Nicomedia

Coordinates: 40°45′45″N 29°55′03″E / 40.76250°N 29.91750°E / 40.76250; 29.91750
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Nicomedia
French illustration of Nicomedia, 1882
Nicomedia is located in Turkey
Nicomedia
Shown within Turkey
Nicomedia is located in Sea of Marmara
Nicomedia
Nicomedia (Sea of Marmara)
LocationTurkey
Regionİzmit, Kocaeli Province
Coordinates40°45′45″N 29°55′03″E / 40.76250°N 29.91750°E / 40.76250; 29.91750

Nicomedia (/ˌnɪkəˈmiːdiə/;[1] Greek: Νικομήδεια, Nikomedeia; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocletian who ruled in the east), a status which the city maintained during the Tetrarchy system (293–324).

The Tetrarchy ended with the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324, when Constantine defeated Licinius and became the sole emperor. In 330 Constantine chose for himself the nearby Byzantium (which was renamed Constantinople, modern Istanbul) as the new capital of the Roman Empire.

The city was incorporated into the

Orhan Gazi against the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines managed to retake it in the aftermath of the Battle of Ankara
, but it fell definitively to the Ottomans in 1419.

History

It was founded in 712–11 BC as a

Asia Minor. The great military commander Hannibal Barca came to Nicomedia in his final years and committed suicide in nearby Libyssa (Diliskelesi, Gebze). The historian Arrian
was born there.

This section of a belt depicting medallions honoring Constantius II and Faustina was minted in Nicomedia.[4] The Walters Art Museum.

Nicomedia was the metropolis and capital of the Roman province of Bithynia under the Roman Empire. It is referenced repeatedly in Pliny the Younger's Epistles to Trajan during his tenure as governor of Bithynia.[5] Pliny, in his letters, mentions several public buildings of the city such as a senate-house, an aqueduct, a forum, a temple of Cybele, and others, and speaks of a great fire, during which the place suffered much.[6] Diocletian made it the eastern capital city of the Roman Empire in 286 when he introduced the Tetrarchy system.

Persecutions of 303

Nicomedia was at the center of the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians which occurred under Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius. On 23 February 303 AD, the pagan festival of the Terminalia, Diocletian ordered that the newly built church at Nicomedia be razed, its scriptures burnt, and its precious stones seized.[7] The next day he issued his "First Edict Against the Christians," which ordered similar measures to be taken at churches across the Empire.

The destruction of the Nicomedia church incited panic in the city, and at the end of the month a fire destroyed part of Diocletian's palace, followed 16 days later by another fire.

eunuchs, who he claimed conspired with the Christians to start the fire, followed by six more executions through the end of April 303. Soon after Galerius declared Nicomedia to be unsafe and ostentatiously departed the city for Rome, followed soon after by Diocletian.[8]

Later Empire

Map of the Roman Empire during the Tetrarchy system, showing the dioceses and the four tetrarchs' zones of influence. Nicomedia was the eastern and most senior capital city, chosen by Diocletian who assumed the title Augustus of the East.

Nicomedia remained as the eastern (and most senior) capital of the Roman Empire until co-emperor Licinius was defeated by Constantine the Great at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324. Constantine mainly resided in Nicomedia as his interim capital city for the next six years, until in 330 he declared the nearby Byzantium (which was renamed Constantinople) the new capital. Constantine died in a royal villa in the vicinity of Nicomedia in 337. Owing to its position at the convergence of the Asiatic roads leading to the new capital, Nicomedia retained its importance even after the foundation of Constantinople.[9]

A major

Roman colony.[12]

In 451, the local bishopric was promoted to a

Seljuk Turks, and the First and Second
Crusades both encamped there.

The city was briefly held by the

Ottoman beylik. The city was twice sieged and blockaded by the Ottomans (in 1304 and 1330) before finally succumbing in 1337.[11]

The city remained in Ottoman hands until the Battle of Ankara and subsequent Ottoman Interregnum weakened them enough for the neighbouring states to demand the return of their conquered lands from the warring Ottoman princes in exchange for their support against the other princes. In this way the Byzantines secured considerable territorial concessions including Nicomedia and other lands on the east side of the Bosphorus. However, this last period of Byzantine rule was rather short-lived, as Nicomedia was definitively taken by the Ottomans around 1419.

