This has been thoroughly explored by German science; its remains are superb; its chief buildings date from an age when town-planning had grown familiar to the Greek world.

About 300 B.C.it was a hill-town where a Macedonian chief could bestow a war-chest.

It grew both populous and splendid in the third and second centuries B.C.under the Attalid kings; later builders, Augustus or Trajan or other, added little either to its general design or to its architectural glory.

The dominant idea was that of a semi-circle of great edifices, crowning the crest and inner slopes of a high crescent-shaped ridge.

Near the northern and highest end of this ridge stood the palace of the Attalid princes, afterwards buried beneath a temple in honour of Trajan.