Dascylium

Background

Dascylium (Greek: Δασκύλιον, Δασκυλεῖον) was a town in Anatolia some 30 kilometres inland from the coast of the Propontis, at modern Ergili, Turkey. Its site was rediscovered in 1952 and has since been excavated.[1] Excavations have shown that the site was inhabited in the Bronze Age. Phrygians settled there before 750 BC. It came under the control of Lydia. It was then said to be named after Dascylus, the father of Gyges. After the Conquests of Cyrus the Great in 547 BC, Dascylium was chosen as the seat of the Persian satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia,[2] comprising lands of the Troad, Mysia and Bithynia.

Pharnabazus was satrap of Darius III there, until Alexander the Great appointed Calas, who was replaced by Arrhidaeus in the Treaty of Triparadisus. According to Strabo, Hellespontine Phrygia and Phrygia Epictetus comprised Lesser Phrygia (Mysia). Others geographers arranged it differently.[4] When Alexander of Macedon invaded Asia in 334 BC, the first of the major battles by which he overthrew the Achaemenid Empire was fought at the Granicus river on his way to Dascylium from Abydos on the coast.

Settlements

+ Achaemenid Settlements

+ Greek Settlements

Sources

Donald Fyfe Easton, "Anatolia in the Achaemenian and Hellenistic periods" in Encyclopædia Britannica

Sparta and Persia: Lectures Delivered at the University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati Classical Studies) (Hardcover) by D. M. Lewis Page 51 ISBN 90-04-05427-8 (1977)

Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke et al., Athenian Letters, or the epistolary correspondence of an agent of the king of Persia, residing at Athens during the Peloponnesian war, Geographical Index Asia Minor.

Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. I, coll. 629-630

Raymond Janin, v. Dascylion, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XIV, Paris 1960, coll. 91-92.