History of Ankara been a major urban center, though not a capital, for far longer than cities like London, Paris or Madrid; even Istanbul. When present Istanbul, then the Roman provincial town of Byzantium, was being groomed as a new capital for the Roman Empire in 324, Ankara was already an important administrative center from which most of the northern half of Turkey was run. History of Ankara The history of Ankara can be traced back to the Bronze Age Hatti civilization, which was succeeded in the 2nd millennium BC by the Hittites, in the 10th century BC by the Phrygians, and later
History of Ankara end of the 4th century, St. Jerome, a native of Galatia, observed that the language spoken around Ankara was very similar to that being spoken in the northwest of the Roman world near Trier. This may indicate that the older Phyrigian population had adopted the language of the Celtic invaders. The city was subsequently conquered by Augustus in 25 BC and passed under the control of the Roman Empire. Now the capital city of the Roman province of Galatia, Ancyra continued to be a center of great commercial importance. Ankara is also famous for the "Monumentum Ancyranum" ("Temple of Augustus