[8][9] Excavations in the necropolis of Pitane revealed ceramic finds from the Mycenaean, protogeometric, geometric, orientalizing, and the Archaic Greek periods.

In the fifth century BCE, Pitane was a member of the Delian League and is recorded as paying a tribute of 1,000 drachmas.

In c. 325-c. 275 BCE, the people of Abydos honoured another citizen, Charidemos, son of Antiphanes, with a dedication at Delphi, which included a statue by the famous Athenian sculptor Praxiteles.

[13] This territory was the subject of a dispute with the city of Mytilene on nearby Lesbos in the mid-second century BCE, which was arbitrated by Pergamon.

[15] Under the Latin name Pitanae, the town was Christianized and became the seat of a bishop; no longer a residential bishopric, it remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.