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Cilicia: ancient name of southern Turkey. The Persian king
Cyrus the Great conquered this country, and after the fall of the Achaemenid empire,
Cilicia belonged to the Seleucid kingdom and the Roman empire. It was well-known
for its iron and silver ores.
Topography and early history
Cilicia as a whole consists of two parts: the inaccessible western
area of the Taurus mountains, also known as "rough Cilicia", and the
eastern plains (modern Cukurova), which are dominated by the rivers Cydnus, Sarus
and Pyramis and are rich in cereals. The Anti-Taurus is the region's northern
border. Here, we find the Cilician gate, a pass that connects the plain with Cappadocia
in the north. To the south, the Mediterranean sea is Cilicia's neighbor, and the
region knew (and knows) close contacts with Cyprus.
In the east the Syrian gates are the connection with Syria
and Mesopotamia.
From times immemorial, the two areas belong together. In the second
half of the the second millennium BCE, the entire region, known as Kizzuwatna,
was part of the Hethitian empire. Contemporary sources mention the two main cities
on the plains: the residence Tarsa (better known as Tarsus)
and Adanija (Adana). The
most important language was Luwian. In those days, the region was ruled by a prince
from the Hethitian royal family, who was called "priest".
Early history
After the fall of the Hethitian empire (after 1215), the two areas
were included in a new kingdom called Tarhuntassa, which had its capital in Pamphylia.
It is not known how long this state existed. When the Assyrians discovered the
region in the ninth century, they called the fertile eastern area Que (its capital
was Adana), and the western area Hilakku; from this word our Cilicia is derived.
The plains of Que (also known as Awariku) were first conquered by
the Assyrians. King Tiglath-pileser III (744-727) appointed a governor, whose
residence was Adana. However, it was not a secure possession of the Assyrian empire:
after the death of Sargon II in 705, it became independent again under the old
dynasty, the house of Muksa. The ancestor of the Quean royal family is known from
Phoenician sources as Mps, and can be identified with the Mopsus from Greek legend,
who is said to have founded a town and an oracle in Cilicia. The Assyrian king
Esarhaddon (680-669) reconquered the area.
Meanwhile, Hilakku remained independent. The Assyrians were not interested
in the underdeveloped mountain area and its poor tribes. However, during the reign
of Assurbanipal (668-627 BCE), Hilakku was threatened by the Cimmerians, a nomadic
tribe from the northeast that had already overrun Armenia.
Therefore, Hilakku placed itself under Assyrian protection.
In 612, the Babylonians and Medes captured the Assyrian capital Nineveh.
Hilakku survived the collapse of Assyria.
A new kingdom came into being, in which both areas were united. Its capital was
Tarsus. The Greeks rendered the title of its kings, suuannassai, as syennesis,
and the name of the country as Cilicia. The coast of Rough Cilicia.
The first syennesis we know about, is mentioned by the Greek researcher
Herodotus of Halicarnassus
(fifth century BCE). He tells that in 585, the syennesis and one Labynetus of
Babylon (probably the future king Nabonidus) negotiated a peace treaty between
king Alyattes of Lydia and
king Cyaxares of Media. The
story confirms that Cilicia was at this time an independent power and did not
belong to the Babylonian empire of king Nebuchadnessar.
This syennesis was succeeded by one Appuwasu, who withstood an invasion
of the Babylonian army under king Neriglissar in 557/556. It had been argued that
Cilicia was invaded because it had become a protectorate of the Median empire,
or may have appeared to have become a Median subject. We can not know.
Persian period
It is certain that in 547/546, the Persian king Cyrus the Great campaigned
in the countries west of the Tigris. Unfortunately, our source (the Chronicle
of Nabonidus) contains a lacuna, and we are unable to read which country he conquered
- except that its name started with Ly-. Almost certainly, Lydia is meant, where
king Croesus was defeated. It must have been at this stage that Cyrus added Cilicia
to the Achaemenid empire, making the syennesis (perhaps Appuwasu) a vassal king.
Babylonian sources do not mention imported Cilician iron after 545, which strongly
suggests that there were no trade contacts any more.
After the reign of a man named Oromedon, who is just a name, the next
syennesis is better known. The Persian king Xerxes chose Cilicia to gather a large
army to attack the Greek homeland (481 BCE). Next year, the syennesis served as
one of the commanders in the Persian navy. He is known to have married his daughter
to Pixodarus, a Carian leader.
At this stage, we begin to know a bit more about the way the Persians
governed and used Cilicia. Its capital was Tarsus, where the loyal syennesis had
its residence. We may assume that there was a Persian garrison. At several other
places, we find military bases, mostly along the sea coast. The coastal plain
often served to assemble armies. Although Cilicia had a native king, it had to
pay tribute: 360 horses and 500 talents of silver, according to Herodotus.
