[1] Its surrounding territory was known in Greek as Ἁμαξιτία (Hamaxitia),[2] and included the temple of Apollo Smintheus, the salt pans at Tragasai, and the Satnioeis river (modern Tuzla Çay).

[4] It has been located on a rise called Beşiktepe near the village of Gülpınar (previously Külahlı) in the Ayvacık district of Çanakkale Province, Turkey.

[6] However, this spelling reflects the influence of Attic Greek and is not a reliable guide to how Hamaxitans would have spelt or pronounced the name of their city.

[8] All other literary and epigraphic sources refer to Ἁμαξιτός and legends on the city's own coinage from the 4th century BC read ΑΜΑΞΙ (AMAXI, i.e. Ἁμαξι(τός), Hamaxi(tos)).

[10] Remains of an ancient road have been identified leading away up the coast from the sheltered bay immediately below the rise on which the Classical city was located at Beşiktepe, indicating the name's origin.

The subject attracted much interest in Antiquity because in the opening of Homer's Iliad the Trojan priest of Apollo, Chryses, addresses the god in the vocative as Σμινθεῦ (Smintheu, 'O, Sminthian') when imploring him to send a plague against the Greeks because Agamemnon had seized his daughter Chryseis and refused to ransom her.

[26] A fragment of the so-called Standards Decree, which dates to the 420s BC and imposed the use of Athenian weights, measures, and coins on members of the Delian League, was found at the nearby village of Gülpınar.

[29] This imagery was a reference to the famous sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus in the territory of Hamaxitus, and examples of the coinage have been found widely distributed across the Troad.

[31] In c. 310 BC Antigonus Monophthalmus, one of Alexander's Successors, created the new city of Antigoneia Troas by synoecizing several communities in the Troad.

[34] As the popularity of the cult of Apollo Smintheus grew in the Hellenistic period (see above), the convenient proximity of its port to the god's shrine meant Hamaxitus benefited from an increasing number of pilgrims passing through the city's harbour.