Sillyon#Byzantine period

Throughout Antiquity, the city was relatively unimportant. According to one legend, the city was founded as a colony from Argos, while another holds that it was founded, along with Side and Aspendos, by the seers Mopsos, Calchas and Amphilochus after the Trojan War.Gernot (2003), p. 442 The city is first mentioned in c. 500 BC by Pseudo-Scylax (polis Sylleion). From 469 BC, the city (as Sillyon) became part of the Athenian-led Delian League. It is mentioned in the Athenian tribute lists in c. 450 BC and again in 425 BC, and then disappears again from the historical record until 333 BC, when Alexander the Great is said to have unsuccessfully besieged it. According to Arrian (Anabasis Alexandri I. 26), the site (recorded as Syllion) was well-fortified and had a strong garrison of mercenaries and "native barbarians", so that Alexander, pressed for time, had to abandon the siege after the first attempt at storming it failed.

The city was extensively rebuilt under the Seleucids, especially its theatre. In later times, when most of western Asia Minor fell to the Attalid kingdom, Sillyon remained a free city by a decision of the Roman Senate.

{{Coin image box 1 double

| header =

| image = File:Gallienus Sillyum.jpg

| caption_left = O: radiate bust of Gallienus confronting bust of Salonina

AV K ΠO ΛI ΓAΛΛIHNOC

| caption_right = R: Tyche holding rudder and cornucopia

CIΛΛVEΩN

| width = 300

| footer = Bronze coin struck by Gallienus in Sillyon 254-268 AD.

| position = right| margin = 4

}}

The city has an attested continuous tradition of minting its own coins from the early 3rd century BC up to the reign of the Roman emperor Aurelian in the 270s. Silver tetradrachms of the Alexandrian and Lysimachian types were minted between 281 and 190 BC, but other than that, the city's coinage is in bronze. 3rd-century BC coins feature a bearded head or a standing figure, possibly identifiable with Apollo, or lightning and the inscription ΣΕΛΥИΙΥΣ (the native Pamphylian name, where И=/w/). Coinage under Roman suzerainty featured the same motifs, but with the inscription hellenized to ϹΙΛΛΥΕΩΝ ("of the Sillyeans").

Epiphania was a city in Cilicia Secunda (Cilicia Trachea), in Anatolia.

File:SillyonAkropolis.jpg

Under the Byzantine Empire, the city rose to relative prominence. It is mentioned as the site of the destruction of an Arab fleet by storm in late 677 or 678, following the unsuccessful Arab Siege of Constantinople.Kazhdan (1991), p. 1980 As one of the major fortified sites of the area, it became the seat of an imperial representative (ek prosōpou), complementing the stratēgos of the naval theme of the Kibyrrhaiotai. Syllaeum was also located at the start of the great public road that linked the southern coast, via Amorium and Nicaea, with Bithynia and the capital Constantinople. In this position, it began to eclipse the traditional local metropolis of Perge, and sometime between 787 and 815, the local bishop's seat was transferred to Syllaeum. Together with the wider area of Pamphylia, the city fell to the Seljuks in 1207.

• Saint Antony the Younger was ek prosōpou at Syllaion in c. 821-29.
• Patriarch Constantine II of Constantinople was bishop of the city.
• Patriarch Antony I of Constantinople was born in the city.

The ruins of Sillyon/Syllaion date from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and partly Seljuk eras. Among these are remains of city gates, a stadium, an amphitheatre and an odeon (some of which have tumbled because of a landslide), a temple, a cistern and a gymnasium. Much of it is threatened by landslide, since the city is located atop a rocky plateau.

File:Sillyon ancient palace in 2015 5345.jpg|Ancient palace

File:Sillyon bastion in 2015 5369.jpg|Bastion

File:Sillyon Byzantine building in 2015 5428 panorama.jpg|Byzantine building

File:Sillyon collapsed theatre and odeion in 2015 5460.jpg|Collapsed theatre and odeion

File:Sillyon view from below hill in 2015 5485 panorama.jpg|View from below hill

File:Sillyon gate in 2015 5470.jpg|Gate

File:Sillyon Hellenist building in 2015 5445.jpg|Hellenist building

File:Sillyon lone tower in 2015 5379.jpg|Gate tower

File:Sillyon Medieval castle in 2015 5441.jpg|Medieval castle

File:Sillyon stadium in 2015 5336.jpg|Stadium

File:Sillyon walls in 2015 5387.jpg|Wall

File:Sillyon Small church in 2015 5451.jpg|Small church

File:Sillyon Mescit in 2015 5416.jpg|Mescit

File:Sillyon water supply site in 2015 5351.jpg|Water supply

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book

| editor-first = Alexander

| editor-last = Kazhdan

| editor-link = Alexander Kazhdan

| title = Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium

| publisher = Oxford University Press

| year = 1991

| isbn = 978-0-19-504652-6

| page = 1980

}}

• {{cite book

| first = Gernot

| last = Lang

| title = Klassische antike Stätten Anatoliens, Band II: Larissa-Zeleia

| year = 2003

| publisher= Books on Demand GmbH

| isbn = 978-3-8330-0068-3

| pages = 439–443

}}

• {{cite book

| first = Philipp

| last = Niewöhner

| editor-last = Henning

| editor-first = Joachim

| chapter = Archäologie und die "Dunklen Jahrhunderte" im byzantinischen Anatolien

| title = Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, Vol. 2: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans

| publisher = Walter de Gruyter

| year = 2007

| isbn = 978-3-11-018358-0

| pages = 130–131

}}

{{commons category|Sillyon}}

• [https://www.beaux-arts.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=28316 Panoramic photo of the ruins of Sillyon/Syllaion by Pierre Trémaux (1818-1895), taken c. 1862-1868] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170108190255/https://www.beaux-arts.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=28316 |date=2017-01-08 }}
• [http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/sillyon Over 160 pictures of Sillyon]

{{Former settlements in Turkey}}

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Category:Byzantine sites in Anatolia

Category:Populated places of the Byzantine Empire

Category:Populated places in ancient Pamphylia

Category:Former populated places in Turkey

Category:Roman towns and cities in Turkey

Category:Archaeological sites in Antalya Province

Category:Greek colonies in Anatolia

Category:Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey

Category:Geography of Antalya Province

Category:Members of the Delian League

Category:Serik District