Infrastructure

During the Empire, Nicomedia was a cosmopolitan and commercially prosperous city which received all the amenities appropriate for a major Roman city. Nicomedia was well known for having a bountiful water supply from two to three aqueducts,

sesterces on an unfinished aqueduct which twice ran into engineering troubles. Trajan instructs him to take steps to complete the aqueduct, and to investigate possible official corruption behind the large waste of money.[18] Under Trajan, there was also a large Roman garrison.[19] Other public amenities included a theatre, a colonnaded street typical of Hellenistic cities and a forum.[20]

The major religious shrine was a temple of

Roma dedicated during the late-Republic.[5]

The city was sacked in AD 253 by the Goths, but when Diocletian made the city his capital in 283 AD he undertook grand restorations and built an enormous palace, an armory, mint, and new shipyards.[5]

Notable natives and residents

Remains

Ruins of a Nicomedian aqueduct in İzmit

The ruins of Nicomedia are buried beneath the densely populated modern city of İzmit, which has largely obstructed comprehensive excavation. Before the urbanization of the 20th century occurred, select ruins of the Roman-era city could be seen, most prominently sections of the Roman defensive walls which surrounded the city and multiple aqueducts which once supplied Nicomedia's water. Other monuments include the foundations of a 2nd-century AD marble nymphaeum on İstanbul street, a large cistern in the city's Jewish cemetery, and parts of the harbor wall.[5]

The 1999 İzmit earthquake, which seriously damaged most of the city, also led to major discoveries of ancient Nicomedia during the subsequent debris clearing. A wealth of ancient statuary was uncovered, including statues of Hercules, Athena, Diocletian and Constantine.[23]

In the years after the earthquake, the Izmit Provincial Cultural Directorate appropriated small areas for excavation, including the site identified as Diocletian's Palace and a nearby Roman theatre. In April 2016 a more extensive excavation of the palace was begun under the supervision of the Kocaeli Museum, which estimated that the site covers 60,000 square meters (196,850 square feet).[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ ""Nicomedia" in the American Heritage Dictionary". Archived from the original on 2014-09-30. Retrieved 2012-07-03.
  2. ISBN 0-14-044225-1
    .
  3. ISBN 0-520-08329-6
    .
  4. The Walters Art Museum
    .
  5. ^ a b c d e W.L. MacDonald (1976). "NICOMEDIA NW Turkey". The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press.
  6. ^ Pliny the Younger, Epist. 10.33.
  7. ^ Timothy D. Barnes (1981). Constantine & Eusebius. p. 22.
  8. ^ a b Patricia Southern (2001). The Roman Empire: From Severus to Constantine. p. 168.
  9. ^ See C. Texier, Asie mineure (Paris, 1839); V. Cuenet, Turquie d'Asie (Paris, 1894).
  10. ^ See Ammianus Marcellinus 17.7.1–8
  11. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6
  12. ^ Public Domain Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Nicomedeia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
  13. ISBN 978-1-4344-5876-6
    .
  14. ^ Terezakis, Yorgos. "Diocese of Nicomedia (Ottoman Period)". Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Μείζονος Ελληνισμού, Μ. Ασία. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  15. ^ David Turner, The Politics of Despair: The Plague of 746–747 and Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 85 (1990), p428
  16. Geoffrey de Villehardouin
    , translated by M. R. B. Shaw, Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades (London: Penguin, 1963), pp. 147, 154–56
  17. ^ Libanius. Oratories. p. 61.7.18.
  18. ^ Pliny the Younger. Epistulae. p. 10.37 & .38.
  19. ^ Pliny the Younger. Epistles. p. 10.74.
  20. ^ Pliny the Younger. Epistles. p. 10.49.
  21. ^ Dio Cassius. Roman History. p. 73.12.2.
  22. ^ Cassius Dio. Roman History. p. 51.20.7.
  23. ^ "Ancient underground city in izmit excites archaeology world". Hürriyet Daily News. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
  24. ^ "Ancient underground city in izmit excites archaeology world". Hürriyet Daily News. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2018-01-14.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Nicomedeia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

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