CELE´NDERIS
CELE´NDERIS (
Κελενδερίς: Eth.
Κελενδερίτης:
Chelendreh), a town of Pamphylia, on the coast.
The tradition was that it was a Phoenician settlement, which was afterwards occupied by the Samians. (Mela, 1.13.)
There was a temple of Juno near the town, and a river Is, which flowed by them to the sea. (Scymnus, quoted by Herodian.)
It is described by Tacitus (
Tac. Ann. 2.80) as a very strong place, on a high rock nearly surrounded by the sea. Piso attempted to take it. Celenderis had a fort (Strab. p. 670); and Artemidorus, with other geographers, considered this place, and not Coracesium, as the commencement of Cilicia.
Chelendreh has “a snug but very small port, from whence the couriers from Constantinople to Cyprus embark.” (Beaufort,
Karamania, p. 209.) The Turks call it
Gulnar. None of the remains of Celenderis appear to be older than the early period of the Roman empire.
The town “gave name to a region called Celenderitis (
Plin. Nat. 5.27), and coined those silver tetradrachms, which supply some of the earliest and finest specimens of the numismatic art.” (Leake,
Asia Minor, &c. p. 116.)
There are also coins of the Syrian kings, and of the later Roman emperors, with the epigraph
Κελενδερίτων.  |
| COIN OF CELENDERIS. |
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