have defeated the Phrygians, best known through their King Midas, in the late 8^th century BC (see: Gordion, a name with a resonance). A specific symbol on the stone indicated that the message came directly from their ruler, King Hartapu. The name Hartapu was known from a previously discovered inscription on a mound some 16 kilometers away, but at that time neither his title nor kingdom was mentioned. 

The kingdom, whose name is not known yet, existed between the 9^th and the 7^th centuries BC. Its capital was probably located near Turkmen-Karahöyük, less than 20 kilometers from the UNESCO site of Çatalhöyük. 

Imagine, this was 300-500 years before Alexander! Maybe he had the answers we hope to find in future research?

[Pictures from Archaeology World]

Does age matter?

Writing about Alexander over the years, I have been handling chronological dates for his whereabouts in the correct time frame. There is, however, another approach to consider and that is Alexander’s age. 

We know he became king at the age of twenty and started his invasion of Asia at the age of twenty-two. He died a month short of his 33^rd birthday. All his marches, sieges, battles, and fighting are condensed within this last period of roughly ten years. 

A comparison with any modern monarchy is impossible because there are hardly any kings left and they no longer go to war at the head of their army. To compare Alexander with young men his age today is out of the question also simply because life and the circumstances of living are too far apart. 

Alexander has been taught by Aristotle but again this kind of education cannot be identified with the teaching of a young man in our modern world. I believe that even Philip, although he intended to do what was best for his son, underestimated the vastness of Aristotle’s knowledge. Alexander was meant to rise above Philip because he understood how to draw from Aristotle’s vast database (to use modern terminology) and merge it expertly with his innate infallible instinct - his genius. 

However, Philip may well have realized the potential of his 16-year-old son when he entrusted him with the seal of Macedonia while campaigning against Byzantium. The young prince honored his assignment as Regent by successfully putting down the Maedi revolt on the country’s northern border. 

Two years later, Philip put his son in command of his cavalry at the Battle of Chaironeia. Alexander did more than his share and annihilated the entire Theban Band, all three hundred of them! 

We don’t know how much time the young prince spent among the soldiers growing up in Pella, but I think it is safe to assume it was a lot. Leading the small contingent against the Maedi and the cavalry in Chaironeia speaks volumes. An army has that instinctive flair to recognize a true leader, one they can and will trust. 

This trust would only grow when Alexander became king after his father was murdered. In the next two years, he successfully led his troops against the Illyrians and the Thracians to secure his northern borders, sacked the city of Thebes in retribution for its betrayal, and confirmed his position as Hegemon of Greece as per the Treaty of Corinth. Alexander could never have contemplated his campaign in Asia without the full trust and commitment of his army. 

He crossed the Hellespont shortly before his 22^nd birthday and fought the Persian army for the first time at the Granicus River. Later that summer, he marched to Sardes and took Ephesos, Priene, Miletus, Didyma, and Halicarnassus. Alexander spent the following winter in Lycia, after which he conquered Phaselis and Perge. 

When he was 23 years old, he headed north to Sagalassos and from there to Gordion, where he cut the knot. Crossing Cappadocia, he returned to the shores of the Mediterranean. At Tarsus, he fell sick with a fever, which incapacitated him for several weeks. By the end of the year, he was engaged in the Battle of Issus, his first personal confrontation with King Darius. 

In two years, Alexander fought two major battles (see: The Battle of the Granicus and The Battle of Issus, where Alexander and Darius faced each other for the first time), besieged two cities, Miletus and Halicarnassus, and occupied all the major ports in Asia Minor. In our modern world, this means that he crossed all of Turkey. 

At the age of 24, he laid siege to two more cities, Tyre (building a mole in the process) and Gaza. His reception in Egypt was that of a liberator, and he was soon acclaimed as their new Pharaoh - a title that automatically made him a god in the eyes of the Egyptians. At the western end of the Nile Delta, he founded his first Alexandria, a city that still exists and prospers today! 

Many more sieges and battles were to follow in Central Asia and India. We almost take them for granted, despite that every siege and every battle came with its own technicalities and challenges. Alexander faced many hardships as he traveled through deserts, waded through countless rivers, and crossed mountains as high as those of the Hindu Kush! 

