The first event of which we hear in Antandrus' history is when in 512 BC Otanes, the Persian satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, captured the city while subduing north-west Asia Minor. Antandrus had access to large amounts of timber from Mount Ida as well as pitch, making it an ideal location for the construction of large fleets, giving the city strategic importance. In 424 BC during the Peloponnesian War when the city had been captured by exiles from Mytilene, the historian Thucydides explains that: