Hierapolis Through the Centuries

By All Over InformationUpdated August 10, 20267 min read

Hierapolis lived for over a thousand years, and its history reads like the history of the ancient world in miniature: Hellenistic kings, Roman emperors, Jewish communities, Christian martyrs, earthquakes, and empires that rose and fell around it. The city above the white terraces was shaped by every one of those centuries, and its ruins preserve the layers. This is the story of Hierapolis through time, told in order.

The Land Before the City

Long before any city stood on the plateau, the site was a place of wonder. The hot springs that rise from the earth, warm and mineral-rich all year round, created the white terraces below the cliff and drew people to the area from prehistoric times. The pools were natural baths, and the water was believed to heal.

The most extraordinary feature of the site is the Plutonium, a cave that vents deadly gas. To the people who lived near it, the cave was clearly a doorway to the underworld, and it gave the location a sacred, frightening character. Healing and the underworld, life and death, defined the site from the beginning.

When the kings of Pergamon looked for a place to found a new city in the second century BC, this charged landscape was their choice. They gave their new foundation a name that announced its holiness, and the story of Hierapolis began.

The Pergamene Foundation

Hierapolis was founded in the second century BC by the kings of Pergamon, the Hellenistic dynasty that ruled much of western Anatolia. The city’s name honored Hiera, the legendary wife of Telephus, the mythical founder of the Pergamene royal line, and it means sacred city.

The new foundation was built on the Hellenistic model: a planned grid of streets, defensive walls, and public buildings, laid out on the plateau above the springs. Its position controlled the routes through the Lycus valley, giving it both strategic and economic importance from the start.

Under the Pergamene kings, Hierapolis grew into a prosperous regional city. The thermal springs attracted visitors, the fertile valley produced its crops, and the city’s sacred character drew worshippers. But the kingdom that had founded it was about to give it away.

Hierapolis, Turkey — Photo by Özer_Yenihayat on Pixabay

Rome Takes Control

In 133 BC, the last king of Pergamon bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, and Hierapolis passed into the growing Roman empire along with the rest of the region. The change of masters was the beginning of the city’s greatest age, as Rome organized the province of Asia and its cities flourished.

Under Roman rule, Hierapolis benefited from the peace and the trade that the empire brought. Its position on the routes between the coast and the interior made it a natural center for commerce, and its thermal springs attracted visitors from across the province, seeking the healing waters.

The city adopted Roman institutions and built Roman architecture, but it kept its Greek character and its sacred identity. The meeting of Greek tradition and Roman power would shape the city’s next centuries, and its greatest monuments were still to come.

The First Century: Earthquakes and Rebuilding

The first century AD was a time of testing for Hierapolis. In 60 AD, a severe earthquake devastated the city, toppling buildings and killing many inhabitants. The region was struck by a series of quakes, and the city faced the enormous task of rebuilding.

The rebuilding brought the city closer to Rome. The empire supported the reconstruction, and the new buildings rose in the grand Roman style, with monumental public architecture replacing the simpler structures of the early city. The baths, the gates, and the streets were rebuilt on an imperial scale.

The pattern was set for the city’s relationship with its geology. Hierapolis sits on active faults, and its history is a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Each earthquake brought a new building campaign, and each campaign made the city grander than before.

The Golden Age of the Second Century

The second century AD was the golden age of Hierapolis. The city was at the height of its wealth, and its buildings reflect the confidence of the period. The great theatre, rebuilt in this era, and the monumental baths transformed the plateau into a showcase of Roman architecture.

The city’s economy flourished. The wool and textile trade, the dyeing industry that used the mineral waters, and the constant flow of visitors to the springs all brought money into the city, and the citizens spent it on public buildings, festivals, and their own tombs.

The prosperity also attracted new residents. Hierapolis became a cosmopolitan city, home to Greeks, Romans, and a substantial Jewish community, all living within the walls. The city of the second century was the city whose ruins dominate the site today.

A City of Many Faiths

Hierapolis was a city of many faiths, and its religious life was as varied as its population. The old cults of the springs and the Plutonium continued, the imperial cult honored the emperors, and the Jewish community maintained its synagogue within the city’s bath complex.