The three years Alexander spent in Sogdiana and Bactria, from his 27^th to his 30^th birthday, were an uninterrupted succession of skirmishes and fights in guerrilla wars he was totally unfamiliar with. The events culminated with his victory at the Battle of the Hydaspes against the Indian King Porus. By then, he and his men had covered some 28,000 kilometers, creating many new Alexandrias in the process. 

Although Alexander is usually depicted sitting on his horse, we have to keep in mind that he moved at the pace of his foot soldiers. Riding bareback was not comfortable, not for the rider and not for the horse (see: No saddles and no stirrups for Alexander’s cavalry). 

It is impossible to imagine anyone covering such a distance on foot. It would imply walking an average of 2,800 kilometers a year, ten years in a row! Let us keep in mind that many of his troops were veterans of his father’s days, men in their fifties, sixties, and even seventies! Not a leisurely trip for the fainthearted. 

Speaking of walking: how many pairs of shoes, boots, and sandals would the Macedonians have worn out? Providing new ones for some 40,000 men or more would have implied production on an industrial scale! Maybe we should believe the sources suggesting that the soldiers fought and walked sections of the route barefoot?

Sadly, Alexander died far too young, and so did Hephaistion, but men like Ptolemy and Seleucos lived to the ages of 84 and 77, respectively. Age clearly is not everything!

Location of Gordion confirmed

Excavations in Central Anatolia near Ankara at the presumed site of Gordion started in 1950. However, there was no actual confirmation that this assumption was correct – till now, that is. 

In a previous blog (see” Gordion, a name with resonance), I mentioned how Strabo described Gordion as being close to a river. Over the centuries, however, the nearby rivers have shifted, and today’s level is about eleven meters higher. Despite these alterations, today’s excavation site is located southeast of the confluence of the Sakarya and Prosuk Rivers, proving Strabo was right after all. 

When I visited this spot in 2007, I was told that the site might be Gordion – if not, evidently another important Phrygian settlement. There was a big outer city here, something in the style of Troy. The entrance gate had timber walls inside, which should help date it. The ramparts were built of two parallel stone walls, and the space in-between was filled with wood. 

The Cimmerians destroyed Gordion in 696 BC, and the ensuing fires preserved these walls to be covered later with alluvial mud up to four meters deep. Then the Lydians arrived and rebuilt the city, but it was again destroyed by the invading army of Cyrus the Great in 547-546 BC. 

As a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire, the Persians installed a garrison at Gordion, which was eventually overthrown by Parmenion when he spent the winter of 333/334 BC here. We’ll remember that Alexander marched through Lycia in the south to regroup with Parmenion the following spring. In 278 BC, however, the city was destroyed by the Gauls and totally abandoned by 200 AD. 

Today Gordion is in the news because archaeologists have unearthed a stone with an inscription in the Phrygian language. It has been dated to the reign of Antiochus I, who reigned from 281 to 261 BC. For the first time, the name Gordion is mentioned. The stone was found in what is called the ancient city. 

The text is the longest inscription ever found in Gordion and written in Phrygian. It probably was part of a tumulus burial site. Currently, archaeologists and philologists are studying the inscription to present an understandable text to the public. [For a picture of the inscription, please click on this Arkeonews link]

The earliest Phrygian writing goes back to the 8th century BC, and they based their alphabet on the Phoenician. Later on, they used a version of the Greek alphabet. So far, eleven inscriptions on stone have been discovered and 245 graffiti, mostly on vases. Remarkably, despite this small number, Gordion is the richest source of early Phrygian writing.

Sitalces, commander of the Thracians

Apart from one single event told by Curtius, Arrian is the only ancient author to mention Sitalces by name. His origins remain relatively obscure, but he was apparently a prince, maybe even the son of King Cersobleptes of the Odrysian Thracians.

It was common practice in antiquity to take the sons of the kings as hostages to make sure that their fathers remained loyal to them at home. Alexander’s father had been such a hostage for several years in Thebes (see: Macedonia forged by Philip - Philip’s boyhood), and it is not unlikely that Sitalces shared the same fate.

Whatever the reason for his presence in Alexander’s army, Sitalces proved to be a competent commander who led the Thracian javelin men on more than one occasion.

