Early history The place is said to have been colonized by
Bottiaeans, and to have originally borne the name of
Ancore (Ἀγκόρη) or
Helicore (Ἑλικόρη), or by soldiers of
Alexander the Great's army who hailed from
Nicaea in
Locris, near
Thermopylae. The later version, however, was not widespread, even in Antiquity. Whatever the truth, the first Greek colony on the site was probably destroyed by the
Mysians, and it fell to
Antigonus I Monophthalmus, one of Alexander's successors (
Diadochi) to refound the city as
Antigoneia (Ἀντιγονεία) after himself. Antigonus is also known to have established Bottiaean soldiers in the vicinity, lending credence to the tradition about the city's founding by
Bottiaeans. Following Antigonus' defeat and death at the
Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, the city was captured by
Lysimachus, who renamed it
Nicaea (, also
transliterated as
Nikaia or
Nicæa; see also
List of traditional Greek place names), in tribute to his wife
Nicaea, who had recently died. Sometime before 280 BC, the city came under the control of the
local dynasty of the kings of
Bithynia. This marks the beginning of its rise to prominence as a seat of the royal court, as well as of its rivalry with
Nicomedia. The two cities' dispute over which one was the pre-eminent city (signified by the appellation
metropolis) of Bithynia continued for centuries, and the 38th oration of
Dio Chrysostom was expressly composed to settle the dispute.
Plutarch mentioned that Menecrates (Μενεκράτης) wrote about the history of the city. In
Greek mythology, Nicaea supposedly took its name from
Nicaea, a nymph whom the god
Dionysus got drunk and raped; he later named the city after her.
Roman period Along with the rest of Bithynia, Nicaea came under the rule of the
Roman Republic in 72 BC. The city remained one of the most important urban centres of
Asia Minor throughout the Roman period, and continued its old competition with Nicomedia over pre-eminence and the location of the seat of the
Roman governor of
Bithynia et Pontus. The geographer
Strabo (XII.565 ff.) described the city as built in the typical
Hellenistic fashion with great regularity, in the form of a square, measuring 16
stadia in circumference, i.e. approx. or covering an area of some or ; it had four gates, and all its streets intersected one another at right angles in accordance with the
Hippodamian plan, so that from a monument in the centre all the four gates could be seen. Constantine
patronized Christianity and supported it by granting privileges, and became the first
Roman emperor to adopt Christianity, but he did not get
baptised until
just before he died in
Nicomedia. Constantine laid the groundwork for the majority of the population to become Christians, predominantly, the
empire's formal religion in 380. The
Nicene Creed, (; ; ) which declared
Jesus to be of the same essence as (consubstantial to)
God the Father, and became the foundation of church doctrine, was adopted at the first Roman Ecumenical Christian council in this city in 325. After shifting the council for four centuries, the
Ecumenical Council was held in Nicaea again in 787. This council was called by the
emperor of the
Eastern Empire,
Constantine VI,
Empress Irene, who later became the first female emperor, and attended by
Pope Hadrian I. It addressed the
iconoclastic controversy and recognized the veneration of Christian images of Jesus and the saints as legitimate. The council also forbade the secular appointment of
bishops, thus solidifying the independent authority of the church against that of the state.
Byzantine period By the 4th century, Nicaea was a large and prosperous city, and a major military and administrative centre. Emperor
Constantine the Great convened the
First Ecumenical Council there, and the city gave its name to the
Nicene Creed. and major fortifications were constructed across the region, especially by John and Manuel, which helped to protect the city and its fertile hinterland. There were also several military bases and colonies in the area, for example the one at
Rhyndakos in Bithynia, where the emperor John spent a year training his troops in preparation for campaigns in southern Asia Minor. After the
fall of Constantinople to the
Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the establishment of the
Latin Empire, Nicaea escaped
Latin occupation and maintained an autonomous stance. From 1206 on, it became the base of
Theodore Laskaris, who in 1208 was crowned emperor there and founded the
Empire of Nicaea. The
Patriarchate of Constantinople, exiled from Constantinople, also took up residence in the city until the
recapture of Constantinople in 1261. Although Nicaea was soon abandoned as the primary residence of the Nicene emperors, who favoured
Nymphaion and
Magnesia on the Maeander, the period was a lively one in the city's history, with "frequent synods, embassies, and imperial weddings and funerals", while the influx of scholars from other parts of the Eastern Roman world made it a centre of learning as well. After the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261, the city once again declined in importance. The neglect of the Asian frontier by
Michael VIII Palaiologos provoked a major uprising in 1262, and in 1265, panic broke out when rumours circulated of an imminent
Mongol attack. Emperor
Andronikos II Palaiologos visited the city in 1290 and took care to restore its defences, but Byzantium proved unable to halt the rise of the nascent
Ottoman emirate in the region. After Emperor
Andronikos III Palaiologos and
John Kantakouzenos were defeated at
Pelekanon on 11 June 1329, the Byzantine government could no longer defend Nicaea. Nicaea finally surrendered to the Ottomans after a
long siege 2 March 1331. After the fall of Nicaea, the scholar
Nikephoros Gregoras remarked that: The barbarians settled on the shores of Bithynia without fear and imposed the heaviest taxes on the remaining small towns. They did not, for a short time, drive the people and towns to complete destruction, for they were able to pay them easily and quickly. However, they [Turks] did not cease to make frequent attacks and to enslave the majority of the poor ones both on sea and land.
Ottoman Empire In 1331,
Orhan captured the city from the
Byzantines and for a short period the town became the capital of the expanding Ottoman emirate. Many of its Christian churches were destroyed, and the materials were used by the
Ottomans in erecting their mosques and other edifices. The large church of Hagia Sophia in the centre of the town was converted into a mosque and became known as the Orhan Mosque. A madrasa and baths were built nearby. In 1334 Orhan built a mosque and an
imaret (soup kitchen) just outside the Yenişehir gate (Yenişehir Kapısı) on the south side of the town. With the
fall of Constantinople in 1453, the town lost a great degree of its importance, but later became a major centre with the creation of a local
faïence pottery industry in the 17th century. Thereafter, it slowly faded away as it lost population. In 1779, the Italian archaeologist Domenico Sestini wrote that it was nothing but an abandoned town with no life, no noise and no movement. ==Ruins==