Cyzicus > Erdek Balikesir Turkey

Cyzicus, located on the southern coast of the Sea of Marmara in what is now Balikhisar, Turkey, is probably founded as a colony of Miletus in 756 BCE; its advantageous position soon gives it commercial importance.

The city of Cyzicus was said to have been founded by Pelasgians from Thessaly, according to tradition, at the coming of the Argonauts; later it received many colonies from Miletus, allegedly in 756 BCE.

An ancient town of Mysia in Anatolia in the current Balikesir Province of Turkey, it is located on the shoreward side of the present Kapidağ Peninsula (the classical Arctonnesus), a tombolo which is said to have originally been an island in the Sea of Marmara only to be connected to the mainland in historic times either by artificial means or an earthquake.

With the collapse of Lydia around 544, Cyzicus comes under Persian rule, as does ...

…the Propontis and Bosporus regions, and …

Cyzicus, which had joined the Delian League after the defeat of Xerxes and has remained loyal to Athens, revolts in 411 BCE.

Mithridates employs the cunning guerilla tactics he has polished in the first two wars to hold the Roman legions at bay, although Lucullus manages, with five legions, to drive Mithridates from Cyzicus in the winter of 74-73.

Severus’s rearguard in the northwest is now protected by his offer of the rank of Caesar to Clodius Albinus, the powerful governor of Britannia who had probably supported Didius Julianus against him.

The imperial contender advances with his legions east into the empire against Pescennius Niger, the Roman governor of Syria who had been acclaimed Emperor by his troops, like Severus, following the death of Pertinax.

Severus wins victories over his Syrian rival Niger at the battles of Cyzicus and …

Eunomius, who had studied theology at Alexandria under Aëtius, and afterwards come under the influence of Eudoxius of Antioch, who ordained him deacon, had in 360 been appointed bishop of Cyzicus, in Mysia, on the recommendation of Eudoxius.

Propounding an extreme form of Arianism that refutes the divinity of Christ and constructing his argument on a Platonist philosophical structure, Eunomius teaches that Christ was not equal to God the Father but only resembled him.

Here his free utterance of extreme Arian views have led to popular complaints, and Eudoxius is compelled, by command of Constantius, to depose him from the bishopric within a year of his elevation to it.

Cyzicus, partly destroyed by the Arabs in 675, is probably further damaged by a series of earthquakes during this era.

Among its ruins are the substructures of the Temple of Hadrian, sometimes ranked among the Seven Wonders of the World.