Cyme

Cyme (Greek: Κύμη) or Cumae was an Aeolian city in Aeolis (Asia Minor) close to the kingdom of Lydia. It was called Phriconian, perhaps from the mountain Phricion in Aeolis, near which the Aeolians had been settled before their migration to Asia.

The Aeolians regarded Cyme as the largest and most important of their twelve cities, which were located on the coastline of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). As a result of their direct access to the sea, unlike most non-landlocked settlements of the ancient world, trade is believed to have prospered.

Location

Both the author of the Life of Homer and Strabo the ancient geographer, locate Cyme north of the Hermus river on the Asia Minor coastline:

After crossing the Hyllus, the distance from Larissa to Cyme was 70 stadia, and from Cyme to Myrina was 40 stadia. (Strabo: 622)

Archaeological finds such as coins give reference also to a river, believed to be that of the Hyllus.

Early history

Little is known about the foundation of the city to supplement the traditional founding legend. Kyme was the largest of the Aiolian cities. According to legend, it was founded by the Amazon Kyme. The Amazons were a mythical tribe of warlike women from Pontos (or variously from Kolchis, Thrace or Scythia), who fought against Greek heroes. Ancient coins from Cyme often depict the head of Kyme wearing a taenia with the reverse featuring a horse prancing - probably in allusion to the prosperous equine industry of the region.

Alternatively, settlers from mainland Greece (most likely Euboea) migrated across the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age as waves of Dorian-speaking invaders brought an end to the once mighty Mycenaean civilization some time around 1050 BCE. During the Late Bronze Age and early Greek Dark Ages, the dialect of Cyme and the surrounding region of Aeolis, like that of neighboring island Lesbos, closely resembled the local dialect of Thessalia and Boetia in continental Greece.

The city was founded after the Trojan War by Greeks from Locris, central Greece, after they have first captured the Pelasgian citadel of Larisa near the river Hermus.

Cyme prospered and developed into a regional metropolis and founded about thirty towns and settlements in Aeolis. The Cymeans were later ridiculed as a people who had for three hundred years lived on the coast and not once exacted harbor taxes on ships making port. Hesiod's father is said to have started his journey across the Aegean from Cyme. The cities of southern Aeolis in the region surrounding Cyme occupied a good belt of land with rough mountains in the background, yet Cyme like other colonies along the coast did not trade with the native Anatolians further inland, who had occupied Asia Minor for thousands of years. Cyme consequently played no significant role in the history of western Asia Minor, prompting the historian Ephorus, 400-330 BCE, himself a native of the city, to comment repeatedly in his narrative of Greek history that while the events he wrote about were taking place, his fellow Cymeans had for centuries sat idly by and kept the peace. He may, however, have been unaware of the significance of the city's links to Phrygia and Lydia through two Greek princesses, Hermodike I and Hermodike II and their role in popularising the written Greek alphabet and coined money, respectively.

Tradition recounts that a daughter of a certain Agamemnon, king of Aeolian Cyme, married a Phrygian king called Midas. This link may have facilitated the Greeks "borrowing" their alphabet from the Phrygians because the Phrygian letter shapes are closest to the inscriptions from Aeolis.

A passage in Pollux speaks about those who invented the process of coining money mentioning Pheidon and Demodike from Cyme, wife of the Phrygian king, Midas, and daughter of King Agamemnon of Cyme.

Politically, Cyme is assumed to have started as a settler democracy following in the tradition of other established colonies in the region although Aristotle concluded that by the 7th and 6th centuries BCE the once great democracies in the Greek world (including Cyme) evolved not from democracies to oligarchies as was the natural custom but from democracies to tyrannies.

5th century BC

By the 5th century BC, Cyme was one of the 12 established Ionian colonies in Aeolis. Herodotus (4.138) mentions that one of the esteemed voters deciding whether or not to support Militiades the Athenian in his plan to liberate the Ionian Coast from Persian rule in (year BC) was Aristagoras of Cyme. Aristagorus campaigned on the side of Histiaeus the Milesian with the tyrants Strattis of Chios, Aeaces of Samos and Laodamas of Phocaea in opposing such an initiative arguing instead that each tyrant along the Ionian Coast owed their position to Darius King of Persia and that liberating their own cities would encourage democracy over tyranny. Cyme eventually came under the control of the Persian Empire following the collapse of the Lydian Kingdom at the hands of Cyrus the Great. Herodotus is the principal source for this period in Greek history and has paid a great deal of attention to events taking place in Ionia and Aeolis.