Climate.—The climate is varied, but systematic observations are wanting. On the plateau the winter is long and cold, and in the northern districts there is much snow. The summer is very hot, but the nights are usually cool. On the north coast the winter is cold, and the winds, sweeping across the Black Sea from the steppes of Russia, are accompanied by torrents of rain and heavy falls of snow. East of Samsun, where the coast is partially protected by the Caucasus, the climate is more moderate. In summer the heat is damp and enervating, and, as Trebizond is approached, the vegetation becomes almost subtropical. On the south coast the winter is mild, with occasional frosts and heavy rain; the summer heat is very great. On the west coast the climate is moderate, but the influence of the cold north winds is felt as far south as Smyrna, and the winter at that place is colder than in corresponding latitudes in Europe. A great feature of summer is the inbat or north wind, which blows almost daily, often with the force of a gale, off the sea from noon till near sunset.
Products, &c.—The mineral wealth of Asia Minor is very great, but few mines have yet been opened. The minerals known to exist are—alum, antimony, arsenic, asbestos, boracide, chrome, coal, copper, emery, fuller’s earth, gold, iron, kaolin, lead, lignite, magnetic iron, manganese, meerschaum, mercury, nickel, rock-salt, silver, sulphur and zinc. The vegetation varies with the climate, soil and elevation. The mountains on the north coast are clothed with dense forests of pine, fir, cedar, oak, beech, &c. On the Taurus range the forests are smaller, and there is a larger proportion of pine. On the west coast the ilex, plane, oak, valonia oak, and pine predominate. On the plateau willows, poplars and chestnut trees grow near the streams, but nine-tenths of the country is treeless, except for scrub. On the south and west coasts the fig and olive are largely cultivated. The vine yields rich produce everywhere, except in the higher districts. The apple, pear, cherry and plum thrive well in the north; the orange, lemon, citron and sugar-cane in the south; styrax and mastic in the south-west; and the wheat lands of the Sivas vilayet can hardly be surpassed. The most important vegetable productions are—cereals, cotton, gum tragacanth, liquorice, olive oil, opium, rice, saffron, salep, tobacco and yellow berries. Silk is produced in large quantities in the vicinity of Brusa and Amasia, and mohair from the Angora goat all over the plateau. The wild animals include bear, boar, chamois, fallow red and roe deer, gazelle, hyena, ibex, jackal, leopard, lynx, moufflon, panther, wild sheep and wolf. The native reports of a maneless lion in Lycia (arslan) are probably based on the existence of large panthers. Amongst the domestic animals are the buffalo, the Syrian camel, and a mule camel, bred from a Bactrian sire and Syrian mother. Large numbers of sheep and Angora goats are reared on the plateau, and fair horses are bred on the Uzun Yaila; but no effort is made to improve the quality of the wool and mohair or the breed of horses. Good mules can be obtained in several districts, and small hardy oxen are largely bred for ploughing and transport. The larger birds are the bittern, great and small bustard, eagle, francolin, goose; giant, grey and red-legged partridge, sand grouse, pelican, pheasant, stork and swan. The rivers and lakes are well supplied with fish, and the mountain streams abound with small trout.
The principal manufactures are:—Carpets, rugs, cotton, tobacco, mohair and silk stuffs, soap, wine and leather. The exports are:—Cereal, cotton, cotton seed, dried fruits, drugs, fruit, gall nuts, gum tragacanth, liquorice root, maize, nuts, olive oil, opium, rice, sesame, sponges, storax, timber, tobacco, valonia, walnut wood, wine, yellow berries, carpets, cotton yarn, cocoons, hides, leather, mohair, silk, silk stuffs, rugs, wax, wool, leeches, live stock, minerals, &c. The imports are:—Coffee, cotton cloths, cotton goods, crockery, dry-salteries, fezzes, glass-ware, haberdashery, hardware, henna, ironware, jute, linen goods, manufactured goods, matches, petroleum, salt, sugar, woollen goods, yarns, &c.