The synagogue is one of the most remarkable survivals of the ancient world. Built into the complex of baths and gymnasium, it was a large, lavishly decorated building, and its inscriptions record a community that was wealthy, organized, and fully part of city life.

This world of many faiths was about to change. As Christianity spread through the Roman empire, Hierapolis would become a center of the new religion, and the sacred city would find a new saint to replace the gods of its springs.

The coexistence of these communities was written into the city’s streets. The synagogue stood within the bath and gymnasium complex, sharing its water and its spaces with the city’s athletes and bathers, while the old sanctuaries of the springs continued their rituals nearby. Inscriptions name donors from every group, showing citizens who moved easily between the worlds of the temple, the bath, and the prayer hall.

The Martyrdom of Saint Philip

Christian tradition holds that the Apostle Philip preached in Hierapolis and died there as a martyr. The tradition, recorded in early Christian writings, made the city a destination for pilgrims, and the site of Philip’s death became a holy place.

In the fifth century AD, the city built a great martyrion over the apostle’s shrine. The building, an octagon surrounded by radiating chapels, stood on a hill above the city, visible from far away. It was one of the most important early Christian monuments in Anatolia.

The martyrion marked the transformation of Hierapolis. The temples of the old gods declined, the Plutonium lost its priests, and the city’s sacred character was claimed by Christianity. The healing waters continued to draw visitors, but the city’s soul had changed.

The Byzantine City

Under the Byzantine Empire, Hierapolis remained an important city and a bishopric. Its churches served a Christian population, its baths still drew visitors to the healing waters, and its position on the region’s routes kept it connected to the wider empire.

The city’s architecture changed with the times. New churches were built, the old temples were converted or abandoned, and the streets were repaired after each earthquake. The city of the Byzantine period was smaller and more defensive, but it was still alive.

The end came in the seventh century. A series of devastating earthquakes struck the region, and the wars between Byzantium and the rising powers of the east destroyed the security of the cities. Hierapolis’s population shrank, and its great monuments were abandoned to the ruins.

Decline and the Long Middle Ages

After the seventh century, Hierapolis ceased to be a city in the ancient sense. The population gathered in a small settlement around the baths, and the great monuments of the plateau stood empty, slowly collapsing through the earthquakes and the weather of the following centuries.

The region passed through Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman rule, and the ruined city served as a source of stone for the buildings of the valley. The white terraces were never forgotten, and people continued to come to the hot springs, but the ancient city itself faded from memory.

For over a thousand years, the sacred city slept beneath its fields and its rubble. The healing waters that had created it flowed on, and the white terraces continued to form, but no one remembered the name of the city above them.

Rediscovery and Modern Excavation

Western travelers began to rediscover Hierapolis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They described the theatre, the baths, and the strange white terraces, and their accounts drew the attention of the scholarly world to the plateau above Pamukkale.

The modern excavation of the city began in 1957, when the Italian Archaeological Mission began work at the site. Under successive directors, the mission has excavated the theatre, the agora, the baths, the synagogue, and the martyrion of Saint Philip, and the work continues today.

In 1988, Hierapolis and the travertine terraces were inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage List, among the first Turkish sites to receive the honor. The sacred city, after its long centuries of silence, has once again become a place that the world comes to see.

Frequently asked questions

When was Hierapolis founded?

Hierapolis was founded in the second century BC by the kings of Pergamon. It reached its golden age under the Roman Empire in the second century AD, remained an important Byzantine city, and declined sharply in the seventh century after earthquakes and invasions.

Why did Hierapolis decline?

The city declined because of a combination of devastating earthquakes and the military and economic collapse of the ancient urban world in the seventh century AD. Its population shrank to a small settlement, and the great monuments were abandoned and gradually buried.

Who excavated Hierapolis?

The Italian Archaeological Mission has excavated Hierapolis since 1957. Its teams uncovered the theatre, the agora, the baths, the synagogue, and the martyrion of Saint Philip. The work continues today, and the site is managed jointly with Turkish authorities as part of the Pamukkale-Hierapolis World Heritage property.

All Over Information

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