Finds in the nearby Kadrini cave indicate occupation during thePaleolithic era as far back as 20,000 BC, and archeological evidence shows a port existed at Syedra, south of the modern city, during the Bronze Age around 3,000 BC. A Phoenician language tablet found in the district dates to 625 BC, and the city is specifically mentioned in the 4th-century BC Greek geography manuscript, the periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. The castle rock was likely inhabited under the Hittites and the Achaemenid Empire, and was first fortified in the Hellenistic period following the area's conquest by Alexander the Great. Alexander's successors left the area to Ptolemy I Soter after 323 BC. His dynasty maintained loose control over the mainly Isaurianpopulation, and the port became a popular refuge forMediterranean pirates. The city resisted Antiochus III the Greatof the neighboring Seleucid kingdom in 199 BC, but was loyal to the pirate DiodotusTryphon when he seized the Seleucid crown from 142 to 138 BC. His rival Antiochus VII Sidetes completed work in 137 BC on a new castle and port, begun under Diodotus.
The Roman Republic fought Cilician pirates in 102 BC, when Marcus Antonius the Oratorestablished a proconsulship in nearby Side, and in 78 BC under ServiliusVatia, who moved to control the Isaurian tribes. The period of piracy in Alanya finally ended after the city's incorporation into the Pamphylia province by Pompey in 67 BC, with the Battle of Korakesion fought in the city's harbor. Isaurian banditry remained an issue under the Romans, and the tribes revolted in the fourth and fifth centuries AD, with the largest rebellion being from 404 to 408. After the Roman Empire's collapse and split, the city remained under Byzantine influence, becoming asuffragan of Side, in the metropolis of Pamphylia Prima. Islam arrived in the 7th century withArab raids, which led to the construction of new fortifications. 681 marked the end of a bishopricinAlanya, although St. Peter of Atroa may
