Story
The story of Soli
When Alexander the Great arrived here in 333 BCE, he fined the city 200 talents for favouring the Persians. Soli, also known as Pompeiopolis, lies on the shore 11 km west of Mersin, and its story runs far deeper. At the Yumuktepe mound, 9 km to the northeast, humans were present as early as 7000 BCE, and the first Luwian settlements and fortifications at Soli date to the 15th century BCE, when the city became an active port.
After the Bronze Age Collapse comes a destruction layer of burned, broken pottery and a gap in occupation. Between 700 and 690 BCE, Achaean and Rhodian colonists settled here again. Alexander imposed a democratic constitution, made a sacrifice to Asclepius and held honorary games, and a year later took three triremes from Soli and nearby Mallus for his siege of Tyre.
In 83 BCE the Armenian ruler Tigranes II burned the city and carried its citizens off to his new capital, Tigranakert.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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