Pteria () was the capital of the
Leucosyri in northern
Cappadocia
Cappadocia (; , from ) is a historical region in Central Anatolia region, Turkey. It is largely in the provinces of Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde. Today, the touristic Cappadocia Region is located in Nevşehir ...
. They were said by
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
to have been taken and ruined by
Croesus
Croesus ( ; ; Latin: ; reigned:
)
was the Monarch, king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his Siege of Sardis (547 BC), defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was ...
in 547 BCE. It also was the place of the
Battle of Pteria, an undecided battle between
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia ( ; 530 BC), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Hailing from Persis, he brought the Achaemenid dynasty to power by defeating the Media ...
and
Croesus
Croesus ( ; ; Latin: ; reigned:
)
was the Monarch, king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his Siege of Sardis (547 BC), defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years. Croesus was ...
.
Stephanus of Byzantium
Stephanus or Stephen of Byzantium (; , ''Stéphanos Byzántios''; centuryAD) was a Byzantine grammarian and the author of an important geographical dictionary entitled ''Ethnica'' (). Only meagre fragments of the dictionary survive, but the epit ...
cites two towns with this or a similar name: a
Pterium, which he calls a town of the
Medes
The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...
, and
Pteria, a town in the territory of
Sinope.
Its site is located near
Kerkenes Dağ,
Asiatic Turkey.
External links
The Histories of Herodotus By Herodotus, Henry Cary*
References
Attribution
Populated places in ancient Cappadocia
Former populated places in Turkey
History of Yozgat Province
{{Yozgat-geo-stub