The city was originally built, like many others that long adorned Asia Minor, by descendants of the enterprising soldiers that followed Alexander the Great in his Persian expedition; who, after carrying war and its destructive train into the countries of the East, compensated their ravages by building cities in the place of those they had destroyed, and leaving behind them the arts and language of Greece. Attalus Philadelphus selected a site at the foot of Mount Tmolus, and called it Philadelphus, after himself. When Christianity expanded, the inhabitants early received the Gospel, and it became one of the churches distinguished by the Evangelist among the seven. He eulogizes it as that which “kept the word of God, and denied not his name.” An impression remained on the minds of the people, derived perhaps from their interpretation of the Apocalypse, that their city never had and never would be taken. When, therefore, the Moslems inflicted ruin and desolation on other Christian communities, the inhabitants of Philadelphia despised them. They had heard that they had “laid waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps,” yet they read that “by the way they came, they should return,” and “not come into this city.” They therefore made a vigorous resistance, and though remote from the sea, and bereft of all maritime aid, they, for near a century, and long after other Christian cities had been destroyed, repelled all the attempts of the Osmanli. At length, exhausted by famine, they could make no further resistance, and fell under the superior power of Ilderim, the Turkish Thunderbolt. The town stands upon a hill, and, like all Greek cities, ascends to an acropolis. Around the base expands a singularly rich country, even now in a high state of cultivation, divided into gardens and vineyards, and beyond them one of those verdant and fertile plains which distinguish Asia Minor. There are few remains of antiquity which mark the era when Grecian art flourished. Such walls and masses of masonry as now stand, belong to the time of the Lower Empire. Among the barbarous remnants of those times is a wall of human bones, cemented together, near the town, and said to be evidence of the massacre perpetrated by Bajazet, who formed the structure as a monument of the terrible effects of resisting his wrath. It is a companion for the pyramid of human heads which his rival Tamerlane erected on similar occasions. The present Christian population amount to about 1800. They have 25 churches, but the greater part of them are disused, except once in the year: in five only is weekly service regularly performed. The remains of ancient Christian churches, of an era immediately succeeding the Apocalypse, are still shown; particularly one dedicated to him who saw and recorded the vision.