Communications.—There are few metalled roads, and those that exist are in bad repair, but on the plateau light carts can pass nearly everywhere. The lines of railway now open are:—(1) From Haidar Pasha to Ismid, Eski-shehr and Angora; (2) from Mudania to Brusa; (3) from Eski-shehr to Afium-Kara-hissar, Konia and Bulgurli, east of Eregli (the first section of the Bagdad railway). These lines are worked by the German Gesellschaft der anatolischen Eisenbahnen. (4) From Smyrna to Manisa, Ala-shehr and Afium-Kara-hissar, with a branch line from Manisa to Soma. This line is worked by a French company. (5) From Smyrna to Aidin and Dineir, with branches to Odemish, Tireh, Sokia, Denizli, Ishekli, Seidi Keui and Bouja, constructed and worked by an English company. (6) From Mersina to Tarsus and Adana, an English line under a control mainly French. There are two competing routes for the eastern trade—one running inland from Constantinople (Haidar Pasha), the other from Smyrna. The first is connected by ferry with the European railway system; the second with the great sea routes from Smyrna to Trieste, Marseilles and Liverpool. The right to construct all railways in Armenia and north-eastern Asia Minor has been conceded to Russia, and the Germans have a virtual monopoly of the central plateau.
Ethnology.—None of the conquering races that invaded Asia Minor, whether from the east or from the west, wholly expelled or exterminated the race in possession. The vanquished retired to the hills or absorbed the victors. In the course of ages race distinction has been almost obliterated by fusion of blood; by the complete Hellenization of the country, which followed the introduction of Christianity; by the later acceptance of Islam; and by migrations due to the occupation of cultivated lands by the nomads. It will be convenient here to adopt the modern division into Moslems, Christians and Jews:—(a) Moslems. The Turks never established themselves in such numbers as to form the predominant element in the population. Where the land was unsuitable for nomad occupation the agricultural population remained, and it still retains some of its original characteristics. Thus in Cappadocia the facial type of the non-Aryan race is common, and in Galatia there are traces of Gallic blood. The Zeibeks of the west and south-west are apparently representatives of the Carians and Lycians; and the peasants of the Black Sea coast range of the people of Bithynia, Paphlagonia and Pontus. Wherever the people accepted Islam they called themselves Turks, and a majority of the so-called “Turks” belong by blood to the races that occupied Asia Minor before the Seljuk invasion. Turkish and Zaza-speaking Kurds (see [Kurdistan]) are found in the Angora and Sivas vilayets. There are many large colonies of Circassians and smaller ones of Noghai (Nogais), Tatars, Georgians, Lazis, Cossacks, Albanians and Pomaks. East of Boghaz Keui there is a compact population of Kizilbash, who are partly descendants of Shia Turks transplanted from Persia and partly of the indigenous race. In the Cilician plain there are large settlements of Nosairis who have migrated from the Syrian mountains (see [Syria]). The nomads and semi-nomads are, for the most part, representatives of the Turks, Mongols and Tatars who poured into the country during the 350 years that followed the defeat of Romanus. Turkomans are found in the Angora and Adana vilayets; Avshars, a tribe of Turkish origin, in the valleys of Anti-Taurus; and Tatars in the Angora and Brusa vilayets; Yuruks are most numerous in the Konia vilayet. They speak Turkish and profess to be Moslems, but have no mosques or imams. The Turkomans have villages in which they spend the winter, wandering over the great plains of the interior with their flocks and herds during the summer. The Yuruks on the contrary are a truly nomad race. Their tents are made of black goats’ hair and their principal covering is a cloak of the same material. They are not limited to the milder districts of the interior, but when the harvest is over, descend into the rich plains and valleys near the coast. The Chepmi and Takhtaji, who live chiefly in the Aidin vilayet, appear to be derived from one of the early races. (b) Christians. The Greeks are in places the descendants of colonists from Greece, many of whom, e.g. in Pamphylia and the Smyrna district, are of very recent importation; but most of them belong by blood to the indigenous races. These people became “Greeks” as being subjects of the Byzantine empire and members of the Eastern Church. On the west coast, in Pontus and to some extent of late in Cappadocia, and in the mining villages, peopled from the Trebizond Greeks, the language is Romaic; on the south coast and in many inland villages (e.g. in Cappadocia) it is either Turkish, which is written in Greek characters, or a Greco-Turkish jargon. In and near Smyrna there are large colonies of Hellenes. Armenians are most numerous in the eastern districts, where they have been settled since the great migration that preceded and followed the Seljuk invasion. There are, however, Armenians in every large town. In central and western Asia Minor they are the descendants of colonists from Persia and Armenia (see [Armenia]), (c) The Jews live chiefly on the Bosporus; and in Smyrna, Rhodes, Brusa and other western towns. Gypsies—some Moslem, some Christian—are also numerous, especially in the south.
