Smyrna

Smyrna, an ancient Ionian port city on the western coast of Asia Minor, about forty miles north of Ephesus. Its church was one of the seven addressed in Revelation and received no rebuke, only a warning of coming suffering and a promise of the crown of life (Rev. 2:8-11). Its early bishop Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John, was martyred there around 155 AD. The city survives today as Izmir, and excavations of its Roman-era agora have confirmed the prosperity the city already had in the first century.