A leisurely breakfast stocked us up for our visit to Pergamum and the Asclepion, a two hour drive from Selcuk. With us to day was our delightfully eloquent and informative guide, Sevim, a retired school teacher and director of Wonder Tours who like Guray, brought our imaginations into play and re-created ancient history with verve and humour.
Passing Izmir on the outskirts, a great city full of low rise apartment blocks, we reached the shores of the Aegean, flat and waveless, and bordered in places by industry. Large refineries process oil brought by shipping tanker from Iran, Iraq and Russia and a great metal recycling factory unfortunately are blights on the landscape, creating air pollution, acid rain and dryness in an area once extensively cultivated.
Pergamum is wondrous. Perched high on the mountain above present day Bergama, the
sheer size of the temples, the theatre overlooking the green slopes of the hills across the valley and the ingenuity of their creators are mind-boggling. Its first inhabitant were the Aeolian Greeks who settled here in the 8th century BC. It flourished under the rule of Eumenes I who ruled from 263-241 BC. During his time, Pergamum was one of the greatest centres of learning in the world. Attulus III bequeathed the kingdom of Pergamum to Rome in 133 BC and it became the capital of the Roman province of Asia.
Most inspiring is the Temple of Trajan, built of white marble in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian II and used to worship them and Zeus, the god of Thunder. The temple is supported on huge sturdy arches to gain level ground for its foundations. The library once held 200 000 parchment scrolls which were sent to the library at Alexandria by Mark Anthony as a wedding gift to Cleopatra.
After lunch we spent about 45 minutes in the region of the Red Basilica, an enormous and glorious building, originally a temple to the Egyptian gods Serapis, Isis and Harpocrates in the 2nd century AD. St John described it in the Book of Revelations as one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse and the throne of the devil.
The displays of carpets at the shops across the road enticed us in and some of our group went home with beautiful reminders of their time in Turkey!
Once world renowned as a healing centre, the Asclepion fascinated us. Its most
famous physician, Galen, was born in Pergamum, studied in Alexandria, Greece and Asia Minor and then became physician to Pergamum's gladiators. Treatments at the centre included massage, mud baths, healing waters, ointments and herbs, dream analysis and suggestion. We were shown the holes in the roof of the tunnel leading to the sleeping quarters where it is reputed that the doctors spoke down to their unwitting patients as if they were gods. We were told that only patients bound to be “cured” were admitted to the hospital, which flourished for over a 1000 years – the seriously ill were turned away!
We had elected to spend us much time as we could in Bergama so we had a long wait at Izmir airport for our 10.30 flight to Istanbul, which took all of 45 minutes. It was raining in Istanbul - and cold - and we were grateful to find our driver waiting for us. Upon arrival at the Grand Washington Hotel we had drama when one of our group discovered that he had lost his passport – which thankfully was located at the lost property office at Ataturk Airport and retrieved the next day. Our grateful thanks to Erdal for the effort he went to to find the lost document.
Charmaine's reflections:
For me Pergamum and the Asclepion were highlights and spectacular locations. Our guide, Sevim, truly brought 3000 years of history alive. Again it's barely comprehensible to imagine pulling mountainous marble steps to the top of a high hill as temples and aqueducts, libraries and secret passages, fountains and tombs took shape over the centuries. To have walked the same road as Alexander the Great (without the “hail the conqueror' salute!) is indeed peculiar. As Viv said, layers upon layers of civilization, history, unearthed, with aeons more to be discovered is very humbling.
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