ZEUGMA
later SELEUCIA ON THE EUPHRATES
(Balkis) Syria.
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.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Cumont,
Etudes syriennes (1917).
J.-P. REY-COQUAIS
