Phocea

Satellite photo showing the situation of the ancient cities of Focea, Cime and Esmirna.

Phocea (Ancient Greek Φώκαια, Phôkaia) was a Greek city in Asia Minor, now in Turkey. Ancient Phocaea or Phokaia, where today is the city of Foça or Eskifoça in the Gulf of Izmir. Its name comes from the word "seal" (animal), which was the symbol of the city. Founded by Greek colonists from Erythras and Teos in the 8th century BC. C., it was an important commercial port and maintained deals with the entire western Mediterranean (Masalia, Nice, Tartessos, Ampurias founded by Phoceos in 575 BC, Alalia, Córcega and Velia). The inhabitants of Focea receive the name of foceos or focenses.

Geography

Phocaea was the northernmost of the Ionian cities. Strabo says that it marked the beginning of Ionia and the limit of Aeolis. It was located near the mouth of the river Hermo (present-day Gediz), on the coast of the peninsula that separates the Gulf of Cime to the north, named after the greater from the cities of the Aeolian region, and the Gulf of Smyrna to the south. It had two excellent ports. These ports allowed the city to develop a flourishing maritime economy.

History

The ancient geographer Pausanias says that Phocea was founded by the Phocidians under Athenian leadership:

The focenses are by birth originating from (...) Fócide at the foot of the Parnasus, which passed to Asia with the Athenians Philogenes and Damon. The region took it from those of Cime not at war, but by virtue of an agreement. But as the Jonios did not receive them in the Panjonio until they took kings of the breed of the Chodrides, so they accepted from the Eritras of Theos to Deetes, Periclo and Abarto.

Pottery remains indicate Aeolian and Ionian presence in the 9th century BC. C. The approximate date of the establishment of Phocea can be deduced.

According to Herodotus, the Phocaeans were the first Greeks to make long sea voyages and discover the Adriatic, Tyrrhenian, Iberia and Tartessos. Herodotus relates that the Phoceans became very friendly with King Argantonius and he encouraged them to leave Ionia and settle in the area of his domain that they preferred and, failing to persuade them and find out about the progress of the Persians, he gave them money to surround his territory. city with a wall What is related to Argantonio is historically incoherent, since Phocea did not feel concerned about the Persian progress until the fall of Sardis, and it was taken around 540 BC. C.

They probably traded with the Greeks from the colony of Naucratis in Egypt, which was a colony of the Ionian city of Miletus. To the north, they probably helped colonize Amisos (Samsun) on the Black Sea, and Lampsacus at the northern end of the Hellespont (present-day Dardanelles). However, the main Phocaean colonies were in the western Mediterranean. The Phocians successively founded the colonies of Massalia (present-day Marseilles) in 600 BC. C., at the mouth of the Rhône River, later Agde (Agathe Tychée), Aegitna (Cannes), Antipolis (Antibes) or Nicaea (Nice). After Alalia (present-day Aleria), on the eastern coast of Corsica, opposite Etruria, c. 545 BC C., as well as Emporion (Ampurias) h. 575 B.C. C. on the coast of the municipality of La Escala, province of Gerona, Spain.

Phocaea remained independent until the reign of the Lydian king Croesus (c. 560-545 BCE), when they, along with the rest of the Ionian mainland, first fell under Lydian control, and then with Lydian control. Lydia were conquered by the Mede Harpagus, general of the Achaemenid king Cyrus II the Great of Persia in 546 BC. C., in one of the initial contests that led to the great Greco-Persian conflict.

When they were subjugated to the Persians, the Phocaeans abandoned their city. Some fled to Chios, others to their colonies in Corsica and other places in the Mediterranean Sea. Some eventually returned to Phocea.

On the eastern coast of Corsica, 20 years before these events, they had founded the city of Alalia. But, when they were preparing to leave for Corsica, they landed at Phocea and killed the Persian garrison that, by order of Harpagus, defended the city.

In 535 B.C. C., the Phoceans fought a naval battle in Alalia against the Etruscans and the Carthaginians, in which 40 of their ships were destroyed and the remaining 20 were rendered useless. After the defeat, which marks the beginning of the retreat of the Greeks in the Western Mediterranean and the beginning of the Carthaginian expansion, they set course for Reggio. Starting from there they founded in Lucania the city of Elea (the Latin Velia), south of Pesto, around 540 BC. c.

In 500 B.C. C., Focea joined the Ionian revolt against Persia. Indicative of his naval prowess was that Dionysus, a Phocaean, was appointed commander of the fleet at the decisive naval battle of Lade (early summer 494 BC) by the Ionian probouloi gathered in the Panjonio. Given that the number of Phocean ships was meager (only three out of a total of 353 triremes), his appointment was perhaps intended to avoid envy and mistrust among the powers that contributed the most ships. The Ionian fleet was defeated and the revolt ended.

For his part, Dionysus the Phocean, realizing that the cause of the Ionians was lost, fled after having captured three enemy ships. He therefore had six warships, but not headed for Phocea -since he knew perfectly well that said city, like the rest of Ionia, was going to be enslaved- but headed for Phocea, in a very prosperous area, by the intense commercial traffic from the cities of the Phoenician coast, and where the enemy did not expect it to act. In those waters he sank several Gaulos, seizing a large booty, and later he went to Sicily where he established his base and dedicated himself to piracy to the detriment of the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians. At this time, engaging in piracy did not mean the slightest disgrace. What's more, Dionysius appeared as a patriot by not attacking the ships of his compatriots but those of Carthage and Etruria, which maintained an intense commercial traffic in Sicilian waters.

After the defeat of Xerxes I by the Greeks in 480 B.C. C. and the consequent increase in Athenian power, Focea joined the Delian League, paying a phoros (tribute) to Athens of two talents. In 412 B.C. C., during the Peloponnesian War, Focea rebelled with the rest of Ionia with the help of Sparta.

During the Hellenistic period it fell under the Seleucids, then under Attalid rule.

Titus Livio describes it as an oblong-shaped city whose walls were about 3,700 meters (2.5 Roman miles) long. He highlights the excellence and safety of its two ports, called Naustatmos and Lamptera.

Thereafter it was briefly under the control of Benedetto Zaccaria, the Genoese ambassador to Byzantium; Zaccaria amassed a considerable fortune from his Phocean estates.

Currency

Followers of the Lydians, the Phocaeans were among the first in the world to mint and use coins as money. Their coins were made of electrum (alloyed with silver and gold). The British Museum has a phocean coin with the image of a seal dated to 600–550 BC. C.. In the Colony of Ampurias (current coast of the Municipality of La Escala, Province of Gerona, Catalonia) they also minted different types of coins in their design, first without the name, then with EM, and then with Emporion and others.