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Iassos 185 pictures 10.30 minutes HQ video Iassos is located on a peninsula, surrounded by sea on three sides, within the Kiyikislacik village, 28 km from Milas. According to mythology, it was set up by Pelopolonnesians arriving from Argos, in the 5^th century B.C. and was named after Iassos, who headed the colonizers. The city's name does not appear in the records prior to the beginning of this century. The city was originally founded on an island which, with the filling up of the isthmus, became a peninsula. The major buildings of the city are located on the peninsula. The large city walls, aqueducts, necropolis and the building called the fish market are outside the walls. The excavations revealed that the earliest date back to the end of 3000 B.C. When Alexander the Great besieged Miletos in 334 B.C., Iassos donated a ship to the Persian navy which came to their aid. Ten years later, in Ecbatana, an Iasian named Gorgos was the armoury commander of Alexander the Great. The chief deities of the city seem to have been Apollo and Artemis. However, the cult of Dionysus was also of great importance, the theater was dedicated to him, and his festival made Iassos a musical and drama center. Ancient Harbor Iassos-kiyikislack: Living in antiques - The beauty of Turkey Roman Bouleuterion The bouleuterion rises near the south-western corner of the agora, just behind the southern stoa. The original building was probably erected in the 4^th century B.C., when the city council (boule') was constituted, but the present arrangement dates to the 1^st century A.D. Its ground plan is rectangular (21.80 x 25.70 meters) and its row of seats (cavea) has the shape of a three-quarter circle. The function of the building also changed in this period: it was given a circular central space, seats and a proscenium, and was used as a small covered theater. In the age of Hadrian, while other works were being carried out in the agora, the facade of the bouleuterion was embellished with rich sculptural decoration and stairs giving access to the galleries (tribunalia) were added. Roman Agora The double inscription which runs along the architrave of the eastern side of the agora date the construction of the porticoes, which line the vast rectangular square, to between 136 and 138 A.D.: two citizens of Iassos, Dionysus son of Theophilus and Hierocles son of Argeus, offered the monument to Artemis Astias, the tutelary divinity of the city, to the deified Hadrian, to Antoninus Pius and to the "very sweet homeland of Iassos", all at their own expense. The southern stoa connected various public buildings allowing access to the bouleuterion and to the area of 'Artemis Astias'. The east stoa (and perhaps the west one) was a simple portico connecting public rooms, such as the office of the man in charge of the market and the small monument dedicated to a 'hero' (heroon), erected in late Hellenistic times over two more ancient graves. Theater The theater, whose construction probably dates to the 4^th century B.C., was still intact when Charles Texier drew it in 1849. Today only part of it survives: this too, together with the city walls, was stripped of its marble in 1887 for the construction of the quays of the port of Constantinople. The mighty retaining wall which holds up the (cavea) is made of ashlars blocks alternating with three rows of smooth blocks, and is fortified by two buttresses on its southeastern side. The cavea is cut into the side of the hill: the rows of seats were partly carved into the rock, and partly made of stones fastened with mortar. The theater was also restored in Roman times, as indicated by the ample reuse of older material in the construction of the scaena. The Roman scaena was set further forward than the earlier fronts scaenae, for its facade almost reached the inside corners of the side passages. Residental Area One residential quarter is located along the eastern side of the hill, beneath the southeastern side of the theater, on a series of artificial terraces. The area includes two blocks (insulae) separated by a road paved with stone slabs and overlying a conduit. Structure near the Harbor Monumental Roman Tomb Castrum of the Acropolis Back to Turkey Index