Priene is the most beautiful of the ancient cities of western Turkey, a perfectly planned Greek town built on the steep slopes of Mount Mycale, looking out over the plain of the Maeander. Though it was never a great imperial capital, it is one of the best preserved examples of Greek city planning in existence, and its story is the story of the Ionian world. This is the complete history of Priene, told in the order it happened. Its terraced streets, its council house, and its temple terrace survive so completely that walking through Priene feels like walking through the fourth century BC, and the views over the valley below are among the finest in the region.
The Land and the People
The site of Priene lies on the southern slope of Mount Mycale, the mountain ridge that separates the Aegean coast from the Maeander valley. The position was chosen for defense and for beauty, with the city’s terraces rising above the plain.
The people of the region were the Ionians, the Greek settlers who colonized the coast of Anatolia in the centuries after the Bronze Age collapse. They shared a common dialect and a common culture, and they organized themselves into the twelve cities of the Ionian League.
Priene was one of the twelve, and its location at the foot of the sacred mountain, where the League held its meetings, gave it a special importance among the Ionian cities.
The most remarkable thing about Priene is not its monuments but its houses. The city was planned in blocks, and each block was divided into standard house plots, with the houses built to a common pattern around a central courtyard.
The Early City
The earliest history of Priene is poorly recorded. The city seems to have existed in some form from the archaic period, perhaps on a site closer to the sea, with a harbor on the bay below the mountain.
The archaic Priene was a member of the Ionian League and took part in the wars and alliances of the Ionian cities. When the Ionians rose against Persia in 499 BC, Priene joined the revolt, and it suffered with the rest of the cities when the revolt failed.
The destruction of the old city, whether by the Persians or by the slow silting of its harbor, led to the decision to move. The city would be refounded on a new site, higher on the mountain slope, where it could be defended and planned anew.
These houses give you the clearest picture anywhere of how ordinary Greeks lived. You can walk into the ruins of the houses, trace the rooms, the courtyards, and the cisterns, and imagine the families who lived there, a step away from the main street of the city.
The Refounding of the City
In the middle of the fourth century BC, Priene was refounded on the slopes of Mount Mycale in a completely new plan. The new city was laid out on the grid system, with streets crossing at right angles and terraces climbing the hill.
The refounding is connected with the great builders of the age. Some traditions link the new plan with Mausolus of Caria, the ruler whose tomb became one of the wonders of the world, and the city’s main temple was designed by the architect Pytheos, who also worked on the Mausoleum.
The new Priene was a model city, a demonstration of the Greek genius for order. Its streets, its houses, and its public buildings were arranged with a regularity that no other ancient city could match.
The houses of Priene are the reason the site is unique. At Ephesus you see the palaces of the rich; at Priene you see the homes of the citizens, and in their modest courtyards you find the real life of the ancient Greek city.
The City of Alexander
Priene enters the full light of history with Alexander the Great. When Alexander took control of the Aegean coast in 334 BC, he was asked to help complete the great temple of Athena, the centerpiece of the new city.
An inscription from the temple records the arrangement, and the connection with Alexander became the city’s most famous story. The temple of Athena at Priene was the building that linked the city to the greatest figure of the age.
The connection brought honor and prosperity to Priene. The city was remembered in the histories, its temple was celebrated, and the citizens of the small mountain town enjoyed a fame out of all proportion to their size.
As one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League, Priene held a place of honor in the larger Greek world. The League met at the Panionion, the sanctuary on the slopes of Mount Mycale, in the shadow of the city.
The Hellenistic City
In the centuries after Alexander, Priene flourished as a small but prosperous Greek city. Its grid of streets filled with houses, its public buildings were completed, and its citizens governed themselves through the assembly that met in the bouleuterion.
The city had all the institutions of the Greek world: an agora for trade, a theatre for festivals, gymnasia for the young, and temples for the gods. Life in Priene was ordered, cultured, and stable.