The first time Arrian mentions the Thracians is at the banks of the Granicus, where they supported the advanced position on the left wing under Agathon, the Macedonian commander of the Thracian cavalry. This same cavalry was part of Alexander’s forces that marched to Miletus. During the siege of Miletus (see: Miletus, Alexander’s first siege in Asia), Alexander had made sure of the island of Lade by anchoring his fleet in its harbor and putting ashore “his Thracian contingent” (we don’t know how many), and some 4,000 mercenaries.

When in 331 BC, Alexander marched from Phaselis to join Parmenion in Gordion, he had to cross the challenging Climax Mountains (see: Alexander’s army crossing Mount Climax). He planned to send the bulk of his troops over difficult tracks across these mountains. He ordered his Thracian engineers ahead to cut out a path and steps in the rocks to make their march easier and faster. Traces of those steps and cuttings are still visible in some remote places today. Alexander took a shortcut with his smaller party, closely skirting the coastline.

The name of Sitalces is not mentioned so far, but appears for the first time during the assault of Sagalassos. For this operation, the general command of Alexander’s left wing was assigned to Amyntas, whose troops were screened by the Thracian javelin battalions led by Sitalces.

Sitalces also accompanied Parmenion in 333 BC, when he was sent ahead to occupy the Syrian Gates in preparation for the confrontation with Darius at the Pinarus River. Again, during the ensuing Battle of Issus, we find the Thracians under the command of Sitalces in the forefront of the Macedonian infantry on the left wing, together with Cretan archers.

It may be noteworthy that when Antipater sent reinforcement to Alexander in Memphis, these included, besides 400 Greek mercenaries led by Menidas, a force of 500 Thracian cavalry commanded by a certain Asclepiodorus. It may not be a large contingency, but good cavalrymen were always highly appreciated.

The Thracians appear again at the Battle of Gaugamela. They were placed on the left at an angle with the main body of the Macedonian troops, under the command of Sitalces once again. They were, in turn, supported by allied cavalry under Coeranus and the Odrysian cavalry under Agathon. Arrian explicitly mentions that the Thracian infantry stood guard over the pack animals.

When, in 330 BC, Parmenion was stationed in Ecbatana to guard the enormous treasury Alexander had collected from Susa, Persepolis, and Pasargadae, the general had a force of 6,000 men at his disposal. After the plot and execution of Philotas later that year (see: The Philotas Affair – Part I – How the plot was revealed), the king dispatched Polydamas, one of his Companions, with a letter addressed to three generals that resided there under Parmenion’s command with instructions to kill the old general (see: The Philotas Affair – Part II – His judgment and execution). The three men to carry out Alexander’s orders were Cleander of Macedonia (brother of Coenus), Menidas, and Sitalces.

Just before reaching the Acesines River in India, Alexander learned that the Greek governor of Assacenia had been assassinated, and the people had revolted. At this time, Phrataphernes, satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania, rejoined Alexander with those Thracians left under his command. The Thracians were multipurpose troops that may have started as javelin-throwers and cavalry soldiers, but as the campaign went on, they were used successfully for all kinds of jobs.

We didn’t hear from Sitalces again until Alexander returned from India and joined Craterus in Carmania. Among the troops were the officers who had been with Parmenion in Ecbatana: Cleander, Heracon, Agathon, and Sitalces, with most of the men under their command. Cleander and Sitalces were accused of crimes like plundering temples, disturbing tombs, and other violent and tyrannical attacks against the natives. As these facts were reported to Alexander, he gave orders to execute all four generals (although Heracon may have been killed afterward when he arrived in Susa). Curtius mentions that these marshals were put in chains (to be killed, no doubt), and 600 of their followers were executed.

Well, Sitalces did not die the glorious death one would expect from the onset. Still, ten years of war and plundering, reaping wealth unheard of, had definitely left their marks on everyone in the army, including Alexander. We don’t hear much about the common soldiers, except maybe their debaucheries in Babylon and the foreign women they took on the road, but foremost men like Harpalos, Philotas, and probably Parmenion paid for their greed with their lives. So did Cleander, Heracon, Agathon, and Sitalces in this case.

All things considered, it is, however, surprising how loyal and how dedicated the gross of Alexander’s inner circle, his Companions and his generals, remained to him throughout the years.