History.—Asia Minor owes the peculiar interest of its history to its geographical position. “Planted like a bridge between Asia and Europe,” it has been from the earliest period a battleground between the East and the West. The central plateau (2500 to 4500 ft.), with no navigable river and few natural approaches, with its monotonous scenery and severe climate, is a continuation of central Asia. The west coast, with its alternation of sea and promontory, of rugged mountains and fertile valleys, its bright and varied scenery, and its fine climate, is almost a part of Europe. These conditions are unfavourable to permanence, and the history of Asia Minor is that of the march of hostile armies, and rise and fall of small states, rather than that of a united state under an independent sovereign. At a very early period Asia Minor appears to have been occupied by non-Aryan tribes or races which differed little from each other in religion, language and social system. During the past generation much light has been thrown upon one of these races—the “Hittites” or “Syro-Cappadocians,” who, after their rule had passed away, were known to Herodotus as “White Syrians,” and whose descendants can still be recognised in the villages of Cappadocia.[1] The centre of their power is supposed to have been Boghaz Keui (see [Pteria]), east of the Halys, whence roads radiated to harbours on the Aegean, to Sinope, to northern Syria and to the Cilician plain. Their strange sculptures and inscriptions have been found at Pteria, Euyuk, Fraktin, Kiz Hissar (Tyana), Ivriz, Bulgar, Muden and other places between Smyrna and the Euphrates (see [Hittites]). When the great Aryan immigration from Europe commenced is unknown, but it was dying out in the 11th and 10th centuries B.C. In Phrygia the Aryans founded a kingdom, of which traces remain in various rock tombs, forts and towns, and in legends preserved by the Greeks. The Phrygian power was broken in the 9th or 8th century B.C. by the Cimmerii, who entered Asia Minor through Armenia; and on its decline rose the kingdom of Lydia, with its centre at Sardis. A second Cimmerian invasion almost destroyed the rising kingdom, but the invaders were expelled at last by Alyattes, 617 B.C. (see [Scythia]). The last king, Croesus (? 560-546 B.C.) carried the boundaries of Lydia to the Halys, and subdued the Greek colonies on the coast. The date of the foundation of these colonies cannot be fixed; but at an early period they formed a chain of settlements from Trebizond to Rhodes, and by the 8th century B.C. some of them rivalled the splendour of Tyre and Sidon. Too jealous of each other to combine, and too demoralized by luxury to resist, they fell an easy prey to Lydia; and when the Lydian kingdom ended with the capture of Sardis by Cyrus, 546 B.C. they passed, almost without resistance, to Persia. Under Persian rule Asia Minor was divided into four satrapies, but the Greek cities were governed by Greeks, and several of the tribes in the interior retained their native princes and priest-dynasts. An attempt of the Greeks to regain their freedom was crushed, 500-494 B.C., but later the tide turned and the cities were combined with European Greeks into a league for defence against the Persians. The weakness of Persian rule was disclosed by the expedition of Cyrus and the Ten Thousand Greeks, 402 B.C.; and in the following century Asia Minor was invaded by Alexander the Great (q.v.), 334 B.C. (See [Greece]; [Persia]; [Ionia].)
The wars which followed the death of Alexander eventually gave Asia Minor to Seleucus, but none of the Seleucid kings was able to establish his rule over the whole peninsula. Rhodes became a great maritime republic, and much of the south and west coast belonged at one time or another to the Ptolemies of Egypt. An independent kingdom was founded at Pergamum, 283 B.C., which lasted until Attalus III., 133 B.C., made the Romans his heirs. Bithynia became an independent monarchy, and Cappadocia and Paphlagonia tributary provinces under native princes. In southern Asia Minor the Seleucids founded Antioch, Apamea, Attalia, the Laodiceas and Seleuceias, and other cities as centres of commerce, some of which afterwards played an important part in the Hellenization (see [Hellenism]) of the country, and in the spread of Christianity. During the 3rd century, 278-277 B.C., certain Gallic tribes crossed the Bosporus and Hellespont, and established a Celtic power in central Asia Minor. They were confined by the victories of Attalus I. of Pergamum, c. 232 B.C., to a district on the Sangarius and Halys to which the name Galatia was applied; and after their defeat by Manlius, 189 B.C., they were subjected to the suzerainty of Pergamum (see [Galatia]).
