Sylla was 8 km away from Iconium, the capital of Lycaonia, but culturally it belonged to Cappadocia. It was a flourishing Greek town known for its strong Byzantine character, its churches and monasteries carved into rocks, the local Greek dialect spoken by its inhabitants, and its notable schools. It also stood out for the exceptional trading skills of its residents, which brought significant wealth, as well as its interesting folklore events.
The author, who has roots in this Greek Orthodox city, attempted to trace and reconstruct the history of this lost center of the Anatolian Hellenism after years of research.
The strong nostalgia of the Syllaeans for their homeland and their struggle to rebuild after the Catastrophe of Asia Minor served as another motivation for this historical and ethnographic endeavor.