The district has been settled for as far back as the record goes. The city's oldest known name is Temenothyrai, taken from Temenos, son of Aristomachos, of the line of Herakles. Temenos is known from Roman-period coins carrying the legends Temenos Oikistes — Temenos the founder — or Ktistes, together with depictions of him.
The region was under the Hittite kingdom and was overrun by the Luwians around 2500 BC. After the Hittite kingdom broke up, the Aegean was contested in the 7th century BC between the Lydians and the Phrygians. The Lydians, the first people in the world to use coined money, ruled west of Uşak, and in their time the historic Royal Road linking the Aegean to the Near East ran through the province.
The 6th century BC brought all of Anatolia under Persia. When Alexander destroyed the Persian empire in the 4th century the region went first to the Macedonian state and then to the kingdom of Pergamon; Rome took it in the 2nd century BC, and after the empire divided in AD 395 it stayed Byzantine for seven hundred years.
