ANAZARBOS
Cilicia Campestris, Turkey.
On
the right bank of the Sumbas Çay, 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 Çay. 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.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Wilhelm & R. Heberdey,
JOAI (1915)
55-58; A.H.M. Jones,
Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2d ed. 1971); E. H. King,
Journal Royal Central
Asian Soc. 24 (1937) 234-36; M. Gough, “Anazarbus,”
AnatSt. 2 (1952) 85-160; P. Verzone, “Anazarbus,”
Palladio 1 (1957) 9-25.
M. GOUGH
