The site of present Izmir (formerly Smyrna) in west central Turkey on the Aegean Sea at the eastern end of the Gulf of Izmir is one of the oldest settlements of the Mediterranean basin.

The 2004 discovery of Yesilova Höyük and the neighboring Yassıtepe, situated in the small delta of Meles River, now the plain of Bornova, reset the starting date of the city's past further back than was previously thought.

The findings of the two seasons of excavations carried out in the Yesilova Höyük by a team of archaeologists from Izmir's Ege University indicate three levels, two of which are prehistoric.

Level 2 bears traces of early to mid-Chalcolithic, and Level 3 of Neolithic settlements.

The indigenous peoples of Izmir would have inhabited these two levels between the seventh millennium BCE and fourth millennium BCE, very roughly.

With the seashore drawing away in time, the site was later used as a cemetery.

Several graves containing artifacts dating, roughly, from 3000 BCE, contemporary with the first city of Troy, were found.

The major Greek settlement of Anatolia's west coast belongs to the Dark Age.

In contrast to the colonization, at best sporadic, of the Mycenaean period, this movement has all the characteristics of a migration.

Aeolis, also called Aeolia, is a group of ancient cities on the west coast of Anatolia, which are founded at the end of the second millennium BCE by Greeks speaking the Aeolic dialect native to Thessaly and Boeotia.

Migrations during 1130-1000 BCE result in the earliest settlements, located on the mainland between Troas and Ionia—where Greek settlement at Smyrna (by Aeolians, according to Herodotus; the Ionians will seize the city in the mid-seventh century BCE) is first clearly attested by the presence of pottery dating from about 1000 BCE.

Aeolian territory stretches north of the Gediz (Hermus) River up to Pitane, with Cyme as the most important settlement.

According to Herodotus, by the eighth century BCE, the Aeolians' twelve most important cities are independent, and form a league (Dodecapolis): Cyme (also called Phriconis), Larissae, Neonteichos, Temnus, Cilla, Notion, Aegiroessa, Pitane, Aegae, Myrina, Gryneia, and Smyrna, the most celebrated of the cities.

…Smyrna, after which the Lydian king travels to Greece to make offerings at Delphi, like the Phrygian Midas before him.

The Ionian city of Smyrna has grown in the seventh century from modest beginnings into a stately city, with massive fortifications and blocks of two-storied houses.

When the Mermnad kings raised the Lydian power and aggressiveness, Smyrna had been one of the first points of attack.

Gyges, who regned from about 687 to 652 BCE,was, however, defeated on the banks of the Hermus, the situation of the battlefield showing that the power of Smyrna extended far to the east.

A strong fortress was built probably by the Smyrnaean Ionians to command the valley of Nymphi, the ruins of which are still imposing, on a hill in the pass between Smyrna and Nymphi.

According to Theognis, who will flourish around 500 BCE, it was pride that destroyed Smyrna.

Mimnermus laments the degeneracy of the citizens of his day, who could no longer stem the Lydian advance.

Finally, Alyattes of Lydia conquers the city and sacks it, with its inhabitants forced to move into the countryside.

Although Smyrna does not cease to exist, the Greek life and political unity are destroyed, and the polis is reorganized on the village system.

Rufus, by assisting his superior in his efforts to protect the provincials from the extortions of the publicani, or farmers of taxes, has incurred the hatred of the equestrian order, to which the publicani belong.

He is charged in 92 BCE with the very offense of extortion over those whom he had done his utmost to prevent.

The charge is widely known to be false, but as the juries at this time are chosen from the equestrian order, his condemnation is only to be expected, as the order bears a grudge against him.

Rufus is defended by his nephew Gaius Aurelius Cotta and accepts the verdict with the resignation befitting a Stoic and pupil of Panaetius.

He retires to Mytilene, and afterwards to Smyrna, where he is to spend the rest of his life (possibly as an act of defiance against his prosecutors: he is welcomed with honor into the very city he had been prosecuted for allegedly looting).

Publius Cornelius Dolabella at Caesar's death in 44 BCE had seized the insignia of the consulship (which had already been conditionally promised him) and, by making friends with Marcus Junius Brutus and the other assassins, had been confirmed in his office.

When, however, Mark Antony had offered him the command of the expedition against the Parthians and the province of Syria, he had changed sides at once.

His journey to the province is marked by plundering, extortion, and the murder of Gaius Trebonius, proconsul of Asia, who had refused to allow him to enter Smyrna.

Dolabella is thereupon declared a public enemy and superseded by Gaius Cassius Longinus, who had been a principal among Casear’s forty-odd assassins.

Cassius attacks Dolabella in Laodicea.

Strabo mentions that Dolabella, when he fled to Laodicea before Cassius, had distressed Laodicea greatly, and that, being besieged there until his death, he had destroyed many parts of the city with him.

When Cassius's troops capture the place, Dolabella orders one of his soldiers to kill him.

Cassius is now secure enough to march on Egypt, but Brutus requests his assistance upon the formation of the new triumvirate of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Mark Antony, and Octavian,.

Cassius quickly joins Brutus in Smyrna with most of his army, leaving his nephew behind to govern Syria.

The conspirators decide to attack the triumvir’s allies in Asia.

…Smyrna flourish as both producers and commercial centers.

From this settled prosperity, an urban Greek elite arises.

Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, leader of the church in Anatolia, and a defender of orthodoxy, opposes Marcion and other gnostic teachers.

He visits Rome in 155 to discuss with its bishop the disputed date for the celebration of Easter; the two agree that the Eastern and Western churches will continue their divergent usages.

Following his return to Smyrna, Polycarp is supposedly arrested, tried, and burned to death, his martyrdom aided and abetted by a mob of Jews and pagans. (The oldest known narrative of a Christian martyr, contained in a letter from the church of Smyrna, recounts his trial and execution. Irenaeus will, some decades hence, assert that Polycarp was a disciple of Saint John, making him a living link between the Apostles and the church of the later second century CE. A letter addressed to Polycarp by the martyred Ignatius of Antioch survives, along with one letter—or perhaps a combination of two—by Polycarp to the Philippians that illuminates early Christian doctrine, organization, and use of Scripture.)

Turkish emir Tzachas conquers İzmir and founds a short-lived principality, emerging as the first sea power in Turkish history.

Tzachas had been taken as a prisoner during a war with the Empire by Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates, who had taken an interest in the youth and brought him to live in the palace, granted him the title of protonobilissimus.

After Alexios I Komnenos becomes emperor in 1081, Tzachas returns to Anatolia and begins a war against the empire.

Intent upon expanding his power, he orders the construction of a fleet at the shipyards of Smyrna and Ephesus.

This fleet, which consists of thirty-three sail ships and seventeen oar ships, is the first Anatolian Turkish navy.