Kyzikos
City on the isthmus of the peninsula Arktonnesos (Kapu Dağ) on the SW coast of the Sea of Marmara. Arktonnesos was originally an island, but it became a peninsula by means of two parallel dykes and accumulations of sand. Kyzikos, according to tradition, was the earliest colony in the Propontis founded by Miletos (Strab. 14.635; Plin. HN 5.142). Eusebios (Chron. 2.81.87) says that Kyzikos was twice colonized, in 756 and 679 B.C., but a Greek settlement in the mid 8th c. on the Propontis is unlikely—Miletos was not in a position to found colonies there before the beginning of the 7th c. Indeed nothing has been found in the whole Pontos area dating from before the middle of the 7th c. In Byzantium, which was a Megarian colony, the earliest pottery found is late Protocorinthian in style, of the third quarter of the 7th c., while a Late Geometric sherd, the oldest pottery discovered in Daskyleion, dates from ca. 680-670 B.C. Thus Kyzikos must have been founded about 700 B.C. at the earliest.
On the trade route between Pontos and the Aegean, Kyzikos was an important center from the beginning, and the Κυζικηνοῦ στατῆρες χρυσίουwere the most important coins of the E Greek world from the 6th to the 4th c. B.C. The city took part in the Ionian revolt, belonged to the Delian League, and during the Peloponnesian war it was held alternately by Athens and Sparta. In 411 B.C. the Athenians defeated the Spartan fleet under Alcibiades near Kyzikos. In 387, however, it became subject to Persia, like the other Greek cities in W Anatolia, under the Peace of Antalcidas. Incorporated in the Pergamene kingdom about 190, it passed to Rome in 133 B.C.
The earliest sherds found at Kyzikos are of the orientalizing style, but there must have been older pottery; the archaic layer lies below sea level and the lower strata are hard to reach. Noteworthy is a big fragment of a columna caelata, mid 6th c. B.C., which represents a young woman dancing between two youths (in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul). It reflects some Milesian influence, but is a local creation. The archaic statue of a young man with arms and legs missing, also in the Istanbul Museum, was likewise made in Kyzikos after Milesian models. Many other finds from Kyzikos and the neighborhood are in the same museum, others are in the Erdek Open-Air Museum.
All that exists today of the Temple of Hadrian, in the SW district of the city, is the vaulting that supported the platform. The temple was dedicated to the emperor as the 13th Olympian god; in the late Roman era it was accepted as one of the seven wonders of the world. In 1431 Cyriacus of Ancona saw the whole upper part of the building with 33 columns intact; his engravings have made it possible to identify a piece of one of the temple columns, now in the Erdek Museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHYF. W. Hasluck,Cyzicus (1910); RE XII 1 (1925) 228-33; D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor (1950) 81; B. Ashmole, “Cyriac of Ancona and the Temple of Hadrian at Cyzicus,”JWarb 19 (1956) 76-91; E. Akurgal, “Recherches faites à Cyzique,”Anatolia 1 (1956) 15-20I; id., Die Kunst Anatoliens (1961) 234-39, 257, 262I; id., “Neue archaische Bildwerke aus Kyzikos,”AntK 8 (1965) 99-103I; P. Laubscher, “Zwei neue Kouroi,” IstMitt 13-14 (1963-64) 73-80; id., “Zum Fries des Hadrianstempels,” ibid. 17 (1967) 211-17.
E. AKURGAL