PELTAE
PELTAE (
Πέλται: Eth.
Πελτηνοί, Eth.
Pelteni), a considerable town of Phrygia, was situated, according. to Xenophon (
Xen. Anab. 1.2.10), at a distance of 10 parasangs from Celaenae, at the head of the river Maeander. Xenophon describes it as a populous city, and states that the army of Cyrus remained there three days, during which games and sacrifices were performed. The Peuting. Table, where the name is erroneously written Pella, places it, quite in accordance with Xenophon, 26 miles from Apamea Cibotus, to the conventus of which Peltae belonged. (
Plin. Nat. 5.29; comp.
Ptol. 5.2.25;
Steph. B. sub voce Strabo (
xii. p.576) mentions Peltae among the smaller towns of Phrygia, and the Notitiae name it among the episcopal cities of Phrygia Pacatiana.
The district in which the town was situated derived from it the name of the Peltaean plain (
Πελτηνόν or
Πελτινὸν πεδίον, Strab. xiii. p.629). Kiepert (ap. Franz,
Fünf Inschriften, p. 36) fixes the site of Peltae at the place where Mr. Hamilton found ruins of an ancient city, about. 8 miles south of
Sandakli (
Journal of the Roy. Geogr. Society, viii. p. 144); while Hamilton himself (
Researches, ii. p. 203) thinks that it must have been situated more to the south-west, near the modern
Ishekli. But this latter hypothesis seems to place it too far west.
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L.S]
