Listed 31 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "SOUTHEASTERN ASIA MINOR Region TURKEY" .
AMIDA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Amida (Amida: Eth. Amidenos, Amidensis: Diyar-Bekr). The modern town
is on the right bank of the Tigris. The walls are lofty and substantial, and constructed
of the ruins of ancient edifices. As the place is well adapted for a commercial
city, it is probable that Amida, which occupied the site of Diyar-Bekr, was a
town of considerable antiquity. It was enlarged and strengthened by Constantius,
in whose reign it was besieged and taken by the Persian king Sapor, A.D. 359.
The historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who took part in the defence of the town,
has given us a minute account of the siege. (Amm. Marc. xix. 1, seq.) It was taken
by the Persian king Cabades in the reign of Anastasius, A.D. 502 (Procop. B. Pers.
i. 7, seq.); but it soon passed again into the hands of the Romans, since we read
that Justinian repaired its walls and fortifications. (Procop. de Aedif. iii.
l.) Ammianus and Procopius consider it a city of Mesopotamia, but it may be more
properly viewed as belonging to Armenia Major.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
SAMOSATA (Ancient city) TURKEY
A strongly fortified city of Syria, placed by Ptolemy (v. 15. § 11)
and Strabo in the district of Commagene. It contained the royal residence, and
was a province in the time of Strabo, surrounded by a small but very rich country,
and situated at the bridge of the Euphrates, (Strab. xvi. 2. § 3, p. 749.) Its
distance from the borders of Cappadocia in the vicinity of Tomisa across Mount
Taurus was 450 stadia. (Ib. xiv. 2. § 29, p. 664.) It was besieged and taken by
Mark Antony during his campaign in Syria. (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 15. § 8.) Its strategic
importance is intimated by Caesennius Paetus, prefect of Syria under Vespasian,
who, having represented that Antiochus, king of Commagene, was meditating an alliance
with the Parthians to enable him to throw off the Roman yoke, warned his imperial
master that Samosata, the largest city of Commagene, was situated on the Euphrates,
and would therefore secure the Parthians an easy passage of the river and a safe
asylum on the western side. The legate was therefore instructed to seize and hold
possession of Samosata. (B. J. vii. 7. § 1.) This town gave birth to Lucian, and
became infamous in the third century in connection with the heretical bishop Paul
of Samosata, who first broached the heresy of the simple humanity of our Lord;
and was condemned in a council assembled at Antioch (A.D. 272, Euseb. H. E. vii.
27, 28). The modern name of the town is Sempsat or Samisat, about 40 miles S.
of the cataracts of the Euphrates, where it passes Mount Taurus, but Pococke could
hear of no ruins there. (Observations on Syria, vol. ii. pt. l, p. 156.)
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
ZEVGMA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Zeugma (Seugma, Ptol. v. 15. § 14). A town founded by Seleucus Nicator,
in the province of Cyrrhestica, in Syria. It derived its name from a bridge of
boats which was here laid across the Euphrates, and which in the course of time
became the sole passage over the river, when the older one at Thapsacus, 2000
stadia to the S., had become impracticable, or at all events very dangerous, owing
to the spreading of the Arabian hordes. (Plin. v. 24. s. 21; Strab. xvi. p. 746;
Steph. B. s. v.) Zeugma lay on the right bank of the Euphrates, opposite to Apamea,
72 miles SW. of Samosata, 175 miles NE. of the maritime Seleucia, and 36 miles
N. of Hierapolis. (Plin l. c., and v. 12. s. 13; Strab. xvi. p. 749; Tab. Peut.)
It was therefore opposite to the modern Bir or Biredsjik, which occupies the site
of the ancient Apamea. (Cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, x. p. 944, seq.) In the time of
Justinian, Zeugma had fallen into decay, but was restored by that emperor. (Procop.
de Aed. ii. 9, p. 237, ed. Bonn.) (Cf. Polyb. v. 43; Dion Cass. xl. 17, xlix.
19; Lucan viii.236; Itin. Ant. pp. 184, 185, &c.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
AMIDA (Ancient city) TURKEY
A city in Sophene (Armenia Maior), on the upper Tigris.
