Listed 6 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ADIYAMAN Province 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
(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
SAMOSATA (Ancient city) TURKEY
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.
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