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ANAZARVOS (Ancient city) TURKEY
Anazarbus (Anazarbos, Anazarba: Eth. Anazarbeus, Anazarbenus), a city
of Cilicia, so called, according to Stephanus, either from an adjacent mountain
of the same name, or from the founder, Anazarbus. It was situated on the Pyramus,
and 11 miles from Mopsuestia, according to the Peutinger Table. Suidas (s. v.
Kuinda) says that the original name of the place was Cyinda or Quinda; that it
was next called Diocaesarea; and (s. v. Anazarbos) that having been destroyed
by an earthquake, the emperor Nerva sent thither one Anazarbus, a man of senatorial
rank, who rebuilt the city, and gave to it his own name. All this cannot be true,
as Valesius (Amm. Marc. xiv. 8) remarks, for it was called Anazarbus in Pliny's
time. Dioscorides is called a native of Anazarbus; but the period of Dioscorides
is not certain.
Its later name was Caesarea ad Anazarbum, and there are many medals
of the place in which it is both named Anazarbus and Caesarea at or under Anazarbus.
On the division of Cilicia it became the chief place of Cilicia Secunda, with
the title of Metropolis. It suffered dreadfully from an earth-quake both in
the time of Justinian, and, still more, in the reign of his successor Justin.
The site of Anazarbus, which is said to be named Anawasy or Amnasy,
is described (London Geoq. Journ. vol. vii. p. 421), but without any exact description
of its position, as containing ruins backed by an isolated mountain, bearing
a castle of various architecture. It seems not unlikely that this mountain may
be Cyinda, which, in the time of Alexander and his successors, was a deposit
for treasure. (Strab. p. 672; Diod. xviii. 62, xix. 56; Plut. Eumen. c. 13.)
Strabo, indeed, places Cyinda above Anchiale; but as he does not mention Anazarbus,
this is no great difficulty; and besides this, his geography of Cilicia is not
very exact. If Pococke's account of the Pyramus at Anawacsy being called Quinda
is true, this is some confirmation of the hill of Anazarbus being Quinda. It
seems probable enough that Quinda is an old name, which might be applied to
the hill fort, even after Anazarbus became a city of some importance. An old
traveller (Willebrand v. Oldenburg), quoted by Forbiger, found, at a place called
Naversa (manifestly a corruption of Anazarbus) or Anawasy, considerable remains
of an old town, at the distance of 8 German miles from Sis.
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
On the right bank of the Sumbas Cay, a tributary of the Ceyhan (Pyramos),
ca. 40 km NE of Adana. Probably subject earlier in the 1st c. B.C. to the dynasty
of Tarcondimotos, who ruled from Hieropolis Castabala, the city was refounded
in 19 B.C., following a visit by Augustus, as Caesarea by Anazarbos. Such was
its importance and subsequent prosperity that during the 3d c. it was the keen
rival of Tarsus, the provincial metropolis, and it claimed the same grandiloquent
honorific titles, even to the extent of naming Elagabalos in 221 as deiniurgus
of the city. By way of revenge, Tarsus later chose Alexander Severus to hold the
same office there. During the reorganization of the provinces under Diocletian,
Anazarbos was confirmed as metropolis of Cilicia Secunda; but after a devastating
earthquake in the 6th c. it was again refounded, this time as Justinianopolis.
After its capture and occupation by the Arabs, Anazarbos (now renamed 'Ayn Zarba)
was fortified in 796 by Harun-ar-Rashid; but the city was conquered for Byzantium
by Nikephoros Phokas in his campaign of 962. Later, in the 12th c., the place
was the temporary capital of the Kingdom of Little Armenia, and its life ended
only with its fall to the Mainelukes in 1375.
The acropolis of Anazarbos, an imposing limestone outcrop ca. 200
m high, rises like an island out of the surrounding plain, and it was immediately
at the foot of its precipitous W face that the walled city was founded. The lower
Roman courses of these walls and their later mediaeval accretions are visible
to this day. Outside the city, and less than a km S of it, is the elliptical amphitheater
(part freestanding and part backing onto the crag), in which, according to the
circumstantial and topographically accurate account in Acta Sanctorum, Tarachus,
Probus, and Andronicus were martyred in the persecutions. NE of this amphitheater
is the stadium with a central concrete spina and rock-cut terraces for spectators,
a theater with a wide vista W over the plain, and an extensive necropolis. From
behind the theater a rock stairway gives access to the summit of the crag on which
stands the massively imposing fortress, nearly 1 km long from N to S, where the
Byzantine and Armenian ramparts and military quarters stand in part on Roman foundations.
Zeus, as the Storm-god, was certainly worshiped at Anazarbos; and as city coins
exist with the god's bust against a fortress-crowned rock, a castle must have
existed on the crag from Roman times at least. At the S end of the main street,
which was flanked by continuous colonnades, is a magnificent triumphal arch of
probable Severan date. On its S facade, each of three openings was emphasized
by a pair of black granite columns, above which was a frieze of "peopled"
acanthus scroll-work. To either side of the high central arch on the N facade
was a niche for statuary.
N of the triumphal arch, the cardo is traceable for just under 1 km
where it crosses the line of the probable decumanus, another street flanked by
columns of reddish conglomerate. As in other Cilician and Syrian cities, some
of the columns carry brackets, probably to support statuary. Some 220 m NW of
the street crossing is a bath building of concrete faced with brick. From 450
m N of the probable limit of the mediaeval city wall, a fine aqueduct dedicated
in A.D. 90 to Domitian by the people of Caesarea (Anazarbos) runs NW over the
plain to the headwaters of the Sumbas Cay. E of arches farthest S is evidence
of a huge decastyle Corinthian temple, very possibly the one featured on an Anazarbene
coin of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
M. Gough, 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.
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