Ancyra
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Ancyram Proper-name noun feminine accusative singular of Ancyra
- A town in Galatia, now Angora, where was a marble temple of Augustus, built in his lifetime, Liv. 38, 24; Curt. 3, 1; Plin. 5, 32, 42, § 146; Claud. in Eutr. 2, 98.—
- II A town in Phrygia, Plin. 5, 32, 41, § 145.—Whence, Ancȳrānus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Ancyra, Claud. in Eutr. 2, 416: Marmor or Monumentum Ancyranum, a Latin inscription on the inside of the antae of the temple of Augustus, containing a record of his deeds, being a copy of the bronze tablets placed in front of his Mausoleum; cf. Suet. Aug. 101, and Wolf, Suet. II. p. 369 sq.; cf. Bähr, Lit. Gesch. p. 286.
ANCY´RA (Ἄγκυρα: Eth. Ἀγκυρανός, Ancyranus.)
1.A town of Phrygia Epictetus. Strabo (p. 567) calls it a small city, or hill-fort, near Blaudos, towards Lydia.I n another passage (p. 576) he says that the Rhyndacus, which flows into the Propontis, receives the Macestus from Ancyra Abasitis. Cramer (Asia Minor, vol. 2. p. 12) corrects Abasitis into Abbaitis, on the authority of the coins and an inscription found in these parts. As the. Macestus is the Susuglierli Su, or the Simaul Su, as it is called in its upper course, Ancyra must be at or near the source of this river. The lake of Simaul is the source of the Macestus, and close to the lake is a remarkable looking hill, the Acropolis of an ancient city.T his place appears to be Ancyra. The river flows from the lake in a deep and rapid stream; and no large stream runs into the lake. Simaul seems to be a corruption of Synnaus, or Synaus, and to be on or near the site of Synnaus. Ancyra was on the lake, 7 or 8 miles WNW. of Simaul. (Hamilton, Researches, &c. vol. 2. p. 124, seq.)
2.(Angora or Engareh), a town of Galatia, near a small stream, which seems to enter the Sangarius. Ancyra originally belonged to Phrygia. The mythical founder was Midas, the son of Gordius. (Paus. 1.4.) Midas found an anchor on the spot, and accordingly gave the name to the town; a story which, would imply that the name for anchor (ἄγκυρα) was the same in the Greek and in the Phrygian languages. Pausanias confirms the story by saying that the anchor remained to his time in the temple of Zeus. Stephanus (s. v. Ἄγκυρα) gives another story about the name, which is chronologically false, if Aneyra was so called in the time of Alexander. (Arrian. Anab. 2.4.) The town became the chief place of the Tectosages (Strab. p. 567), a Gallic tribe from the neighbourhood of Toulouse, which settled in these parts about B.C. 277. [GALATIA] The Galatae were subjected by the Romans under Cn. Manlius, B.C. 189, who advanced as far as An. cyra, and fought a battle with the Tectosages near the town. (Liv. 38.24.) When Galatia was formally made a Roman province, B.C. 25, Ancyra was dignified with the name Sebaste, which is equivalent to Augusta, with the addition of Tectosagum, to distinguish it from Pessinus and Tavium, which were honoured with the same title of Sebaste. Ancyra had also the title of Metropolis, as the coins from Nero's time show. Most of the coins of Ancyra have a figure of an anchor on them.
The position of Ancyra made it a place of great trade, for it lay on the road from Byzantium to Tavium and Armenia, and also on the road from Byzantium to Syria. It is probable, also, that the silky hair of the Angora goat may, in ancient as in modern times, have formed one of the staples of the place. The hills about Angora are favourable to the feeding of the goat. The chief monument of antiquity at Ancyra is the marble temple of Augustus, which was built in the lifetime of the emperor. The walls appear to be entire, with the exception of a small portion of one side of the cella. On the inside of the antae of the temple is the Latin inscription commonly called the Monumentum or Marmor Ancyranum. Augustus (Suet. Aug. 101) left behind him a record of his actions, which, it was his will, should be cut on bronze tablets, which were to be placed in front of his Mausoleum. A copy of this memorable record was cut on the walls of this temple at Ancyra, both in Greek and Latin. We must suppose that the Ancyrani obtained permission from the Roman senate or Tiberius to have a transcript of this record to place in the temple of Augustus, to whom they had given divine honours in his lifetime, as the passage from Josephus (J. AJ), when properly corrected, shows. (See Is. Casaub. in Ancyran. Marmor. Animadv. ) The Latin inscription appears to have been first copied by Busbequius about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it has been copied by several others since. The latest copy has been made by Mr. Hamilton, and his copy contains some corrections on former transcripts. A Greek inscription on the outer wall of the cella had been noticed by Pococke and Texier, but, with the exception of a small part, it was concealed by houses built against the temple. By removing the mud wall which was built against the temple, Hamilton was enabled to copy part of the Greek inscription. So much of it as is still legible is contained in the Appendix to his second volume of Researches in Asia Minor, &c. This transcript of the Greek version is valuable, because it supplies some defects in our copies of the Latin original. A Greek inscription in front of one of the antae of the temple seems to show that it was dedicated to the god Augustus and the goddess Rome. Hamilton copied numerous Greek inscriptions from various parts of the town. (Appendix, vol. ii.) One of the COIN OF ANCYRA.
