Phaselis was the only city in the region with three ports. According to an ancient tradition, Phaselis was founded in 690 BC as a colony of Doric Greeks from Rhodes. For 200 years the city was under Persian control until Alexander the Great conquered it in 334 BC. He admired the city and hibernated here. In 129 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian visited the city. In his honour, the Hadrian's Gate was built at the end of the boulevard in front of the southern harbour. Unfortunately, it has not survived the times.

The city flourished during the Roman period, when it was known as a flourishing commercial centre. From here, wood, rose oil in particular, but also perfumes and fragrant creams were exported. Although Phaselis was a fleet and trading base with some prosperity until Byzantine times, today's building stock is not very impressive.

The Seljuks had used the city as a quarry for the extension of the fortifications of Antalya. A theatre, an aqueduct and a magnificent avenue that runs across the peninsula between the former galley harbour and the commercial harbour have survived. The acropolis of the city has not been excavated to this day.

According to sources, the city was founded around 690 BC as a Rhodian colony. From about 550 BC it belonged to the Persian Empire for a long time - a position that was culturally and economically important for many small Asian Greek cities. Politically, however, this was used in Athens as a pretext to disguise the Athenian activities of the Attische Seebund as an anti-Persian alliance.
In 469 B.C. Phaselis was "forcibly released" and forced into the sea alliance - a flourishing trading city with high tributes in a strategically important location, a significant gain for Athens.

After 411 B.C. Persian again, Phaselis surrendered in 333 B.C. to Alexander the Great. During the Diadoch wars, first Ptolemaic (until 197 BC) then Seleukid (until 187 BC), although belonging to Pamphylia, it was incorporated into the Lycan League under Roman rule until about 100 BC.
The strong competitor Attaleia (Antalya) as a port and trading city brought Phaselis a first decline, which brought it down to a loophole of Cilician pirates together with Olympos at the beginning of the 1st century BC.

The southern end of the main road

Under Domitian, Trajan and Hadrian the city, destroyed in the pirate wars, was rebuilt at the end of the 1st century AD and experienced a second heyday. Most of the ruins preserved today date from this period.
However, Phaselis never recovered from the later incursions of the pirates and Arabs in the middle of the 7th century, even though it temporarily rose again economically as a Byzantine naval base in the 8th century. Since the 10th century it has only served as a quarry for Antalya, which needed material for its fortifications.