The origin of Pergamum is unknown, but such an easily defended hill would have been inhabited at a very early date. The main weakness of its defense was a lack of water.
Pergamum was first mentioned in Xenephon’s Anabasis as the meeting place in 399 B.C. of Xenephon and the commander of the Spartans who had just defeated the Athenians in one of the Peloponnesian Wars. Nothing more is heard of Pergamum until after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Then Lysimachus, one of his generals, took control of western Asia Minor. Later there was a series of kings named alternately Eumenes and Attalus who extended and strengthened their kingdom and spent some of their booty decorating the towering citadel of Pergamum with beautiful white marble structures. What is left of their contributions continues to attract people even now to their city.
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