walls of the citadel contains an immense number of portions of bas-reliefs, inscriptions, funereal cippi with garlands, and the caput bovis, caryatides, columns and fragments of architraves, with parts of dedicatory inscriptions, resembling indeed very much the walls of a rich museum.( Hamilton.)
Angora is still a considerable town, with a large population. [G.L]
(Ἀγκύρα). (1) A city of Galatia, in Asia Minor, originally the chief city of a Gallic tribe named the Tectosages, who came from the south of France. (See Ancyranum Monumentum.)
(2) A town in Phrygia Epictetus, on the borders of Mysia.
The chief city of the Roman province of Galatia, in central Asia Minor. Its legendary founder was King Midas, but it does not appear in the historical record until the time of Alexander the Great. Until Galatia became a Roman province in 25 B.C., Ancyra remained comparatively insignificant although its commercial importance increased as that of the old Phrygian capital, Gordion, diminished. Throughout the period of the Roman Empire the city flourished, and its importance continued during the Byzantine era when the city was strongly fortified against invasions from the East.
Most of the Roman city has been destroyed by modern Ankara, but some monuments have survived, notably the Temple of Rome and Augustus, the Roman baths and palaestra, and the “Column of Julian.”
The temple was octostyle pseudodipteral, with 15 columns down the flanks, four detached columns in front of the pronaos, and two between the antae of the opisthodomos. Only the core of the building still stands, preserved through its later use as a church when the opisthodomos was converted into an apse. The walls of the pronaos carry the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti and the S cella wall the Greek, complete except for some areas of damage. Another important inscription, the list of high priests of the koinon of Galatia under Tiberius, stands on the left-hand anta of the pronaos. It has been maintained that the temple was originally dedicated to the god Mên and dates to the middle of the 2d c. B.C., but for both architectural and historical reasons an Augustan date is preferable.
The Roman baths lie to the W of the temple near the site of the old Turkish city gate leading to Çankiri (now destroyed). The baths stood behind a palaestra that was surrounded by a colonnaded portico. Although little of the superstructure survives, the hypocausts and much of the substructure have been excavated and restored. The baths were dated by the excavators to the time of Caracalla, and are notable for their size and for the number of hot rooms, which the city's winter climate made desirable. The palaestra serves as a depot for the inscriptions and architectural fragments from Roman and Byzantine Ancyra. Beside it is a Byzantine burial chamber, decorated with painted frescos. This was excavated near the railway station and re-erected on its present site. The “Column of Julian” stands alone between the baths and the temple. Its attribution to the reign of Julian is uncertain although it is clearly of late Roman date.
The most striking remnant of ancient Ancyra is the Byzantine citadel. The inner fortifications were possibly built ca. A.D. 630 after the city had been recaptured by the emperor Heraclius from Chosroes II. It was restored on several occasions, most notably by the emperor Michael III in A.D. 859. At some undetermined date the outer fortifications were added. The walls are largely built from the debris of the Roman city and are full of architectural pieces and inscriptions. The most impressive section is the W wall of the inner fortification where the regular, closely spaced, pentagonal towers give the profile of the blade of a giant saw.
Ancyra's archaeological museums, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations and the Museum of the Middle East Technical University, contain little from the Roman or Byzantine period but are chiefly of interest to Classical archaeologists for their very rich collections of Phrygian material.
BIBLIOGRAPHYG. de Jerphanion, “Mélanges d'Archéologie Anatolienne,” Méanges de l'Université St-Joseph 13 (1928) ch. XII-XVPI; E. Mamboury, Ankara, Guide Touristique (1934) MP; D. Krencker & M. Schede, Der Tempel in Ankara (1936), reviewed by E. Wiegand, Gnomon 13 (1937) 414-22; N. Dolunay, “Türk Tarih Kurumu yapilan Çankirikapi hafriyati,” Belleten 5 (1941) 261-66; E. Bosch, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Ankara im Altertum (1967); M. Akok, “Ankara Şehrindeki Roma hamami,” Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi 17 (1968) 537PI.
S. MITCHELL- captured by Gauls: Paus. 1.4.5