Listed 3 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ELEOUS Ancient city TURKEY" .
Now a village on the coast between Korykos and Lamus. The city may
have been founded about the 2d or 1st c. B.C. Under the Romans it was given perhaps
to Tarcondimotos some time before 31 B.C., and in 20 B.C. with Korykos and other
areas of Rough Cilicia to Archelaos I of Cappadocia, who changed the name to Sebaste
in honor of Augustus. A son of Archelaos by the same name may have succeeded,
and in A.D. 38 Antiochos IV of Commagene took over. He died in A.D. 72, at which
time or soon after both Cilicias were formed into one province under a legatus
pro praetore. Elaeussa flourished during the Roman period in spite of various
setbacks; it was apparently prosperous in the 6th and 5th c. A.D., although its
harbor had silted up by the 6th. It seems not to have recovered from the period
of Arab invasions, and has been more or less deserted since.
Elaeussa is situated on the sandy shore of a shallow bay with an island
in the center, now a peninsula, which in antiquity sheltered the harbor. On the
island Archelaos built a palace in which he spent much of his time. There are
numerous ruins on the island including the remains of a church, but all are apparently
later than the palace. An aqueduct led to the island, and the remains of two more
span the ravine to the W of the city (Cambazli or Cukurbag Deresi). A well-preserved
water course and arched aqueduct runs along the coast from the Lamus river to
Elaeussa and Korykos; a building inscription on it dates not earlier than A.D.
400.
The theater cavea is cut in the rock slope a little inland opposite
the island, facing S. The seats have been robbed, but the bedding for them can
be seen. Some remains of the stage building are preserved, and just S of them
parts of another building (stoa?) with some column bases preserved along its S
side; in 1818 there were said to be 16 of them. On a high tongue of land at the
W end of the bay are the conspicuous remains of a Roman peripteral temple, oriented
NW-SE, the entrance at the NW. The columns, 6 x 12, are fluted, five are left
standing higher than their bases, but none is complete. The stylobate measures
17.60 x 32.94 m and is set on a podium where the ground falls away on all sides
but the NW. The capitals are described as a cross between the Composite and Corinthian
orders. The architrave has three fasciae, the one remaining frieze block is decorated
with a dolphin rider and hippocampus. No trace of the original cella remains.
In the Early Christian period a church was built on the temple stylobate, at right
angles to it, the apse at the NE side of the stylobate, with an adjoining enclosure
filling the NW end of the temple. The columns of the S half of the SW side of
the temple and all the columns of the SE side were removed, leaving an open platform.
Part of the E end of the church and the apse is paved with a fairly well-preserved
garden and animal mosaic, very similar to some at Antioch dated to the 5th c.
A.D. West of the temple and near the two aqueducts across the stream are the remains
of a large building of opus reticulatum with four barrel-vaulted rooms, perhaps
a bath.
The inhabitants of Elaeussa eventually lived by a forest of tombs,
which fill almost every available space along the ancient shore road, the majority
dating from the 2d c. A.D. into the Christian period. There are sarcophagi, freestanding
and rock-cut, some decorated with garlands and inscriptions. There are rock-cut
and masonry chamber tombs and mausolea. From the 2d or 3d c. A.D. there are eight
or more heroa of the Corinthian order, faced with ashlar masonry. Some of these
are rectangular with pilasters at the corners and vaulted interiors; others are
tetrastyle prostyle podium temples with narrow doorless porches. In the necropolis
along the road NE of the city is a sarcophagus under an elaborate baldachino.
From near the theater an ancient paved road leads NW to a site called
Cati Oren (skeleton ruins) in a plain where are a (Hellenistic?) fortress of polygonal
masonry, a Temple of Hermes and an early basilica, and nearby a cave temple to
Hermes. To the NE about 1.5 km is another (Hellenistic?) fort on the edge of a
ravine, with club symbols carved on it. Both these sites might have belonged to
Olba in the Hellenistic period and later. At Cati Oren an inscription of ca. the
Augustan period mentions a dynast, possibly Archelaos of Elaeussa or Polemo, dynast
of Olba in the 1st c. A.D. Northeast of Elaeussa, ca. 3 km inland, is the town
of the Kanytelleis or Kanytelideis, which was a deme of Elaeussa in the Roman
period, but was in Olban territory in the late 3d c. B.C. On the roads leading
from this site to the coast and inland are necropoleis, including heroa; on the
road to Elaeussa are numerous rock-cut tombs and reliefs. The main area of the
site is around a large rectangular depression, a natural limestone cave whose
roof has collapsed. At the edge of this is a large rectangular tower of polygonal
masonry, with an inscription dedicating it to Zeus Olbios, by the priest Teucer
son of Tarkyaris, presumably the same man who built the great tower at Uzuncaburc
There are house remains here and there and five churches, some well preserved.
T. S. Mackay, 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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