The gold myth surrounding King Midas

The legend of how Dionysus granted King Midas’ wish to turn everything he touched into gold is well-known and almost proverbial, highlighting the immense wealth of this Phrygian king who lived in the late 8^th century BC.

Strangely enough, archaeologists never were able to find much of that gold when excavating the site of Gordion and the surrounding area. So, was it all a myth?

Recently, scholars may have found a plausible answer when they investigated the clothes of Gordion’s elite population. Some of the fabrics used were coated with goethite, an iron-bearing hydroxide mineral found in the soil. A definite proof was found in the royal tomb attributed to Gordias, the father of King Midas. His shroud had been dyed with goethite, giving the impression that it was woven from gold.

Goethite was known as a paint pigment long before King Midas’ days and was used as early as the paintings of the Paleolithic Caves of Lascaux in France. Applied to the fabrics, it produces a golden shine.

Rather than referring to the production of gold artifacts, Midas’ golden touch may very well refer to this clothing fashion instead.

Phaselis and its three harbors

Phaselis was colonized by the Greeks of Rhodes, and that was not without reason, for here, their navy could find a safe shelter in one of its three natural harbors to load the wood they needed from the Lycian hinterland to build their ships. When the Persians took Anatolia in 546 BC, they automatically became masters of Phaselis till Alexander the Great changed that in 333 BC. Ambassadors had met him already on his way from Xanthos, and as soon as he arrived in Phaselis, he was welcomed with a golden crown and other gifts as a gesture of friendship. His march through the rough country of Lycia, of which very little is known, must have been pretty heavy, and it is not surprising that Alexander decided to spend the winter of 334-333 BC in Phaselis to rest his troops. He received envoys from Pamphylia, which he planned to cross in the early spring before meeting up with Parmenion near Gordion with the other half of his army.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Phaselis tried to take advantage of their good understanding with Alexander to solve their own deep conflict with Marmara, whose people destroyed their crops regularly and even kidnapped their women. When it came to friendship, Alexander knew no half-measures, and the people of Marmara were well aware of that. The night before the battle, the men decided to send their women, children, and elderly to seek protection in the neighboring woods. The men defended Marmara to the last, and when the end was near, they set the entire city afire and perished themselves. A story for a book, no doubt.

After Alexander’s death, Phaselis remained in the hands of the Ptolemies until 197 BC when the city, like all of Lycia, came under the rule of Rhodes. After 160 BC, the Lycian League collapsed, and with so many other regions around the Mediterranean, the city fell under the control of Rome. Then danger arose from an entirely different angle, piracy. Just like Olympos, Phaselis was under repeated attacks, and in the first century BC, both cities chose to join Zeniketes, the most powerful pirate of his time. Yet in 42 BC, the Romans took Phaselis back as they managed to abolish piracy. This peace didn’t last very long either, for the pirates were back in the third century. In the meantime, the entire region was struck by a series of powerful earthquakes, such as those that occurred in 141 and on the 5th of August, 240, causing widespread damage. When the Roman Empire was divided between East and West, Phaselis’ decline set in. Exporting timber from the hinterland was halted, which meant a significant blow to the city’s economy. The harbor slowly silted up, creating marshy lowlands where mosquitoes thrived and, in turn, caused health problems. Ports like Antalya, Side, and Alanya were on the rise, and by the 11th century, Phaselis was totally impoverished and had virtually disappeared. We had to wait till the 1970s when the first explorers could locate the site.

Today’s Phaselis is not the most exciting place to visit, but its location is quite idyllic. An advantageous approach is from the sheltered Southern Harbor, which is generally used by today’s tourists. The Northern Harbor, on the other hand, is privileged because it was and is accessible under all circumstances, either by southwesterly or northeasterly winds. The two islets near the harbor entrance are all that remains of the pier connected to the mainland with a lighthouse on its far end. It is difficult to imagine that this peaceful cobblestone beach was once a busy harbor, with its Naval Harbor, exceptionally well protected, now a field of waving reeds populated by loud croaking frogs.

Further inland, we find the remains of a Roman aqueduct that brought water from the 70-meter-high plateau down to the city.

