Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "SEVASTI Ancient city TURKEY" .
SEVASTI (Ancient city) TURKEY
Sebaste. A town in a small island off the coast of Cilicia, built
by Archelaus king of Cappadocia, to whom the Romans had given Cilicia Aspera.
(Strab. xiv. p. 671.) It seems to have received its name Sebaste in honour of
Augustus; for, until his time, both the island and the town were called Eleusa,
Elaeusa, or Elaeussa (Joseph. Ant. xvi. 4. § 6, Bell. i. 23. § 4; comp. Ptol.
v. 8. § 4; Hierocl. p. 704; Stadiasm. Mar. Magn. § 172, where it is called Eleous;
Steph. B. s. vv. Sebaste and Elaioussa), a name which Pliny (v. 22) still applies
to the town, though he erroneously places it in the interior of Caria. Stephanus,
in one of the passages above referred to, calls Sebaste or Elaeussa an island,
and in the other a peninsula, which may be accounted for by the fact that the
narrow channel between the island and the mainland was at an early period filled
up with sand, as it is at the present,-for the place no longer exists as an island.
Sebaste was situated between Corycus and the mouth of the river Lamus, from which
it was only a few miles distant. Some interesting remains of the town of Sebaste
still exist on the peninsula near Ayash, consisting of a temple of the composite
order, which appears to have been overthrown by an earthquake, a theatre, and
three aqueducts, one of which conveyed water into the town from a considerable
distance. (Comp. Beaufort, Karamania, p. 250, foll.; Leake, Asia Minor, p. 213.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
A city in Pontus, also called Cabira.
One of the 12 important cities in Phrygia, 35 km S of Usak (Temenothyrae).
The site is at the foot of Mt. Bulkaz, in the plain of the Banaz cayi (the ancient
Senaros river). Sebaste was one of the cities founded during the Romanization
of Asia Minor. It lies midway between Acmonia (Ahat koy) on the Royal Road and
Eumenia in the Maeander valley. Augustus founded the city in 20 B.C. at the suggestion
of the oracle of Apollo, on the site of several earlier Anatolian settlements.
Imperial coinage runs from the time of Augustus until after Gordian III. The main
types are: obverse, head of Dionysos, Men, young Herakles; reverse, Zeus, Kybele,
Perseus slaying Gorgo, Caracalla on horseback, and a river god. Inscriptions with
the words polis, strategos, and agoranomos indicate the city's importance. In
the Byzantine period it became a bishopric.
The remains include Early Bronze Age mounds not yet explored, and
three Lydian tumuli (5th c. B.C.) with funerary chambers. One of them has marble
masonry of high quality.
Roman remains are inscriptions (historical, funerary, votive), including
one with the name of Sebaste reused in a Byzantine church wall; foundations of
a Roman building under a Byzantine church; a marble votive statue of Zeus now
in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum; many fragments of architraves, columns,
capitals, sarcophagi, and Phrygian door-stelai scattered over the site.
There are also Byzantine buildings, especially of the 6th and 10th
c. A.D.: a complex of churches, including the remains of two large basilicas and
several chapels within a surrounding wall. Marble iconostases with colored glass
inlays are in the Selcikler museum depot and the Usak Museum.
N. Firatli, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
