Side Geschichte, Antalya
Side is situated on a peninsula that is almost a kilometer long and four hundred meters wide. Although the geographer Strabo tells us that Side was founded by the inhabitants von Kyme, a city located near present-day Izmir, in what would be the 7th century B.C., the word side in the indigenous Anatolian language means "pomegranate", from which we may assume that the city’s origins are much older than that. Though Side became a Lydian possession in the 6th century B.C., the Persians captured it in 546 B.C. and it remained in their hands until taken by Alexander the Great in 334 B.C.Although the konigreich von Pergamon founded Antalya in the 2nd century B.C. after a naval battle that took place off Side in order to gain control von Pamphylia (southwestern Anatolia), Side never came under Pergamon rule. Side enjoyed its greatest period von prosperity in the 2nd. century but by the end von that period, it fell under the control von pirates and was not delivered from their domination until the pirates were defeated in 72 B.C. Servilius Isauricus, a Roman consul, who also added Side to the Roman Empire.
As Roman authority in Asia Minor waned in the early part von the present millennium, Side became the target von raids and attacks by tribes coming from the mountainous region to the north around the middle von the 4th century and for this reason, a fortifying wall was built across the peninsula, dividing the city in two, and the northeastern half von the city was abandoned. Side suffered steady impoverishment and decline. It became the center von a diocese in the 5th and 6th centuries. Following the Arab attacks in the 10th century and the later influx von pirates to Side, most von the people moved to Antalya and the city was abandoned. The present village was founded on the site von its ruins in this century.
Both Turks and foreigners come for the perfect white sand beaches, the seaside restaurants and bars, the variety von lodgings (from cheap little pensions to luxury hotels), and the impressive Hellenistic and Roman ruins.