Alexander

Alexander & after: Persian control of Anatolia continued until 334 BC when a new force stormed across Anatolia. Alexander and his Macedonian adventurers crossed the Dardanelles at Çanakkale, initially intent on relieving Anatolia of the Persian yoke. Sweeping down the coast they rolled the Persians at Granicus, near Troy...

Romans

Roman rule & the rise of Christianity: Ironically, Pergamum, the greatest of the post-Alexandrian cities, became the mechanism by which the Romans came to control Anatolia. The Roman legions had defeated the armies of a Seleucid king at Magnesia (Manisa) in 190 BC, but Pergamum became the beachhead from which the Roman embrace of Anatolia began...

Byzantium

Rome asunder, Byzantium arises: Even with a new capital at Constantinople, the Roman Empire proved no less unwieldy. Once the steadying hand of Theodosius (r 379–95) was gone the impact of the reforms that Diocletian had instituted earlier became apparent: the empire split. The western – Roman – half of the empire eventually...

Post-Hittite

Classical empires: Greece & Persia: Post-Hittite Anatolia consisted of a patchwork of peoples, both indigenous Anatolians and recent interlopers. In the east the Urartians, descendants of earlier Anatolian Hurrians, forged a kingdom near Lake Van (Van Gölü).

Bronze Age

Ages of Bronze: The Hittites: he Hatti were only a temporary presence. As they declined, a new people, the Hittites, assumed their territory. From Alacahöyük, the Hittites shifted their capital to Hattuşa (near present-day Boğazkale) some time around 1800 BC.

7th Millennium BC

Early cultures, cities & clashes: Archaeological finds indicate that the earliest Anatolian hunter-gatherers lived in caves during the Palaeolithic era. By around the 7th millennium BC some folk had abandoned their nomadic existence and formed settlements.

Ottoman

The fledgling Ottoman state: The Ottoman Turks were in fact new to Islam, flitting with impunity around the borderlands between Byzantine and formerly Seljuk territory, but once galvanised they moved with the zeal of the new convert. In an era marked by destruction and dissolution they provided an ideal that attracted legions of followers and they quickly established....