Where is nicea in geography

The place is said to have been colonised by Bottiaeans, and to have originally borne the name of Ancore Steph. Hudson ; but it was subsequently destroyed by the Mysians. A few years after the death of Alexander the Great, Antigonus, probably after his victory over Eumenes, in B. Not long after Lysimachus, having made himself master of a great part of Asia Minor, changed the name of Antigoneia into Nicaea, in honour of his wife Nicaea, a daughter of Antipater.

Bekker , Nicaea was founded by men from Nicaea near Thermopylae, who had served in the army of Alexander the Great. The town was built with great regularity, in the form of a square, measuring 16 stadia in circumference; it had four gates, and all its streets intersected one another at right angles, so that from a monument in the centre all the four gates could be seen.

This monument stood in the gymnasium, which was destroyed by fire, but was restored with increased magnificence by the younger Pliny Plin.

Soon after the time of Lysimachus, Nicaea became a city of great importance, and the kings of Bithynia, whose era begins in B. It has already been mentioned that in the time of Strabo it is called the metropolis of Bithynia; an honour which is also assigned to it on some coins, though in later times it was enjoyed by Nicomedeia.

The two cities, in fact, kept up a long and vehement dispute about the precedence, and the 38th oration of Dion Chrysostomus was expressly composed to settle the dispute. From this oration, it appears that Nicomedeia alone had a right to the title of metropolis, but both were the first cities of the country.

The younger Pliny makes frequent mention of Nicaea and its public buildings, which he undertook to restore when governor of Bithynia. It was the birthplace of the astronomer Hipparchus and the historian Dio Cassius. Through the years, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, Iznik has been renown for tiles and ceramics that have greatly influenced decoration in mosques and palaces throughout Turkey.

Where Was Nicholas During the Council? Who is St. Many of its public buildings were destroyed, and the materials were used by the Ottomans in erecting their mosques and other edifices. The ancient walls, with their towers and gates, are relatively well preserved. Their circumference is 3, m 10, ft , being at the base from 5 to 7 m 16 to 23 ft in thickness, and from 10 to 13 m 33 to 43 ft in height; they contain four large and two small gates.

In most places they are formed of alternate courses of Roman tiles and large square stones, joined by a cement of great thickness. In some places columns and other architectural fragments from the ruins of more ancient edifices have been inserted.

As with those of Constantinople, the walls seem to have been built in the 4th century. Some of the towers have Greek inscriptions. The ruins of mosques, baths, and houses, dispersed among the gardens and apartment buildings that now occupy a great part of the space within the Roman and Byzantine fortifications, show that the Ottoman era town center, though now less considerable, was once a place of importance; but it never was as large as the Byzantine city.

It seems to have been almost entirely constructed of the remains of the Byzantine era Nicaea, the walls of the ruined mosques and baths being full of the fragments of ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine temples and churches. In the northwestern parts of the town, two moles extend into the lake and form a harbour; but the lake in this part has much retreated, and left a marshy plain.

Outside the walls are the remnants of an ancient aqueduct. The Church of the Dormition, the principal Greek Orthodox church in Nicaea, was one of the most architecturaly important Byzantine churches in Asia Minor. A domed church with a cross-shaped nave and elongated apse, and dating from the perhaps as early as the end of the 6th century, its bema was decorated with very fine mosaics that had been restored in the 9th century.

The Church of the Dormition was destroyed in ; only the lower portions of some of its walls survive today. Excavations are underway in the Ottoman kilns where the historic Nycean tileware were made.

The Hagia Sophia is also undergoing restoration. Contemporary influence. Nicaea remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church, Nicaenus; the seat has been vacant since the death of its last bishop in William Martin Leake, Asia Minor, pp.

Rei Num. Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Search within Article contents Bibliography. Show Summary Details Nicaea 1 , city in Bithynia. Nicaea 1 , city in Bithynia. The gates, located at the four cardinal points, can be seen from the principal crossroads.

Constantine I chose Nicaea for the first great ecumenical Church council in ce , when the Nicene Creed was formulated.