The defeat of Antiochus the Great at Magnesia, 190 B.C., placed Asia Minor at the mercy of Rome; but it was not until 133 that the first Roman province, Asia, was formed to include only western Anatolia, without Bithynia. Errors in policy and in government facilitated the rise of Pontus into a formidable power under Mithradates, who was finally driven out of the country by Pompey, and died 63 B.C. Under the settlement of Asia Minor by Pompey, Bithynia-Pontus and Cilicia became provinces, whilst Galatia and Cappadocia were allowed to retain nominal independence for over half a century more under native kings, and Lycia continued an autonomous League. A long period of tranquillity followed, during which the Roman dominion grew, and all Asia Minor was divided into two provinces. The boundaries were often changed; and about A.D. 297, in Diocletian’s reorganization of the empire, the power of the great military commands was broken, and the provinces were made smaller and united in groups called dioceses. A great change followed the introduction of Christianity, which spread first along the main roads that ran north and west from the Cilician Gates, and especially along the great trade route to Ephesus. In some districts it spread rapidly, in others slowly. With its advance the native languages and old religions gradually disappeared, and at last the whole country was thoroughly Hellenized, and the people united by identity of language and religion.
At the close of the 6th century Asia Minor had become wealthy and prosperous; but centuries of peace and over-centralization had affected the moral of the people and weakened the central government. During the 7th century the provincial system broke down, and the country was divided into themes or military districts. From 616 to 626 Persian armies swept unimpeded over the land, and Chosroes (Khosrau) II. pitched his camp on the shore of the Bosporus. The victories of Heraclius forced Chosroes to retire; but the Persians were followed by the Arabs, who, advancing with equal ease, laid siege to Constantinople, A.D. 668. It almost appeared as if Asia Minor would be annexed to the dominion of the Caliph. But the tide of conquest was stemmed by the iconoclast emperors, and the Arab expeditions, excepting those of Harun al-Rashid, 781 and 806, and of el-Motasim, 838, became simply predatory raids. In the 10th century the Arabs were expelled. They never held more than the districts along the main roads, and in the intervals of peace the country rapidly recovered itself. But a more dangerous enemy was soon to appear on the eastern border.
In 1067 the Seljuk Turks ravaged Cappadocia and Cilicia; in 1071 they defeated and captured the emperor Romanus Diogenes, and in 1080 they took Nicaea. One branch of the Seljuks founded the empire of Rum, with its capital first at Nicaea and then at Iconium. The empire, which at one time included nearly the whole of Asia Minor, with portions of Armenia and Syria, passed to the Mongols when they defeated the sultan of Rum in 1243, and the sultans became vassals of the Great Khan. The Seljuk sultans were liberal patrons of art, literature and science, and the remains of their public buildings and tombs are amongst the most beautiful and most interesting in the country. The marches of the Crusaders across Asia Minor left no permanent impression. But the support given by the Latin princes to the Armenians in Cilicia facilitated the growth of the small warlike state of Lesser Armenia, which fell in 1375 with the defeat and capture of Leo VI. by the Mameluke sultan of Egypt. The Mongols were too weak to govern the country they had conquered, and the vassalage of the last sultan of Rum, who died in 1307, was only nominal. On his death the Turkoman governors of his western provinces drove out the Mongols and asserted their independence. A contest for supremacy followed, which eventually ended in favour of the Osmanli Turks of Brusa. In 1400 Sultan Bayezid I. held all Asia Minor west of the Euphrates; but in 1402 he was defeated and made prisoner by Timur, who swept through the country to the shores of the Aegean. On the death of Timur Osmanli supremacy was re-established after a prolonged straggle, which ended with the annexation by Mahommed II. (1451-1481) of Karamania and Trebizond, and the abandonment of the last of the Italian trading settlements which had studded the coast during the 13th and 14th centuries. The later history of Asia Minor is that of the Turkish empire. The most important event was the advance (1832-1833) of an Egyptian army, under Ibrahim Pasha, through the Cilician Gates to Konia and Kutaiah.