Priene

Listen first. Pine needles shift underfoot, and the wind moves through the trees on the slope above you. Somewhere below, a tractor works the flat green plain. Then you notice the stone. Grey and honey-coloured marble blocks lie everywhere, softened by moss and lichen. Above it all rises a sheer wall of rock, pale and vertical, like the back of a stage. This is Priene, an ancient Greek city on the southern slopes of the mountain the Greeks called Mykale.

Pause for a moment and look out across that plain. Today it is farmland, cotton fields and orchards that stretch toward the horizon. Two thousand years ago, much of it was water. Priene was once a harbour town on a gulf of the Aegean Sea. The great river Maeander slowly filled that gulf with silt over many centuries. The sea retreated, mile by mile. So the people who lived here once looked down at boats. You look down at fields. It is one of the quiet surprises of this place.

Priene belonged to Ionia, the Greek-speaking coastal region of western Anatolia. Ionia was a home of early philosophy, science and trade. The older Priene, the one from earlier centuries, has never been securely located. Historians believe it was lost to the same shifting coastline. The city you are walking through was refounded here, on this terrace, around the fourth century before the common era. The builders chose high, safe ground between the mountain and the water.

Now look down at the streets beneath your feet. They run in straight lines. The main streets cross the slope from east to west, fairly level and easy to walk. The side streets climb north to south, and many of them turn into steps. This grid pattern is often linked to Hippodamus of Miletus, a Greek town planner from a city just across the old gulf. Priene is one of the clearest surviving examples of this orderly plan. Every block, every house, fits into the same system.

What makes Priene unusual is that the plan survived. Later empires built new cities on top of many ancient Greek towns. Here, the Romans changed relatively little, and the city slowly faded rather than being rebuilt. So the grid is still readable. In the late nineteenth century, German archaeologists, among them Carl Humann and Theodor Wiegand, excavated large parts of the site. Their work turned Priene into a kind of textbook for how a Hellenistic city worked.

Walk up toward the most famous ruin, the Temple of Athena Polias, the protector goddess of the city. A few tall Ionic columns stand on their platform. Ionic is the Greek style with the scroll-shaped curls at the top of each column. The temple was designed by Pytheos, the same architect linked to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Ancient writers treated his temple here as a model of perfect proportion.

There is a second surprise in this temple. Alexander the Great passed through this region during his campaign against the Persian Empire. He offered to fund the completion of the temple. An inscription recording his dedication was carved into the stone. That inscribed block was taken away during early excavations. Today it is in the British Museum in London. So a famous name from world history is attached to the stones you are standing beside.

Next, find the council house, called the bouleuterion. It is one of the best-preserved buildings of its kind anywhere in the Greek world. Rows of stone seats rise on three sides, forming an almost square hall. Here the city's elected council met to debate, vote and manage public affairs. Sit down on one of the benches if you are allowed. The space is intimate. You can imagine voices carrying easily across the room, and arguments that were never written down.

A little further on is the theatre, built into the slope as Greek theatres usually were. Look closely at the front row. Here you will find carved marble chairs of honour, set apart from the plain benches behind them. These seats were reserved for priests, officials and important guests. Their curved backs and decorated legs still look comfortable. Behind them, the slope rises, and the pines frame the view. Plays, music and public meetings all took place in this space.

As you move between buildings, look for the simple things. Water once ran through clay pipes from the mountain into public fountains along the streets. Stone thresholds still show the marks of doors that opened and closed. The houses were built close together, often around small courtyards. Priene was not a vast metropolis. Historians think it was a modest town of a few thousand people. That small scale is part of its charm. You can walk across it and understand it.

If you have the energy, head down the slope to the lower gymnasium and the stadium. The gymnasium was where young men trained their bodies and studied. On some walls, those students carved their names into the stone. It is ancient graffiti, left by teenagers who wanted to be remembered. Higher up the slope, a sanctuary of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, stood closer to the cliff. Priene also remembered Bias, one of the Seven Sages of ancient Greece, who came from this city.

Now look up again at that great rock face behind the city. The ancient citadel stood on top of it, reached by a steep path. It was the last refuge in times of danger. From below, the cliff gives Priene its dramatic setting. The city seems to sit on a balcony between stone and sky. In the late afternoon, the light turns warm on the marble, and the shadows of the columns stretch across the terrace.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment near the temple. Feel the slope under your feet, the same slope that guided every street. Hear the wind in the pines and the distant sound of the plain below. Look once more toward the fields where the sea used to be. As you walk back down through the gate, notice how the straight streets still lead you, step by step, exactly where their planners intended.