During the Persian era, the fertile Cilician plains were the most
important part of the satrapy. The relations between the inhabitants of the cities
and those of the villages in the eastern mountains were sometimes less than friendly.
After all, the people from the plains were sedentary agriculturalists and the
mountain people were roaming herdsmen. It is certain that in the fourth century,
the two groups sometimes came to blows, and we may assume that this was also true
in the fifth century.
There were several important sanctuaries that remained more or less
independent from Persian rule. One of the most important was that of a mother
goddess that was called Artemis Perasia by the Greeks and Cybele by everybody
else. Her shrine was at Castabala in the northeast. During the reign of king Artaxerxes
II Mnemon, the Castabalans briefly revolted, but they were subdued by general
Datames.
Another sanctuary was Mazaca, which must have been more to the Persians'
taste. Here, the sacred fire was worshipped. Another site of religious importance
was the oracle at Mallus.
At the end of the fifth century, the third known and probably last
syennesis was ruling Cilicia. He became involved in a civil war between Artaxerxes
II and his brother Cyrus the Younger. When the latter approached the Cilician
gate, the syennesis was forced to side with him. However, after the defeat of
Cyrus at Cunaxa near Babylon,
the syennesis' position was difficult and he was dethroned. This marked the end
of the independence of Cilicia. After 400, it became an ordinary satrapy.
One of its satraps was the Babylonian Mazaeus (361-336). His successor
was expelled by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, who conquered Cilicia
in the summer of 333, and fell ill at Tarsus. After some time, he recovered and
attacked the Cilicians of the Taurus mountains. This was probably a police action
against the herdsmen. The new satrap of Cilicia, a man named Balacrus, was given
special orders to attack the mountain people. Unfortunately, he was unable to
overcome the herdsmen of Isaura,
a tribal formation that now appear in history and was to play a role in the following
centuries.
Greek and Roman period
After the death of Alexander in Babylon (June 11, 323), Cilicia was
first part of the kingdom of Antigonus Monophthalmus, who had been appointed as
satrap of Phrygia. When he
was defeated at Ipsus (301),
Cilicia was divided by Seleucus and Ptolemy, two former friends of Alexander.
From now on, the coastal towns belonged to the Ptolemaean empire, and the interior
was part of the Seleucid empire. Twice, the region was contested: in the Second
Syrian war (260-253), the Ptolemaeans gained ground, but in the Fifth Syrian war
(202-198), all of Cilicia became Seleucid. It remained so for a century, and was
thoroughly hellenized. New cities were founded, and the old Luwian language was
gradually superseded by Greek.
However, after c.110, the Seleucid power was waning, and the inhabitants
of "rough Cilicia", which had always retained some of their independence, started
to behave as pirates. Although both the Seleucid and Roman authorities sometimes
launched expeditions against the Cilician pirates, the two governments did not
really care. After all, the pirates sold the slaves that the ancient economy could
not do without.
It was only after 80, when it became clear to the Romans that the
Seleucid empire was disintegrating and a power vacuum was growing, that the legions
intervened. In 78-74, Publius Servilius Vatia subdued western Cilicia. To commemorate
his victory, he received the surname Isauricus. Eastern Cilicia became part of
the empire of the Armenian king Tigranes. However, the Cilician pirates remained
dangerous, until Pompey the Great attacked them. He settled them in towns and
gave them land (67). This turned out to be an excellent settlement. The last Cilician
war was conducted by Marcus Tullius Cicero (51-50), who defeated the last independent
Cilicians.
During the next decade, the Romans were unable to establish their
power, because they were involved in two civil wars, first between Julius Caesar
and Pompey the Great (49-48) and then between on the one hand Caesar's heirs Marc
Antony and Octavian and on the other hand Caesar's murderers Brutus and Cassius.
When Octavian became sole ruler (after 30 BCE), Cilicia was finally pacified.
Parts were given to vassal kings, and the remainder became an appendix to the
province Syria. Although
the governor of Syria sometimes had to fight against the mountain tribes (e.g.,
Lucius Vitellius in 36 CE), Cilicia was now a quiet part of the Roman world.
The emperor Vespasian reunited Cilicia in 72. More than two centuries
later, it was divided into two parts by Diocletian: the mountainous west became
known as Isauria, and the plains retained the name Cilicia. In the late fourth
or early fifth century, the remainder of Cilicia was again divided into two parts,
simply called Cilicia I (Tarsus and environs) and Cilicia II (the eastern plains).
The fifth and sixth centuries saw great affluence, but in the seventh
century, it became a border zone where the Byzantine empire was defended against
the Arab incursions. About 700, it became Muslim, but it became Greek again in
965. Many Armenians were settled in Cilicia, and the country became known as Lesser
Armenia. During the Crusades, it became independent. In 1375, this last period
of Cilician independence came to an end, when the country became part of the Ottoman
empire.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
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