SMYRNA (also and more strictly Zmyrna) was founded as a colony from Greece before 1000 BC, but the early foundation, which had been Aeolian, was captured by its southern neighbours the Ionian Greeks and made an Ionian colony. This second foundation became a powerful State, possessing territory far to the E., and as late as the 7th cent. BC fought as a member of the Ionian Confederacy against the great Lydian power (see SARDIS). It gradually gave way, however, and was captured and destroyed in 627 BC by Alyattes, king of Lydia. It now ceased to be a Greek city, and it was not till the 3rd cent. BC that it became so again. There was a State called Smyrna between 600 and 290 BC, but it was mainly a loose congeries of villages scattered about the plain and the surrounding hills, and not in the Greek sense a polls (city-State). Alexander the Great intended to re-found the city, but did not carry out his plan. It was left for his successors, Lysimachus and Antigonus, who accomplished it in 290 BC. The old city had been on a steep high hill on the N. side of the extreme eastern recess of the gulf; the new was planted on the SE. shore of the gulf, about 2 miles away. The object of the change was to obtain a good harbour and a suitable starting-point for the land trade-route to the E. There were in reality two ports?a small inner one with a narrow entrance, and a mooring ground ; the former has gradually filled up through neglect. Its maritime connexion brought it into contact with the Romans, who made an alliance with Smyrna against the Seleucid power. In 195 BC Smyrna built a temple to Rome, and ever afterwards remained faithful to that State, through good fortune and bad. Rome showed a thorough appreciation of this friendship and loyalty, and in AD 26 this city was preferred before all others in Asia as the seat of the new temple to be dedicated by the confederacy of that province to Tiberius.
The city was of remarkable beauty. Its claim to be the chief city of Asia was contested by Ephesus and Pergamum, but in beauty it was easily first. In addition to its picturesque situation it was commended by its handsome and excellently paved streets, which were fringed by the groves in the suburbs. The city was well walled, and in the pagos above possessed an ideal acropolis, which, with its splendid buildings in orderly arrangement, was known as the crown or garland of Smyrna. The protecting divinity of the city was a local variety of Cybele, known as the Sipylene Mother, and the towers and battlements of her head-dress bore an obvious resemblance to the appearance of the city. (The Greeks identified her with Nemesis, who here only in the Greek world was worshipped, and not as one but as a pair of goddesses.) There was one street known as the Street of Gold. It went from W. to E., curving round the sloping hill, and had a temple on a hill at each end. For its length and fine buildings it was compared to a necklace of jewels round the neck of a statue. The life of the city was and is much benefited in the hottest period of the day by a west wind which blows on it with great regularity, dying down at sunset. This was counterbalanced by a disadvantage, the difficulty of draining the lowest parts of the city, a difficulty accentuated by this very wind. Smyrna was a centre of learning, especially in science and medicine, and boasted that it was the birthplace of Homer, who had been born and brought up beside the river Meles. This stream is identified by local patriotism with the Caravan Bridge River, which flows northwards till it comes below the pagos, then flows round its eastern base and enters the sea to the NE. of it. But this is a mistaken view. The Meles is undoubtedly to be identified with the stream coming from the Baths of Artemis and called Chalka-bounar, as it alone satisfies the minute description of the Smyrnaean orator Aristides (2nd cent. AD) and other ancient writers. It rises in the very suburbs of the city, and is fed by a large number of springs, which rise close to one another. Its course is circle-shaped at first, and afterwards it flows gently to the sea like a canal. Its temperature is equable all the year round, and it never either overflows or dries up. The city has suffered from frequent earthquakes (for instance, in A.D. 178), but has always risen superior to its misfortunes. It did not become a Turkish city till Tamerlane captured it in AD 1402. It has always been an important place ecclesiastically.
The letter to the Church at Smyrna (Rev.2.8-11) is the most favourable of all. The writer puts its members on a higher plane than any of the others. They have endured persecution and poverty, but they are rich in real wealth. They are the victims of calumny, but are not to be afraid. Some are even to be sent to prison as a prelude to execution, and to endure suffering for a time. If they are faithful unto death, they will receive the crown of eternal life. The church was dead and yet lived, like the city in former days. The Jews in Smyrna had been specially hostile to the Christians, and had informed against them before the Roman officials. Most of them were probably citizens of Smyrna, and had become merged in the general population, since the Romans ceased to recognize the Jews as a nation after AD 70. The hatred of the Jews there can perhaps be explained by the supposition that many of the Christians were converted Jews. Similarly they helped in the martyrdom of Polycarp (AD 155). In c AD 112 Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome, visited the church in Smyrna and later, from Troas, sent them a letter, which survives. The city and its Christians have survived all attacks.
[Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - A.So. - F.C.G.]