Sagalassos
City in Pisidia N of Antalya, whose name and variants thereof have been transmitted through many sources (Strab. 12.569-70, 13.631; Ptol. 12.19; Arr. 1.28.2; Diod. 18.44ff; Plin. HN 5.94). Little is known about its early history and development, but it is thought that in the Hellenistic period it was forcibly occupied by Alexander.
The city was SE of Apamea in Phrygia and near the source of the Cayster river in the mountainous area of Milyas; it dominated a considerable area of Pisidia. Its territory was devastated by Gn. Manlius Vulso. In the Imperial period, it was called magnificent, first city of Pisidia, friend and ally of Rome, and belonged to the province of Galatia.
The ruins were described in detail by 19th c. travelers. The subdivision of the urban center follows the highly developed city plan of the Hellenistic type spread under Alexander and repeated in the mountain cities of Asia Minor, of which Sagalossos and Termessos are the more notable examples. The grid is oriented E-W along a rocky ridge (Davras Daği), and the site is terraced upward, culminating in the level area of the Temple of Antoninus Pius. A cross-street joins the upper terraces to a nympheum. To the W is the Temple of Apollo Klarios and to the E the gymnasium, opposite which are the theater and the basilica.
The Temple of Antoninus Pius is Corinthian (13.87 x 26.83 m) while that of Apollo Klarios is Ionic, peripteral and hexastyle; a Christian basilica was built on its foundations. The theater, of the last quarter of the 2d c. A.D., has a cavea of the Hellenistic type, horseshoe-shaped and partially resting upon rock; the NW section was constructed in the Roman period. A diazoma with a vaulted circular corridor divided the cavea in the middle, and the scaenae frons was unusually complex and architecturally interesting. An odeon of the Imperial period is one of the most complete ever discovered. There was also a palaestra (53 x 44 m, with a paved central court and porticos along its sides), and an upper agora, set on a terrace above that of the Temple of Antoninus Pius, which dates from the Claudian period.
BIBLIOGRAPHYC. Lanckoronski, Städte Pamphyliens und Pisidiens II (1892); Head, Hist. Num.; R. Paribeni & P. Romanelli, MonAnt 23 (1914); M. Grant, NC 10 (1950); G. E. Bean, Belleten 18 (1954) 72; R. Martin, L'Urbanisme dans la Grèce antique (1956); J. Delorme, Gymnasion (1960); M. Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater (1961); A. Neppi Modona, Gli edifici teatrali greci e romani (1961); S. A. Hall, AnatSt 18 (1968); A. de Bernardi Ferrero, Teatro classici in Asia Minore II (1969).
N. BONACASA