Colophon

CO´LOPHON(Κολοφών: Eth. Κολοφώνιος), one of the Ionian cities of Asia, founded, according to tradition, by Andraemon. The tomb of Andraemon was on the left as a man went from Colophon, after crossing the river Calaon. (Paus. 7.3.5.) It was 120 stadia from Lebedus, which was north of it; and from Ephesus, which was south of it, 70 stadia, direct sailing, but 120 along the coast. (Strab. p. 643.) The little river Hales or Ales flowed by Colophon, and was noted for the coolness of its water. (Paus. 8.28.3.) The place was a short distance from the coast; and its port was Notium (Νότιον), with respect to which Colophon was called the upper city (ἡ ἄνω πόλις, Thuc. 3.34).
Colophon and Ephesus did not, like the other Ionian cities of Asia, celebrate the festival of the Apaturia; for some reason or other connected with an affair of blood. (Hdt. 1.147.) At an early period in the history of Colophon, some of the citizens being exiled by the opposite faction, retired to Smyrna, where they were received. But, watching an opportunity, they seized the town, and the matter was at last settled by the Smyrnaeans agreeing to go away with all their moveables, and leaving Smyrna in possession of the Colophonian exiles. (Hdt. 1.150; compare the confused story in Strabo, p. 633, about Smyrna and Colophon.) Herodotus mentions Notium as an Aeolian city (1.149); and some critics have supposed that he means the Notium which was the port or lower city of Colophon; a supposition that needs no refutation.
Colophon was taken by Gyges, king of Lydia. (Hdt. 1.14.) Alyattes, one of his successors, took Smyrna, the city that was founded from Colophon(Hdt. 1.16),—in which passage Herodotus appears to allude to the story of Smyrna that he tells in another place (1.150). Colophon is seldom mentioned. Early in the Peloponnesian War the Persians got possession of the upper town or Colophon, owing to the people quarrelling among themselves. The party who were expelled maintained themselves in Notium; but even they could not agree, and a Persian faction was formed in Notium. The party opposed to the Persians called in Paches, the Athenian commander, who drove the Persian party out of Notium, and gave it back to the Colophonians, except those who had been on the Persian side. Afterwards the Athenians sent some settlers to Notium, and collected there all the Colophonians that they could from the cities to which they had fled. (Thuc. 3.34.) Notium and Colophon are mentioned by Xenophon (Xen. Hell. 1.1.4) as distinct towns.
Lysimachus, a Macedonian, and one of Alexander's body-guard, who, after Alexander's death, made himself king of the Thracians, destroyed Lebedus and Colophon, and removed the people to his new city of Ephesus. (Paus. 1.9.7, 7.3.4.) The Colophonii were the only people of those removed to Ephesus who resisted Lysimachus and his Macedonians; and those who fell in the battle were buried on the way from Colophon to Clarus, on the left side of the road. Probably a large mound was raised over the dead. Antiochus, king of Syria, in his war with the Romans (B.C. 190), unsuccessfully besieged Notium, which Livy (Liv. 37.26) calls oppidum Colophonium,and he observes that it was about two miles from Old Colophon. On the settlement of affairs after the war with Antiochus, the Romans gave to the Colophonii who dwelt in Notiumfreedom from taxation (immunitas), as a reward for their fidelity to them in the war. (Liv. 38.39.) Polybius also calls the Colophonii those who dwelt in Notium(22.27). But it was still the fashion to speak of Colophon as Cicero does ( pro Leg. Manil. 100.12) when he mentions Colophon as one of the cities plundered by the pirates in his own time. This Colophon seems to be Notium. Strabo does not mention Notium; and he speaks of Colophon as if the old city existed when he wrote, though his remarks on the distance from Ephesus seem to apply rather to Notium or New Colophon than to the old town. Mela (1.17) mentions Colophon, and not Notium. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 5.29) says that Colophon is in the interior, and that the Halesus (the Ales of Pausanias) flows by it. Next is the temple of Apollo of Clarus, Lebedus: there was also Notium, a town.This is a good example of Pliny's careless compilation. Thucydides tells us that Notium was the town on the coast or naval town, and that Colophon was the upper town; and Livy distinguishes the two clearly, and gives the distance of Old Colophon from the coast. The site of Notium and Colophon is easily determined, being near to Clarus. [CLARUS] Chandler says that there are no ruins at Notium, and only some miserable cabins on the site of Colophon. Notium must have been as old as Colophon: it was mentioned by Hecataeus in his Asia as a city of Ionia (Steph. B. s. v. Νότιον).
Strabo says that the Colophonians had once a good navy, and an excellent cavalry. Their cavalry was so superior as to assure the victory to the side on which it fought, whence he says came the proverb, He has put the Colophon to it(τὸν Κολοφῶνα ἐπέβηκεν) whenever a matter was brought to a certain termination. The Scholiast on the Theaetetus of Plato (on the words τὸν Κολοφῶνα ἀναγκάζω προσβιβάζων) gives a different explanation. He says that when the twelve Ionian states assembled at the Panionium, if the votes were equal, the Colophonii had the casting vote, for they received the Smyrnaeans to live with them, on behalf of whom they had this vote; whence the proverb was used to express a casting or deciding vote.
Colophon was one of the places that claimed to be the birthplace of Homer. It was the native city of Mimnermus, an elegiac poet; of the musician Polymnestus; of Phoenix, a writer of iambi (Paus. 1.9.7.); of Hermesianax, an elegiac writer (Athen. p. 597, who quotes a large fragment); of Antimachus, an epic poet; of Xenophanes, a writer of silli; and of Nicander, whose Theriaca is extant.
The resin of Colophon is mentioned by Pliny as an article of commerce; and it is also mentioned by Dioscorides (Pliny (Plin. Nat. 14.20, and Harduin‘s note) under the name Colophonia, which the French call Colophane. The mountain Gallesus, near Colophon (Strab. p. 642.), is a huge mass covered with noble pines, and it abounds in water.. The mountain supplied the pine wood for the resin. COIN OF COLOPHON.
[G.L]