Bergama

Bergama stands on the slopes beneath the acropolis of ancient Pergamon, once the capital of the Attalid kings and later a great city of Roman Asia, famous for its library and the healing sanctuary of the Asklepieion. The Bakırçay valley below is crossed by old bridges, and the Roman Selinus river still runs through tunnels beneath the Red Basilica. After centuries in Byzantine hands, the Byzantines abandoned the town in 1302 and it fell to the Karasi beylik.

When Ibn Battuta came through in 1333 he found a ruined town, though with an extremely strong fortress. Bergama served as the seat of Yahşi Khan, the Karasid emir who ruled the district around Pergamon while his kinsman held Balıkesir. The Ottomans absorbed the beylik in the mid-14th century, and Bergama became a small provincial town in the sanjak of Karesi. The first Ottoman census, in 1831, counted only about 3,500 men in the town.