City
Gargara
bei Arıklı
Listen to the story
Gargara began as a hill town on a spur of Mount Ida, where Homer places a summit called Gargaron with a sanctuary of Zeus. Ancient writers say the townspeople later moved down to the shore because the heights were too cold, and the Tabula shows the newer coastal town, near Arıklı in Turkey. Its cornfields became proverbial: the poet Virgil has Gargara marvelling at its own harvests, and the Roman writer Macrobius notes that its name stood for any vast quantity. The harbour still mattered under Rome, and the town later became a Byzantine bishop's seat.