The Hellenistic age was the golden period of the city. The inscriptions found at the site show a busy civic life, with citizens holding offices, funding buildings, and honoring their benefactors, all in the confident style of the Greek city-state.
The Panionion was the heart of Ionian identity, the place where the twelve cities gathered for their festivals and their councils. Priene, as the city closest to the sanctuary, played host to the League and shared in its prestige.
The Sanctuary of Athena
The temple of Athena Polias was the sacred heart of Priene. It stood on a terrace above the city, in the position of honor, visible from the plain below and from every street of the town.
The temple was designed by Pytheos, the architect of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and it was considered one of the finest examples of the Ionic order in the Greek world. Its columns were slender, its proportions were perfect, and its position was magnificent.
The temple was the symbol of the city’s identity. The citizens of Priene made their offerings to Athena, celebrated their festivals in her honor, and placed her image on their coins. The ruined platform of her temple still dominates the site today.
For you as a visitor, the connection gives the site a deeper meaning. The city on the mountain was not an isolated town but a member of a league that preserved Greek identity through the centuries of Persian and Roman rule, and its place in that story is written in the stones of its streets.
The Bouleuterion and the Government
The political life of Priene centered on the bouleuterion, the council house where the elected representatives of the citizens met. The building is one of the best preserved of its kind in the Greek world.
The council house was a roofed building with tiers of stone seats arranged around a central floor. Here the councillors of Priene debated the affairs of the city, voted on laws, and directed the life of the community.
The survival of the bouleuterion gives you a rare glimpse into the working of Greek democracy. Sitting in the seats of the council house, you can picture the debates, the votes, and the ordinary citizens who governed their own small city.
The Roman Years
Priene passed under Roman control along with the rest of the Aegean coast, and it became part of the province of Asia. The city continued to live, but its fortunes declined slowly.
The harbor, the source of the city’s trade, was silting up as the Maeander moved its delta, and the city found itself further from the sea with each generation. The Roman years brought some building and some benefaction, but not the prosperity of the Hellenistic age.
The city shrank, the houses emptied, and Priene became a small provincial town, living on the memory of its famous temple and its association with Alexander.
The Decline and the Abandonment
In the Byzantine period, Priene continued its long decline. Earthquakes damaged the buildings, the population dwindled, and the city gradually contracted to a small settlement.
By the later centuries, the town was largely abandoned. The site on the mountain slope was left to the elements, its streets filled with rubble, and its temples fell stone by stone.
The city that had been a model of Greek planning became a ghost town on the mountain, and it remained so for centuries, visited only by shepherds and the occasional traveler.
The Rediscovery and Today
Priene was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, when European travelers and archaeologists recognized the extraordinary preservation of its plan. Excavations followed, and the site became famous as the best example of Greek city planning in the world.
Today you can walk the straight streets of the grid, sit in the council house, and climb to the platform of the temple of Athena, with the whole Maeander plain spread below you. The site is quiet, beautiful, and perfectly ordered.
Priene is a place where the Greek genius for design is visible in every stone. Its history may be the history of a small city, but its legacy is the legacy of the idea of the planned city itself.
Frequently asked questions
Who designed the city plan of Priene?
The plan is associated with the great builders of the mid-fourth century BC. The temple of Athena was designed by the architect Pytheos, who also worked on the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and the refounding of the city is traditionally connected with Mausolus of Caria and the Hellenizing rulers of the age.
Why is the temple of Athena famous?
The temple of Athena Polias was designed by Pytheos and was considered a masterpiece of the Ionic order. It was also the temple that Alexander the Great offered to complete, an offer recorded in an inscription found at the site. Its ruins, on their terrace above the city, are the most beautiful sight at Priene.
What happened to Priene’s harbor?
The harbor silted up as the Maeander river moved its delta across the plain. The bay that had served the archaic city filled with sediment, the sea retreated, and the city lost its access to trade. By the Roman period the site was far from the coast, and the decline of the city followed.
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