Antiquity

According to Strabo Tralles was founded by the Argives and Trallians. Along with the rest of Lydia, the city fell to the Persian Empire. After its success against Athens in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta unsuccessfully sought to take the city from the Persians, but in 334 BC, Tralles surrendered to Alexander the Great without resistance and therefore was not sacked. Alexander's general Antigonus held the city from 313 to 301 BC and later the Seleucids held the city until 190 BC when it fell to Pergamon. From 133 to 129 BC, the city supported Aristonicus of Pergamon, a pretender to the Pergamene throne, against the Romans. After the Romans defeated him, they revoked the city's right to mint coins.

Tralles was a conventus for a time under the Roman Republic, but Ephesus later took over that position. The city was taken by rebels during the Mithridatic War during which many Roman inhabitants were killed. Tralles suffered greatly from an earthquake in 26 BC. Augustus provided funds for its reconstruction after which the city thanked him by renaming itself Caesarea.

Strabo describes the city as a prosperous trading center, listing famous residents of the city, including Pythodoros (native of Nysa), and orators Damasus Scombrus and Dionysocles. Several centuries later, Anthemius of Tralles, architect of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, was born in Tralles.

Christianity and Byzantine era

Alexander of Tralles was one of the most eminent physicians of the early Byzantine Empire.

An early bishop Polybius (fl. ca. 105) is attested by a letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the church at Tralles. The city was officially Christianized, along with the rest of Caria, early after the conversion of Constantine, at which time the see was confirmed. Among the recorded bishops are: Heracleon (431), Maximus (451), Uranius (553), Myron (692), Theophylactus (787), Theophanes and Theopistus both ninth century, and John (1230). The Catholic Church includes this bishopric in its list of titular sees as Tralles in Asia, distinguishing it from the see of Tralles in Lydia. It has appointed no new titular bishop to these Eastern sees since the Second Vatican Council.^[6]

After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, with the Byzantine Empire was in civil chaos, the Seljuks took Tralles for the first time but Alexios I Komnenos re-captured the city for Byzantium in the later half of the eleventh century.

By the 13th century, the city lay in ruins. In 1278, Andronikos II Palaiologos decided to rebuild and repopulate it, now to be renamed Andronikopolis or Palaiologopolis, with the aim of forming a bulwark against Turkish encroachment in the area. The megas domestikos Michael Tarchaneiotes was given the task: he rebuilt the walls and settled 36,000 people from the surrounding regions. 13th century Byzantine settlement policy along the Meander Valley notably involved the Turkic Cumans.^[7] Nevertheless, Turkish attacks resumed soon after. The city was besieged and, lacking sufficient supplies and access to water, captured by the beylik of Menteshe in 1284. The city suffered extensive destruction and part of its inhabitants were massacred.^[8] Moreover, over 20,000 inhabitants were sold off as slaves.^[9][10]

Turkic and Ottoman era

Under the rule of Menteshe, whose lands extended towards the south, the city was renamed as Güzelhisar ("beautiful castle"). The city was later taken over by the Aydinids, who made it one of their principal settlements, but not the capital.

The Beylik of Aydin was founded in the region in 1307 and they ruled the lands north of Büyük Menderes River up to and including İzmir. During the first half of the 14th century, Aydinids were as active as the Ottomans, if not more, in pressuring the islands and the lands west of Anatolia, and they caused much hardship for the Byzantine and Latin dependencies of the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece.^[11] The principality was taken over by the rising Ottoman Empire, for the first time shortly before the Battle of Ankara between the Ottomans and Tamerlane in 1402, and then Tamerlane having given back the province to the sons of Aydın. Finally Ottomans definitely captured it in 1425.

Aydın became part of Anatolia Province of the Ottoman Empire and this until 1827, when it became the seat of its own eyalet under its own name, constituted among other reasons to respond to the prevalent unrest in the region, as exemplified by Atçalı Kel Mehmet Rebellion (1829–1830). The seat was moved to İzmir in the 1840s and with the abolition of eyalets under the administrative reforms of 1864, Aydın became a sanjak (subprovince) of the vilayet of the same name, with its seat still in İzmir, which had outgrown Aydın city in size as it became a booming port of international trade.

In the 19th century Aydın continued to benefit from its location at the center of the fertile Menderes valley, and its population grew.^[12] At that time, besides figs and olive oil, which were the traditional crops of the region, cotton also grew in importance, with many European investors seeking alternative sources of cotton at the time of the American Civil War.

