Philadelphia was founded by Attalus II, King of Pergamum, 159-138 B. C., who was called Philadelphus because of his devotion to his predecessor and brother, Eumenes II. Hence the city was named Philadelphia. It was founded for the purpose of spreading Hellenism in the eastern part of Lydia, and so was a missionary city from the first. With the other Pergamene territories it became a dependency of Rome in 133 B. C. In 17 A. D. it suffered severely from the same earthquake that destroyed Sardis. Indeed, at Philadelphia the quakings were even more severe. The trembling of the earth lasted for a long time. When Strabo wrote in 20 A. D. earthquake shocks at Philadelphia were an every-day occurrence. Few people lived in the city; most of the inhabitants spent their time outside.[348] Allusion to this is, perhaps, made in Rev. 3:12: “he shall go out thence no more.” After the earthquake the city appealed to Rome for help. Tiberius granted it and also permitted the city to change its name to Neocæsarea, or the city of the young Cæsar.[349] This, too, seems to be alluded to in Rev. 3:12, where another new name is to be conferred. At Ala-Sheher a part of the city wall of Philadelphia may still be traced, and the sites of the acropolis, the theater, and the stadium may also be seen, as well as the ruins of an old Christian church.[350] (6) _Smyrna_, at the mouth of the Hermus, is one of the very old cities of Asia Minor. A colony of Æolian Greeks founded a city here more than a thousand years before Christ. A little later the place was captured by Ionian Greeks, who held it till about 600 B. C., when it was conquered by the kings of Lydia and destroyed.[351] For three hundred years the name designated a district rather than a city. Lysimachus, the general of Alexander the Great who became king of Thrace (301-282 B. C.), refounded Smyrna as a Greek city about three miles southwest of the old site, and it has continued ever since to be an important seaport of Asia Minor. It passed with the other cities of the region successively under the sway of the kings of Syria, the kings of Pergamum, and of Rome. Smyrna is today one of the largest cities of the East with a population of between two and three hundred thousand. Smyrna claimed to be the birthplace of Homer. Ælius Aristides (born 117 A. D.), who lived at Smyrna, several times likens the city to a crown, and apparently the crown was in some way associated with Smyrna; (see Fig. 287). The goddess of the place, who was a kind of Cybele, is pictured as wearing a crown.[352] This is, no doubt, the reason why in Rev. 2:10 a crown of life is promised to the church of Smyrna if she is faithful. No excavations have been made at Smyrna, but above the city the tomb of Polycarp,[353] said in tradition to have been a disciple of the Apostle John, is shown. Polycarp was martyred in 155 A. D. in one of those times of tribulation predicted in Rev. 2:10.