In 1804 Rich went to Constantinople, where, and at Smyrna, he stayed some time, perfecting himself in Turkish.
It was the most northern of the Ionian cities, and was situated on the coast of the peninsula which separates the gulf of Cyme, occupied by Aeolian settlers, from the Hermaean Gulf, on which stood Smyrna and Clazomenae.
About 1880, while the Gediz Chai was throwing its silt unchecked into the Gulf of Smyrna and gradually filling the navigable channel, there was talk of reviving Fokia as a new port for Smyrna, and connecting it with the Cassaba railway.
He either died during his confinement or escaped to Smyrna.
With Plutarch, who dedicated to him his treatise IIEpi Tov irpwrov 11vxpov, with Herodes Atticus, to whom he bequeathed his library at Rome, with Demetrius the Cynic, Cornelius Fronto, Aulus Gellius, and with Hadrian himself, he lived on intimate terms; his great rival, whom he violently attacked in his later years, was Polemon of Smyrna.