Marble stele, the so-called Seikilos column, with poetry and musical notation

Construction of İzmir-Aydın Railway

The first railroad commenced in the Ottoman Empire and the first finished within the present-day territory of Turkey^[13] was built by the British Levant Company connecting Aydın to Smyrna (now İzmir). The 130 km (81 mi) line was started in 1856 and finished in ten years.^[14] The line fundamentally changed Aydın region's economy. The railway station built at the time remains an impressive structure in the city of Aydın.

The Greek Occupation of Aydın

During the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), violent fighting took place in and around Aydın [Αϊδίνιο], especially in the beginning phase of the war, during the Battle of Aydın between 27 June and 4 July 1919. The civilian population of the city, principally Turkish as well as Greek,^[15] suffered heavy casualties. Neither could the city's Jewish population, 3,500-strong in 1917 go unscathed.^[16]

The "efe" resistance

Dilek Peninsula-Büyük Menderes Delta National Park in Aydın.

Aydın remained in ruins until it was re-captured by the Turkish army on 7 September 1922. Resistance warriors such as the efe Yörük Ali, who were based in the surrounding mountains and conducted a guerrilla warfare against the Greek army, became heroes in Turkey. Following the war and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, the Greeks of Aydın were exchanged with Muslims living in Greece under the 1923 agreement for the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

Greco-Roman period

• Crates of Tralles (4th century BC) - an orator
• Sosiades (3rd century BC) - Victor of the Olympic games at the boys wrestling^[20]
• Apollonius (2nd century BC) - Greek sculptor
• Herodotos (2nd century BC) - Victor of the Pythian Games at the boys stadion^[21]
• Timotheus (2nd century BC) - Victor of the 163 Ancient Olympic Games at stadion^[22]
• Archimedes (date uncertain) - Greek grammarian
• Menecrates (1st century BC) - Greek physician
• Pythodoros (1st century BC) - Son-in-law of Mark Antony and father of Pythodorida of Pontus
• Pollio Asinius of Tralles (Πωλίων Ἀσίνιος) (1st century BC), a Greek sophist and philosopher^[23]
• Tauriscus of Tralles, a Greek sculptor^[24]
• Aphrodisius of Tralles, a Greek sculptor^[24]
• Menodorus (1st century BC), priest of Zeus Larisaeus at Tralles, was killed by Domitius Ahenobarbus on the charge of attempting a revolt on his fleet^[25]
• Jason (1st century BC) - Tragic actor^[26][27]
• Thryphosa, Hedea and Dionysia (1st century AD) - Young female champions and daughters of Hermesianax. Their father erected a monument at Delphi for his daughters.^[28]
• Dionysocles, Greek orator^[29]
• Damasus Scombrus, Greek orator^[29]
• Artemidorus of Tralles (1st century AD) - Victor of the Olympic games at the Pankration and wrestling.^[30]
• Thessalus (1st century AD) - physician and early adherent to the Methodic school of medicine.
• Phlegon (2nd century AD) - Greek historian under Hadrian
• Munatius (2nd century AD) - Greek orator and teacher of Herodes Atticus^[31]
• Anthemius (c. 474-c. 534) - Greek professor of geometry and architect, co-builder of Haghia Sophia
• Amphiclea (4th century) - wife of Prohaeresius^[32]
• Alexander - (6th century) - physician
• Asclepius - (6th century) - student of Ammonius Hermiae, writer and philosopher

Aydinid-Ottoman period

• Atçalı Kel Mehmet Efe (1780–1830), a Zeybek, who led a local revolt against Ottoman authority
• Yörük Ali Efe (1895 - 1951), warlord in the Ottoman Empire, and a militia officer in the Turkish Army during the Turkish War of Independence
• Chrysostomos II (1880-1968), archbishop of Athens
• Eftichia Papagianopoulou (1893–1972), Greek lyricist
• Dido Sotiriou (1909–2004), Greek novelist, journalist and playwright

Turkish Republic

• Yeşim Büber (born 1977), actress
• Rıdvan Dilmen, football player
• Sadık Giz (1911-1979), politician
• Ulaş Güler (born 1980), football player
• Gökhan Kırdar (born 1970), musician and film score composer
• Adnan Menderes (1899–1961), Turkish Prime Minister
• Ahmet İlhan Özek (born 1988), football player
• Osman Özköylü (born 1971), football player
• Evren Özyiğit (born 1986), football player