SAMOSATA (Ancient city) TURKEY
(ta Samosata). Now Samisat, the capital of the province, and
afterwards kingdom, of Commagene, in the north of Syria, stood on the right bank
of the Euphrates, northwest of Edessa. It is celebrated in literary history as
the birthplace of Lucian, and in church history as that of the heretic Paul, bishop
of Antioch, in the third century. Nothing remains of it but a heap of ruins.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
ZEVGMA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Probably Rumkaleh; a city of Syria, on the borders of Commagene and Cyrrhestice, built by Seleucus Nicator on the western bank of the Euphrates, at a point where the river was crossed by a bridge of boats, which had been constructed by Alexander the Great.
SAMOSATA (Ancient city) TURKEY
AMIDA (Ancient city) TURKEY
A city situated at the limit of navigation of the Tigris, on a bluff
at a bend of the river. Though there was an earlier settlement, the site was not
important until Constantius, as Caesar in the East, founded and fortified a large
city there to protect the Armenian satrapies between the Antitauros and Masios
mountains still retained from Diodetian's conquests. It was garrisoned by Legio
V Parthica. When the Persian King Sapor II invaded, the garrison was increased
to seven legions; nevertheless the city fell to siege in A.D. 359. Ammianus Marcellinus,
a Roman officer there, has left an eyewitness account (19.1-8). The city was retaken
by Julian and the population restored by refugees from Nisibis, ceded to the Persians
by Jovian, in A.D. 363 and the completion of rebuilding may be recorded by an
inscription of A.D. 367-75 (CIL III, 6730). After capture by Kobad in A.D. 503
and recapture by Anastasius, the walls were restored again by Justinian (Procop.,
Buildings 2.3.27). Amida changed hands several times in the Byzantine period and
the walls reached their final form by A.D. 1068. The black basalt walls seen today
at Diyarbakir are essentially built to the 4th c. plan. The courtyard of the Ulu
Cami is built of Byzantine architectural elements. Some stray finds are in the
Diyarbakir Museum.
R. P. Harper, 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.
ARSAMEIA (Ancient city) TURKEY
About 59 km SE of Malatyn in ancient Commagene (the area between the
Taurus range and the Euphrates) on the river Nymphaios (the Kahta Cay). Founded
by a certain Arsames, an ancestor of a Seleucid king, Arsameia was by the 1st
c. B.C. a fortified city containing a royal palace. It was here that Antiochos
I of Commagene built a tomb and a cult center (hierotheseion) for his father,
king Mithridates Kallinikos, about the middle of the 1st c. B.C.; this is attested
by a remarkable rock-cut inscription. Above the inscription is a large and well-preserved
relief, recently re-erected, showing king Mithridates shaking hands with Herakles
(the Persian Artagnes); the style is provincial Greek. About 2 km SW of the town
is a Roman bridge erected in honor of the Septimian house by four Commagene cities
(ca. A.D. 200). The bridge was marked by four columns, two at each end, symbolizing
the emperor, Julia Domna, Caracalla, and Geta; one is missing and may have been
dismantled after Geta's murder. Farther on, beside the Nymphaios, is a tumulus
that served as the burial place of Commagene queens and princesses. There three
Ionic columns carry statues of animals (a lion, an eagle, and a bull), and these
works may be contemporary with Antiochos' own hierotheseion, the celebrated remains
of which are nearby upon Nemrud Dag.
W. L. Macdonald, 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.
ZEVGMA (Ancient city) TURKEY
Seleucus I Nicator (301-281 B.C.) founded the town on the W bank of
the Euphrates NE of Aleppo. It owes its name to the ancient bridge of boats, replaced
under Trajan by a stone bridge, which joined Commagene and Mesopotamia. An inscription
gives its official name: Seleucia on the Euphrates. On the frontier between the
Roman Empire and the Parthian, then Sasanian Empire, the position had great strategic
and commercial importance. Justinian enclosed Zeugma in high, wide walls. The
Moslems took it in A.D. 637.
The ancient city occupied the terrace of the modern village and extended
over the hills to the W. The acropolis was a conical hill, on which there is no
trace of the temple depicted on a coin or of the castle where Tigranes had Queen
Cleopatra Selene killed. Several necropoleis have been found in the vicinity,
also fine mosaic pavements. One depicts the Labors of Hercules, another an emperor
surrounded by personifications of the provinces of the Empire (the medallions
are now dispersed among several museums, especially those in Berlin and Leningrad).
A rocky spur N of the village is cut by a Roman road, which then follows the Euphrates
on a narrow ledge. Farther upstream, a double wall, the remains of an access road,
probably marks the location of the bridge.
J. P. Rey-Coquais, 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.
SOUTHEASTERN ASIA MINOR (Region) TURKEY
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