Aigai
At Nemrud Kalesi, 35 km S of Pergamon. One of the twelve mainland cities of the Aiolians, but never a member of the Delian Confederacy. The city was taken by Attalos I in 218 B.C. (Polyb. 5.77) and thenceforth belonged to Pergamon. It was ravaged by Prusias II in his war with Attalos II (156-154 B.C.), and in the peace treaty received an indemnity of 100 talents (Polyb. 33.13). The coinage began about 300 B.C. and continued to the middle of the 3d c. A.D.
The ruins, not yet excavated, are impressive. The city wall, of mixed polygonal and ashlar masonry, encloses an area a little over 900 m in length. Paved roads, partly preserved, led up from the SW and NE. The most conspicuous building is a fine market hall, over 75 m long and still standing 10 m high. It was in three stories, of which the lowest comprised 16 pairs of rooms one behind the other, evidently shops, each provided with a door and window. These opened on the E to a terrace on which was a circular foundation. The middle story had similar chambers communicating by arched doorways. The top story formed an open gallery with a row of columns down the middle and windows in the back wall, and opened on the W by a colonnade to a broad terrace, evidently the agora. Just to the N is a building identified as the bouleuterion.
In the NW corner of the enclosure are the foundations of three temples, one identified by an inscription as that of Demeter and Kore. Below on the W is the theater; the seats are not preserved, but the vaulted passages supporting them are still in good condition. Farther to the S is the stadium, of which one long wall is standing. Some 45 minutes on foot to the E is the Temple of Apollo Chresterios, dedicated by the people (of Pergamon) under P. Servilius Isauricus, proconsul of Asia in 46 B.C. The building has collapsed; all that is now standing is the framework of the cella door, with monolithic jambs 8.7 m high.
The general character of the buildings at Aigai is strikingly similar to those of Pergamon; they date certainly to the time of the Attalid kingdom and were erected by the munificence of the kings.
BIBLIOGRAPHYR. Bohn & C. Schuchhardt, Altertümer von Aegae (1889); L. Robert, ÉtudAnat (1937) 74-87.
G. E. BEAN