Alexandria Troas

Alexandria Troas is one of the largest and least-visited Hellenistic-Roman cities in Turkey, occupying a coastal plateau near the village of Dalyan in the Ezine district of Çanakkale Province, approximately 50 kilometres south of Çanakkale city. The city was founded around 306 BCE by Antigonus I Monophthalmus, one of Alexander the Great's successors, under the name Antigoneia, and refounded shortly after 301 BCE by Lysimachus, who renamed it Alexandria Troas. Under Roman rule from the 1st century BCE, the city grew into a major Aegean port with a population estimated at 100,000 at its height, served by a large artificial harbour still partially visible along the coastline. The Roman emperor Augustus and later Hadrian invested in its infrastructure: extensive bath complexes, a massive odeon, a gymnasium, and aqueduct channels survive across several hectares of pine forest. Paul the Apostle passed through Alexandria Troas on at least three occasions recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (chapters 16, 20, and 2 Corinthians 2), making the city a site of early Christian significance. The most imposing visible remnant today is the Herodes Atticus Bath (Baths of Herodes Atticus, 2nd century CE), whose massive granite-block walls rise to 15 metres in some sections, creating an atmospheric ruin of considerable scale within the surrounding forest. Granite column drums and column shafts litter the site throughout — many were removed to Istanbul for use in the Sultanahmet Mosque construction in the early 17th century. The site is unfenced and informally accessible at all times, though the absence of interpretive signage makes prior research or a guide useful.