From here, it is easy to find the 24-meter-wide Harbor Street, which was entirely paved. On either side runs a sidewalk that can be reached via three steps. Cevdet Bayburtluoğu (see: Lycia) has speculated that there might have been an extra wooden step since the first one is pretty high. Statues of important citizens lined up the street, duly resting on a pedestal engraved with their names or the reason for their presence. The pedestals were put back into place after the Byzantines had removed them to build the pier. Cevdet Bayburtluoğu recovered them from the harbor's depth and put them back in place. This is the reason why some of these stones look so much worn. Notably, this avenue is reserved for pedestrians as the three-step staircase on either end makes cart access impossible.

To the left are the latrines, after a small bath establishment, the Bath of the Theatre, probably built after the earthquake of 240, since recuperation material from earlier periods has been used. The sewage of both complexes went straight into the Naval Harbor, where traces of this system can still be seen. After these small baths, which functioned at least until the 8th century, one reaches the theater, the inevitable eye-catcher in any city. The old staircase to the entrance is still there, but is not very recommendable. Instead, a relatively comfortable wooden construction has been put in place. The theater is typically Hellenistic, although the skene is a pure Roman addition. The walls of the skene have been badly damaged, not so much because of age but because of a severe fire that caused many lintels made of porous stone to collapse. Such a shame for a building that withstood centuries. A theater always touches a soft spot in my soul, for this is a place where people gathered some 2,000 years ago, walked through its corridors, and climbed its steps, with echoes of voices and sounds from times past under the watchful eyes of the snow-capped Tahtali mountain.

The central square or Agora is somewhat puzzling because it is a shapeless space situated halfway the Harbor Street, which continues further along the Agora of Domitian to the Southern Harbor. This Agora is neatly paved, and opposite the theater are the remains of a Nymphaeum – another of those monuments that a trained eye recognizes immediately. There are two more such Nymphaeums on either side of the passageway to the Agora of Hadrian. The left and oldest one (mid-3rd century AD) is rather difficult to make out, as opposed to the one on the right, dating from the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century. In the prolongation of Harbor Street, the stretch between the Agora and the Southern Harbor that also ends with three steps, we find the Gate of Domitian, the entrance to the Agora by the same name. For some obscure reason, the name of Domitian was erased from all official buildings after his death.

We find most of the shops in this part of the city, but since the streets were only accessible to pedestrians, the supplies had to be brought in from the parallel back streets.

At the end of this paved road, next to the steps leading to the harbor, several marble blocks indicate where the large Triumphal Arch for Hadrian once stood. It was built in all its splendor after his second visit to Phaselis in 131 AD, when the city reached its climax. It consisted of one large vault resting on two square pillars decorated with lion paws. The busts of Faustina and Sabina have since long disappeared from the niches, and we can only find blocks with reliefs of fancy vines and drinking vessels.

It is nice to meet my friend Opramoas of Rhodiapolis again, in stone, that is. As mentioned earlier, he is the benefactor who contributed to the reconstruction of Phaselis after the terrible earthquake of 141 AD. In thankful remembrance, the citizens erected a monument in his honor not too far from the Agora of Hadrian. A small part of the accompanying inscription is still visible on the lintel above the gate.

The Southern Harbor, where today’s tourists anchor their boats, is a pleasant green oasis along the dark blue waters crowned by the snow-capped Tahtali Mountain in the background – a picture-perfect setting! According to Cevdet Bayburtluoğu, this is where we should look for the Greek city. No serious excavations were ever carried out in these parts, and the fencing is pretty random. Turkey has too many ruins and areas that require thorough research, making it extremely difficult to set priorities. If this is indeed the site of the original Greek city, which will have to be confirmed by future excavations, we may have a chance to recover the remains of the Temple of Athena, where Achilles’ lance was kept.

This being said, these parts of Phaselis have been recently (2008) threatened by a building project. The owner of the Rixos Hotels intended to build a new hotel, “Dream of Phaselis,” right on top of the ancient city. It was a hard fight, but environmentalists and archaeologists, for once, did win this battle, and in 2015, the project was abandoned!

