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Concept
Colophon (city)
Summary
Colophon (ˈkɒləˌfɒn,_-fən; ) was an ancient city in Ionia. Founded around the turn of the 1st millennium BC, it was likely one of the oldest of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. It was located between Lebedos (120 stadia to the west) and Ephesus (70 stadia to its south). Its ruins are south of the town Değirmendere in the Menderes district of Izmir Province, Turkey.
The city's name comes from the word κολοφών, "summit", (which is also the origin of the bibliographic term "colophon", in the metaphorical sense of a 'crowning touch',) as it was sited along a ridgeline. The term colophony for rosin comes from the term colophonia resina (Κολοφωνία ῥητίνη Kolophōnia rhētinē), resin from the pine trees of Colophon, which was highly valued for increasing friction of the bow hairs of stringed musical instruments.
According to Apollodorus and Proclus, the mythical seer Calchas died at Colophon after the end of the Trojan War. Strabo names Clarus as the place of his death, which would later be a cult center in the territory of Colophon. An oracle had it that he would die when he would meet a better seer than himself. As Calchas and the other heroes on their way home from Troy came upon the seer Mopsus in Colophon, the two competed in their mantic qualities. Calchas couldn't equal Mopsus' skills as a seer, being a son of Apollo and Manto, so he died.
In Greek antiquity Damasichthon and Promethus, two sons of Codrus, King of Athens, established a colony there. (Promethus later killed Damasichthon; he then escaped to Naxos, and died there, but his corpse was brought back to Colophon by Damasichthon's sons, and subsequently lay near Colophon). It was the birthplace of the philosopher Xenophanes and the poets Antimachus and Mimnermus.
Colophon was the strongest of the Ionian cities and renowned both for its cavalry and for the inhabitants' luxurious lifestyle, until Gyges of Lydia conquered it in the 7th century BC. Colophon then went into decline and was eclipsed by neighbouring Ephesus and by the rising naval power of Ionia, Miletus.
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