The story of Alexander's cutting the fatal "Gordian knot" on the chariot of the ancient Phrygian king Gordius is connected with his stay in this place.
Having entered the Roman army, he rose to be praetorian praefect in the Persian campaign of Gordian III., and, inspiring the soldiers to slay the young emperor, was raised by them to the purple (244).
Magnesia continued under the kings of Pergamum to be one of the most flourishing cities in this part of Asia; it resisted Mithradates in 87 B.C., and was rewarded with civic freedom by Sulla; but it appears to have greatly declined under the Roman empire, and its name disappears from history, though on coins of the time of Gordian it still claimed to be the seventh city of Asia.
The generally transverse course of these rivers has given rise to the suggestion that they are of antecedent origin; but there are many objections to this over-simple, Gordian explanation.
He is mentioned in a rescript of Gordian in the year 240 B.C. in connexion with a responsum which he gave to the party to whom the rescript was addressed.