The most intact ancient city in Asia Minor — a 2,000-seat odeon, a 30,000-seat stadium still entirely standing, and the Sebasteion friezes that are the finest relief sculpture in the Roman world
Aphrodisias (the ancient city dedicated to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love — Aphrodite's cult center in Asia Minor, now in Aydin Province in southwestern Turkey, 90km southeast of Ephesus) is the best-preserved classical city in Asia Minor: while Ephesus, Pergamon, and Miletus are largely reduced to foundation-level ruins, Aphrodisias retains standing architecture on an extraordinary scale. The city's three primary monuments are each superlative in the ancient Mediterranean world: the Odeon (the council chamber, c. 200 CE, 2,000 seats, its stage building still standing to its original he…
Aphrodisias was inhabited from the Neolithic period, but the city achieved its greatest importance in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (3rd century BCE to 5th century CE) because of its association with Aphrodite (who was identified with the Roman Venus, the divine ancestor of the Julian family — Julius Caesar and Augustus both had particular interest in sites sacred to Venus/Aphrodite). Augustus granted Aphrodisias exceptional privileges: freedom from taxation, autonomy from the provincial governor, and an explicit grant of friendship that the city displayed on inscribed marble (one of the…