Walking back, it is worth investigating the remains of the Large Baths and the Gymnasium along Harbor Street, both from the 2nd century AD. A few mosaic floors from Byzantine times are still there, as well as the piles of fireproof bricks that once supported the floors of the Caldarium and the Tepidarium. On the opposite side, several temples stood next to each other, but the remains were vague, and the thickets covered most of the walls from view. This is, however, the place to look for the Temple of Zeus with the inscription Dios Boulaios from the days of Nero and Antoninus Pius, and a little further, one should be able to find the two temples dedicated to Leto’s children, the twins Artemis and Apollo who were highly revered by the Lycians.

The intrepid visitor may still find the energy to scramble uphill to the necropolis, nothing more than broken and crumbled sarcophagi, some of them submerged downhill. About three-quarters of the necropolis seems to lie outside the fenced area and has yet to be excavated. There are imposing remains of a large mausoleum which at first was labeled as a temple because of the stumps of columns, but it is more likely that this was the tomb of a wealthy family from Phaselis.

Once again, it will be interesting to return here at some point in the future and see what new excavations will reveal and what additional information will become available.

Gordion, a name with a resonance

The very name Gordion, the capital of ancient Phrygia, automatically raises images of King Midas’ Tomb and of Alexander cutting the famous knot, making him the king of the world according to the legend.

Today, Gordion (approximately 58 miles southwest of modern Ankara) makes the headlines because a wooden tomb has been unearthed in a new tumulus where treasure hunters had started illegal digging. This is the second wooden tomb ever found, the first being the one attributed to King Midas, but both date back to the 8^th century BC. Serious excavations started here by the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, and hopes are high to find the remains of an eminent personality.

Fieldwork carried out in 2014 and 2015 has revealed the presence of 21 new tumuli in the area, bringing their total number to 124. I find this not really surprising, for when I drove up to Gordion a few years ago, I had been wondering about the many man-made hills in the otherwise flat landscape. A recent article in the Hurriyet Daily News discloses sites at the following locations: Yassihöyük, 87 tumuli; Şabanözü, 12 tumuli and 2 mounds; Çekirdeksiz, 4 tumuli, and 2 mounds; Kiranharmani, 7 tumuli, and 1 mound; Beylikköprü, 10 tumuli; Ömerler, 2 tumuli; Sazilar, 1 tumulus; and Beyceğiz, 1 tumulus. Enough work for future generations, I’d say.

Gordion was the capital city of the land of the Phrygians, who settled here in the early 9^th century BC and reached their peak a century later. Yet the country remained under constant enemy threat, and it has been reported that the Cimmerians destroyed Gordion in 690 BC. When the Lydians in turn arrived, they rebuilt the city, but it was destroyed once again by the invading army of Cyrus the Great in 547-546 BC. From then onward, Gordion once again became a commercial and military center, this time as a satrapy in the Achaemenid Empire. The Persians even installed a garrison at Gordion, which was eventually overthrown by Parmenion, one of Alexander’s generals, who spent the winter of 333/334 BC here with part of the army.  At the same time, Alexander marched through Lycia in the south to regroup with Parmenion the next spring. In 278 BC, however, the city was destroyed by the Gauls and totally abandoned by 200 AD.

The most famous king of Phrygia is, beyond any doubt, King Midas, best known in Greek mythology and famous for his ability to change everything he touched into gold. The story goes that one night, he met the satyr Silenus and hoped to learn from his wisdom. He gave him food and drink and returned him to his companion Dionysus. To thank the king for his kindness, Dionysus granted him a wish. Although he was already famous for his wealth, King Midas obviously wanted more and received the ability to turn any object he touched into gold. The wish worked to perfection, and consequently, all trees, flowers, fruits, and even the soil the king touched turned into gold. When trying to mount his horse, it too turned into gold. The worst happened when he sat down for dinner, and all the tasty food instantly was transformed into gold. He realized his fate too late and suffered from hunger and thirst; his bed became hard as stone, now it was made of gold. Sick with misery, he sought out Dionysus again, asking him to reverse the gift. Luckily, Dionysus was very understanding and told him to wash in the Pactolus River in Lydia. As soon as he arrived, he jumped into the water, washing away his curse. Part of the legend lives on as gold is still being retrieved from the river bed of the Pactolus.

