Side, the most important port city of Pamphylia in ancient times, was founded on a peninsula 350-400 meters wide, located 80 kilometers east of Antalya and 7 kilometers southwest of Manavgat. Side became a settlement in the 7th century BCE. In the 6th century BCE, it came under the rule of the Lydian Kingdom along with all of Pamphylia. After the fall of the Lydian Kingdom in 547/46 BCE, it came under Persian control. During this period, the city retained a degree of autonomy and even minted its own coins.
During Alexander the Great’s campaign in Anatolia (334 BCE), Side surrendered without resistance to the Macedonian king. Later, it became one of the major coin-minting centers established by Alexander. After his death, the city frequently changed hands among the Hellenistic kingdoms. In the 3rd century BCE, it first fell under the control of the Ptolemies and later, between 215-189 BCE, under the Seleucids. When the Seleucids were defeated by the Romans, the Treaty of Apamea (188 BCE) granted Pamphylia, including Side, to the Kingdom of Pergamon. However, Side eventually regained its independence and entered one of its most prosperous periods in history.
A testament to Side’s cultural significance in the eastern Mediterranean is that Antiochus VII, who later became the king of Syria in 138 BCE and earned the title “Sidetes,” was sent to Side for his education in his youth. However, this golden age did not last long. In the 1st century BCE, piracy spread from Pisidia and the mountainous Cilician regions to Pamphylia, including Side. Unable to fend off the pirates, the people of Side were forced to open their ports and markets to them. In 78 BCE, Roman Consul Publius Servilius cleared the region of pirates, and Side, like other Pamphylian cities, was incorporated into the Roman Empire.
After 25 BCE, Emperor Augustus transformed Pamphylia into a directly governed Roman province. Following this, Side became a city within the Roman Empire. The city experienced a golden age in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE but had declined into a poor Christian city by the 4th century. In the 5th and 6th centuries, it experienced a third and final period of prosperity and became the capital of the Eastern Pamphylian Metropolis.
By the 9th and 10th centuries, Arab raids had severely weakened the city. The Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913-959 CE) described it as a "den of pirates" in his work De Thematibus. The Arab geographer Al-Idrisi, around 1150, referred to Side as "Burnt Antalya" and stated that its inhabitants had been relocated to "New Antalya," about two days’ journey away.
In the early 20th century, Cretan immigrants settled in the ruins of the ancient trade and port city, establishing the village of Selimiye. Like other Pamphylian cities, Side was structured around a monumental main street starting from its city gate. This main street, beginning at the northeastern "Great Gate," extends in a nearly straight line across the peninsula, curving slightly in front of the Theater before ending in a large square near the temples. Another major street extends from the "Great Gate" toward the south. Both streets are colonnaded, lined with Corinthian columns, and feature covered porticoes with rows of shops behind them.
