Izmir is now the closest major city to Pergamum, an ancient Hellenistic cultural center whose acropolis rises 800 feet above the valley and includes marble temples to Athena and Trajan, a Greek theater, and a library with 200,000 volumes. Across the valley, in the second century A.D., Galen, one of antiquity’s most famous physicians, practiced at a major medical center, the Asclepion.