On my tour In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great with Peter Sommer, I visited the tomb of King Midas in Gordion, although some sources say that it is too old to belong to this king, as he might have built it for his predecessor, maybe his father. It is housed inside a huge tumulus, 53 meters high and approximately 300 meters in diameter. I didn’t know what to expect here, but once inside, I saw walls made of wooden beams in the style of a log cabin in which an opening had been cut to access the burial room. The beams were heavily studded on all sides shortly after being discovered, originally because the tomb was flooded and later because the wood was being attacked by fungi and insects. In fact, the visitor can only see the thick wooden beams and is sadly not allowed inside the actual burial chamber.

That burial chamber measures 5.15x6.2 meters and is 3.25 meters high. Thanks to an analysis of the timber, the tomb has been dated to about 740 BC. Beside the bed on which the skeleton of a man of about 60 years was resting, the room was filled with bronze and brass vessels varying from huge cauldrons to smaller plates and beakers, ladders, fibulae, and exquisite inlaid wooden tables and stands. Of typical Phrygian origin are bronze belts, wooden and bronze animal figures, and geometric pottery. All the artifacts have been moved to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara and the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul.

So far, no traces of the city have been dug up. Strabo describes Gordion’s location as close to a river, but over the centuries, the nearby river has shifted, and today’s level is about eleven meters higher. Yet, I do visit a site that might be Gordion – if not, evidently another important Phrygian settlement. There was a big outer city here, something in the style of Troy. The city gate had timber walls on the inside, which should help in dating it. The city’s ramparts, on the other hand, were made of two parallel stone walls, and the inside space was filled with wood. The Cimmerians destroyed Gordion in 696 BC, and the ensuing fire preserved these walls, which were later covered with mud up to four meters deep. A new city was built by the Lydians in the same pattern on top of the existing remains. Otherwise, it’s difficult to figure out what has been excavated in spite that one of the large buildings could be the royal palace. The only recognizable features are the grinding stones that are nicely lined up for the occasion.

At the small local museum, I marvel at the Phrygian pebble mosaics from the 9^th century BC, tiny pebbles skillfully arranged in geometric patterns. There is also a collection of Phrygian terracotta roof tiles, gutters, and decorative plaques. It seems that the technique was invented in Greece around the middle of the 7^th century BC and that the idea had spread in Anatolia in the early 6^th century BC – an interesting way to date these architectural elements.

Upon his arrival at Gordion, Alexander joined up with Parmenion, who had spent the winter in this area. Also, the newly married men from Macedonia who had been sent home last winter arrived with extra fresh troops to increase Alexander’s forces.

There is no trace of the place where Alexander cut the Gordian knot, of course. It just could be anywhere in the region. Why didn’t the ancient writer mention King Midas’ Tomb in connection with the knot that would have made things so much easier for us? 

I find myself in one of the strangest landscapes of Turkey, so flat, so barren, yet dotted with so many perfectly shaped cones, i.e., the tumuli that are still under investigation. It is hard to picture Strabo’s description of this being a naturally fertile land with many woods of pine trees and juniper.

Whether Alexander stopped purposely at Gordion to cut the knot is not certain, but he certainly could not have resisted taking up the challenge! According to the legend, Phrygia in ancient times was without a king, and an oracle had predicted that the first man entering the city with an ox-cart would become their king. It turned out to be a peasant farmer named Gordias. Out of gratitude, his son Midas decided to dedicate the ox cart to their main god, Sabazios. He tied the cart to a post using an intricate knot of cornel bark, and it stood there at the palace for the next four centuries till Alexander arrived in 333 BC. Sources from antiquity do not agree with the way he “untied” this knot. 

Alexander must have had a very close look at it, but since the ends of the ropes were hidden, he could not figure this out. Well, he was not going to give up and certainly didn’t want to lose face in front of his men and the newly conquered citizens. Some claim that Alexander simply pulled the pin securing the yoke to the pole of the cart, thus exposing both ends. A less plausible (but more theatrical) theory is that he simply sliced the knot with a stroke of his sword. It seems that the prophecy announcing that whoever untied the knot would become the king of Asia was born at that time. True or not, it does not really matter. At any rate, that very night a violent thunderstorm rumbled over Gordion, and Aristander, Alexander’s soothsayer, said this was a sign that Zeus (generally accepted as the counterpart of Phrygian Sabazios) was blessing the king with many victories.