Nicaea

Nicaea or Nicea (/naɪˈsiːə/; Greek: Νίκαια, Turkish: İznik) was an ancient city in northwestern Anatolia, and is primarily known as the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seventh Ecumenical councils in the early history of the Christian Church), the Nicene Creed (which comes from the First Council), and as the capital city of the Empire of Nicaea following the Fourth Crusade in 1204, until the recapture of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1261.

The ancient city is located within the modern Turkish city of İznik (whose modern name derives from Nicaea's), and is situated in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake Ascanius, bounded by ranges of hills to the north and south. It is situated with its west wall rising from the lake itself, providing both protection from siege from that direction, as well as a source of supplies which would be difficult to cut off. The lake is large enough that it could not be blockaded from the land easily, and the city was large enough to make any attempt to reach the harbour from shore-based siege weapons very difficult.

Nicaea (disambiguation)

Nicaea (pronounced Ni·cae·a) or Nikaia (Greek: Νίκαια) may refer to :

Places and jurisdictions

Persons

Other

Nikaia, Illyria

Coordinates: 40°32′25″N 19°44′15″E / 40.54028°N 19.73750°E / 40.54028; 19.73750

Nicaea or Nikaia (Greek: Νίκαια) was an ancient Greek city in the region of Illyria.

History

Nicaea is located 1500 meters south of Byllis or near Fier.Stephanus of Byzantium calls it a polis. It was too large to a be a kome and had walled fortifications in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The city plan resembles that of another Greek city, Amantia. As a 2nd-century BC inscription indicates (Σώστρατος...Βυλλίων απο Νίκαιας), the city was a member of the Koinon of the Bylliones. The corpus of names found in Nikaia is Greek, (Alexander, Andriscus, Archelaus, Kebbas, Maketa, Machatas, Nikanor, Peukolaos, Phalakros, Philotas, Drimakos and Alexommas) with very few Illyrian names.

A Hellenistic inscription records a strategos eponymos (Greek: Στρατηγός επώνυμος) a general of the Koinon of the Bylliones. This Koinon of the Bylliones did not refer to an ethnos, but to the coalition of Byllis and Nikaia to which it was restricted.Byllis considered Nikaia to be one of its demes. Inscriptions at both Byllis and Nikaia begin in the middle of the 4th century BC and are both in ancient Greek, as are institutions and the gods worshiped.