II. Cluiriuierulics. — Smyrna contained a temjile of the Olympian Zeus, with whose cult that of the Homan emperors was associated. Olympian games were cele- brated here, and excited great interest. On one of these
occasions (in the year C8), a Rhodian youth of the name of Artemidorus obtained greater distinctions than any on record, under peculiar circumstances which Pau- sanias relates. He was a iianerattast. and not long be- fore had been beaten at Klis from deficiency in growth. But when the Smyrnaian Olymjiia next came round, his bodily strength had so developed that he was victor in three trials on the same day— the first against his former competitors at the I'elopoiuiesian Olympia, the second with the youths, and the third with the men ; the last contest having been provoked by a taunt (Pans, v, 14, 4). The extreme interest excited by the games at Smyrna may perhaps account for the remarkable feroc- ity exhibited by the population against the aged bishop Polycarp. It was exactlj' on such occasions that what the pagans regarded as the unpatriotic and anti-social s|)irit of the early Christians became most apparent; and it was to the violent demands of the people assem- bled in the stadium that the Koman proconsul yielded up the martyr. The letter of the Sniynia;ans, in which the account of his martyrdom is contained, represents the Jews as taking part with the (ientiles in accusing him as an enemy to the state religion — conduct which would be inconceivable in a sincere Jew, but which was quite natural in those which the sacred writer charac- terizes as " a synagogue of Satan" (P!ev. ii. 9).
In the vicinity of Smyrna was a Macedonian colony settled in the countn,' under the name of Hyrcani. The last are probably the descendants of a military body in the service of .Seleucus, to whom lands were given soon after the building of new Smyrna, and who, together with the Magnesians, seem to have had the Smyrnwaii citizenship then bestowed upon them. The decree con- taining the particulars of this arrangement is among the marbles in the University of Oxford. The Romans continued the system which they found existing when the country passed over into their hands.
Not only was the soil in the neighborhood eminently productive, so that the vines were even said to have two crops of grapes, but its position was such as to ren- der it the natural outlet for the produce of the whole valley of the Hermus. The Pramnean wine (which Nestor, in the lliiul, and Circe, in the Odijssey, are rep- resented as mixing with honey, cheese, and meal, to make a kind of salad-dressing) grew even down to the time of Pliny in the immediate neighborhood of the tenqile of the Mother of the Gods at Smyrna, and doubt- less played its part in the orgiastic rites both of that deity aiul of Dionysus, each of whom in the times of iinjicrial liome jiossessed a guild of worshippers fre- (juently mentioneil in the inscriptions as the 'upa avro- CoQ fiVdTMV juj/rpot," -(7r))X(j)')'jf and the 'npa avvo- Sog fivtTTiov K(ti Tt\i'tTioi' Aiovi'ffoi'. One of the most remarkable of the c/icj's-d'aeuvre of Myron which stood at Smyrna, representing an old woman intoxicated, il- lustrates the prevalent habits of the population.
The inhabitants of new Smyrna appear to have pos- sessed the talent of successfully divining the course of events in the troublous times through which it was their destiny to pass, and of habit ualh' securing for themselves the favor of the victor for the time being. Their adtdalion of Seleucus and his son Antiochus was e.xcessive. The title 6 Seot; Kai auiTiip is given to the
Coins ofSuivrua ovith the head of Cybele).
SMYRNA
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SMYRNA
latter in an extant inscription ; and a temple dedicated to his mother, Stratonice, under the title of 'A<ppoSiT7] ^TparoinKiQ, was not only constituted a sanctuary it- self, but the same right was extended in virtue of it to the whole city. Yet when the tide turned, a temple was erected to the city of Rome as a divinity, in time to save the credit of the Smyrnaians as zealous friends of the Roman people. Indeed, though history is silent as to the particulars, the existence of a coin of Smyrna with the head of Mithridates upon it indicates that this energetic prince also, for a time at least, must have included Smyrna within the circle of his dependencies. However, during the reign of Tiberius, the reputation of the Srayrnajans for an ardent loyalty was so unsul- lied that on this account alone they obtained permis- sion to erect a temple, in behalf of all the Asiatic cities, to the emperor and senate, the question having been for some time doubtful as to whether their city or Sar- dis (q. V.) — the two selected out of a crowd of competi- tors— should receive this distinction. The honor which had been obtained with such difficulty was requited with a proportionate adidation. Nero appears in the in- scriptions as aujTi)p roi) avf.nravTOQ di'^poJTTEiov yn'ovQ. It seems not impossible that just as Paul's illustra- tions in the Epistle to the Corinthians are derived from the Isthmian games, so the message to the Church in Smyrna contains allusions to the ritual of the pagan mysteries which prevailed in that city. The story of the violent death and reviviscence of Dionysus entered into these to such an extent that Origen, in his argu- ment against Celsus, does not scruple to quote it as generally accepted by the Greeks, although by them interpreted metaphysically (iv, 171, ed. Spence). In this view, the words 6 TrpioTOQ Ka't 6 t<T\aTOQ, of iyivsro veKpog Kal fsJjffEi' (Rev. ii, 8) would come with peculiar force to ears perhaps accustomed to hear them in a very different application. The same may be said of Swao) ffoi Tov aTi<pavov rrjg ^wJjtS it having been a usual