Inhabited by colonists from Argolis, Perge first appears in literary texts of the 4th century B.C. It passed under the Seleucids in 218 B.C. and in 188 B.C. surrendered to Manlius Vulso, becoming part of the Kingdom of Pergamon. Verres plundered the temple of Artemis in 80-79 B.C. (Cicero, Verr., II, 1, 54 and 4, 71). Under the emperor Tacitus (275-76 A.D.) it became the capital of Pamphylia Secunda.
Perge was an ancient Christian center in Asia Minor; St. Paul stopped there twice during his first journey (Acts 13:13; 14:25) and it became the capital of the ecclesiastical province of Pamphylia. In 251 A.D., the martyrs Sts. Nestor and Tribonius were put to death there; they are commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on February 25 and by the Greeks on February 27 and 28. Their acts survive in Greek and Latin (P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, in Note agiografiche, fasc. III [Studi e testi, 22], Rome 1901, pp. 115-17; BHL, 6068). From the signatures appended to the councils, the known bishops of Perge are: Epidaurus in 314, Callikles (or Callinicus) in 325, Berinianos in 431, Epiphanius in 449, Eulogius in 553, and John II in 860.