Finally, we can get to Bursa by Bandırma, the route taken by the İstanbul İzmir railway line. The road (120 km) takes us along the shores of Lake Apolyont still half wild, with large flocks of migratory birds and gives us a view of Lake Manyas. The route by Bandirma also enables us to visit without difficulty the ruins of Cyzicus, some 12 km farther on, on the northern border of the alluvial isthmus linking the large peninsula of Kapi Dagi with the mainland.
The triangular peninsula of Cyzicus that widens towards the north is the forerunner of a group of islands that includes Marmora (the former Proconnesus) whose bluish marble is famous. The peninsula itself was originally a mountainsou island separated from the coast by a shallow channel. It is named after the mythical King Cyzicus who, it is said, reigned over the Doliones at the time of the voyage of the Argonauts and was killed by Jason as the result of a misunderstanding. The island is also called Arctonnesus, Dolionis, and Dindymis by ancient authors.
A Milesian colony, established in the 8th or 7th century B.C. on the southern tip of the island controlling the passage, was at the origin of the importance of Cyzicus. Racked by internal dissensions during the archaic era and for a time ruled by tyrants, torn in the classical period between the Athenians and the Persians but rebelling against the Achaemenid tutelage, the city fell to the Seleucids in Hellenic times, though it maintained excellent relations with the dynasty of Pergamum. After the foundation of the province of Asia, Cyzicus was rewarded by the Romans for its brave resistance against the attacks of Mithridates by being granted the status of a free city and control over part of Mysia to the north. It lost this freedom under Tiberius, but remained on the whole on good terms with the Roman emperors and their Thracian allies. The incursions of the barbarians from the Lower Empire and the wars of the Middle Ages, combined with the damage caused by several earthquakes, finally led to the abandonment of the site.
The ruins of Cyzicus are scattered on the mountain slope to the north of the isthmus which was created by alluvial deposits in the area of the former channel; the latter was, from the end of the 4th century B.C., crossed by bridges and causeways built on the advice of Alexander. These ruins can only be approached on foot, and are found to the left and right of the road that runs to Erdek amidst fields, thickets, vineyards, plane trees, olive trees, and mulberry trees. On the left, a Byzantine tower guides us to the rather insignificant remains of the large Temple of Hadrian, inaugurated in 167 under Marcus Aurelius. On the right, a homely “factory” for processing olives indicates the way to the hamlet, beyond which by following a brook upstream we come to the huge, and much more spectacular, ruins of an amphitheatre; in the same area, to the south south east, is a theatre whose cavea is still recognizable, and some ancient walls.
The best finds from the territory of Cyzicus were taken to the museum of Istanbul and to the museum of Bursa (Attis). There are some at Mehmet Aytekin’s at Edincik and various fragments are kept in the lapidary collection at Erdek.
Erdek (the former Artake) is on the south-east coast of the peninsula, some 20 km by the road from Bandırma. The open-air museum in a square beside the sea, displays architectural fragments, votive reliefs and fragments of statuettes. If we turn left along the shore, we come (1 km) to the foot of the rocky promonory of Murad Bair on which stand the ruins of a Byzantine mortification in which many ancient materials were reused.
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