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Patmos | Ephesus | Smyrna | Pergamum
Thyatira | Sardis | Philadelphia | Laodicea
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The Roman Province of Asia

In the 13th century, BCE, Mycaenean Greeks came to the western shores of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) in a series of raids that included the famous siege of Troy described in Homer’s Iliad. Soon after, they settled in towns along the coast, a region that came to be called Ionia. During the eighth to sixth centuries BCE, this region came under the control of the powerful and wealthy kings of Sardis (see Herodotus for the details), then known as Lydia. In 547/546 BCE, Cyrus defeated Croesus, the most famous king of Lydia, and captured Sardis.

The Persians ruled Lydia for two centuries until Alexander the Great defeated them and liberated the region. At Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, members of his general staff (known as the Diadochoi, “The Companions” or “The Successors”) divided his empire. They included Antipater, Eumenes, Perdiccas, Antigonus (“The One-Eyed”), Lysimachus, Ptolemy, Leonnatus, and Seleucus. For the next 40 years, they fought each other for control of portions of Alexander’s legacy, with the Ionian region changing hands several times.

By 281 BCE, when Seleucus, the last of the Diadochoi, died, all of Asia Minor was firmly in the hands of the Seleucids under Antiochus I. Philataerus, Lysimachus’s treacherous treasurer, ruled Lydia for Antiochus. Philataerus selected Pergamum over Sardis as his capital. His brother Attalus I succeeded him. Attalus was the first of a six-king dynasty (called “Attalid” after him) that ruled the kingdom for the next 150 years. During the reign of the Attalid kings, the entire region enjoyed great prosperity. In 133 BCE, when Attalus III, the last Attalid king, was about to die without an heir, he bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans.

Recognizing the fantastic windfall they were receiving, the Romans accepted the gift and soon reorganized the Attalid territories into the province of Asia, retaining Pergamum as its capital. (When we speak of “Asia” in connection with the Book of Revelation, it is to this Roman province that we are referring—roughly equivalent to the westernmost third of what is now Turkey—not to the immense continent of the same name that stretches from the Hellespont to the Pacific Ocean.) The province was regarded as one of the richest sources of revenue in the empire, and a choice plum for a provincial governor.

Four east-to-west river valleys watered the province of Asia. In ancient times, their names were, from north to south: the Caicus, the Hermus, the Cayster, and the Meander. The Lycus is a tributary of the Meander, joining it one hundred miles upstream from its mouth. The entire area was rich in agriculture and commerce, serving as the gateway to the rest of Asia.

The Apostle John wrote Revelation from Patmos, an island of the Aegean Sea about 59.5 km. (37 mi.) southwest of Ephesus. Though Acts does not mention Patmos, it does refer to several of the other islands off the coast of Asia Minor, including Samothrace, Chios, Samos, Cos, and Rhodes. Lesbos is not mentioned, but Acts does refer to its principal port, Mitylene.

Of the seven Asian cities mentioned in Revelation, Paul’s letters refer to two, Ephesus and Laodicea. It is possible that at one time or another he visited all seven. The most likely time for such visits was during his two-plus-years stay in Ephesus at the beginning of his Third Missionary Journey. The author of Acts reports that during that period, “all the Jews and Greeks living in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.... the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power” (Acts 19:10, 20). A careful tracing of Paul’s subsequent journey to Greece suggests that he probably traveled through Smyrna and perhaps Pergamum (Acts 20:1-2; 2 Cor. 2:12-13). If Paul himself did not found churches in these cities, they arose during or shortly after his time, for they were already well established at the time of the writing of Revelation (see Rev. 2:4-5, 13, 19).

Asia continued under Roman rule until Byzantine times. It fell to the Muslim invaders in the seventh century CE and eventually became part of the Ottoman Empire. After World War I, Greeks gained British support for their claims for Ionia against the counterclaims of Turkey. By 1922, however, negotiations had broken down, leading to a bloody conflict in which the Turks drove out or exterminated all of the Greek and Armenian Christian residents. Estimates put the number of slain in Smyrna alone at well over 100,000. Since 1922, the population within the area that once was the Roman province of Asia has been almost 100% Muslim.

Today, much to the dismay of the Turkish government, artifacts of the Romans province of Asia, are distributed in museums located not only in Turkey, but also in other countries throughout the world, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and the United States.