SELEUCIA AD CALYCADNUM
(Silifke) Rough Cilicia, Turkey.
A city founded by Seleucus Nicator,
probably between 296 and 280 B.C. after his seizure of
Cilicia, and for which he brought inhabitants from
Holmi, a nearby port. It is said to have been known as
Hyria or Olbia before Seleucus' foundation. Situated on
the right bank of the Calycadnus (Gök Su), which was
navigable up to the city in Strabo's time, Seleucia lies at
the seaward end of a route to the interior of Asia Minor
which either followed the modern car road up the Calycadnus to Claudiopolis (Mut) or led inland to Uzuncaburç and then NW and W over the mountains to Claudiopolis and thence to Laranda. The extent of its territory
is unknown but must have included the rich delta of the
Calycadnus. How it weathered the 3d c. Ptolemaic-Seleucid fighting is not known, or the infighting among
the Seleucids in the 2d and 1st c. B.C. The city seems to
have remained independent while most of the rest of
Rough Cilicia was divided among Rome's protégés and
client kings, before the formation of one province of
Cilicia in ca. A.D. 72. In the 4th c. it was metropolis of
Isauria. It dwindled from the 15th c. to the 1880s when
it revived as a port and market center.
Above the city to the W is a steep conical hill crowned
by a well-preserved Armenian castle built largely of ancient blocks. The few visible remains of the ancient city
are scattered among the houses of the modern town, on
a natural terrace which extends E from the castle hill,
and below that E along the river into the plain. All the
remains in situ seem to be of the Roman and Christian
periods.
The theater is dug into the terrace below the citadel
and faces E. Virtually all its stonework is gone, save for
one entrance arch. On the terrace are a number of ancient blocks, cuttings, etc., and a large cistern, the roof
originally supported on arches, probably Byzantine or
Armenian. A little E of the schoolyard, in the center of
the modern town, is a temple, of which one fluted column and Corinthian capital remains standing, and some
of the other column bases are in place. The temple was
peripteral, 8 x 14, and had a flight of stairs at its E end.
Two frieze blocks carved with Nikes carrying a garland
remain from it. The date appears to be the 2d c. A.D. at
the earliest. On the river bank E of the temple is some
of the foundation for the two sides of a stadium. In a
house in the town is a late mosaic of a checkerboard
pattern with animals and various objects in the squares.
The present bridge across the river was built in the
1870s to replace an earlier six-arched bridge, at least in
part Roman. An inscription recording the building of the
Roman bridge in A.D. 77-78 was found.
On the slopes to each side of the road leading to Mut,
SE of the castle hill, is an extensive Roman necropolis
of rock-cut chambers and sarcophagi, some cut in the
rock and some freestanding. A large number of inscriptions has been recorded. The Christian necropolis is S
of the town on the ancient paved road with steps cut in
the rock which leads from the center of Silifke S to the
monastery and churches of Meriamlik, a site where
Thekla, a saint of the 1st c., is supposed to have lived. It
was famous by the 4th c. as a pilgrimage site; the main
buildings are apparently of the 5th and 6th c.
The ancient road from Seleucia to Diocaesarea (Olba),
largely followed by the modern road, led across the Calycadnus and up steeply to a rocky upland slope seamed
with deep ravines. Along the road and east of it from
about 8 to 10 km from Seleucia are some ancient sites
which may have belonged to the territory of Seleucia.
On the road in the area now known as Taş evler or
Kuleier are various house remains and numerous well-preserved heroa of the 2d and 3d c. A.D. These are in the
form of a small temple distyle in antis, or prostyle tetrastyle, some of the latter with a basement also fronted
with columns. All are Corinthian in style with Ionic for
the lower story columns. All have a door from porch to
cella. Ten km from Seleucia is a grave tower, square in
plan, pilasters at the corners, Corinthian capitals and epistyle, and a pyramidal roof, and off the road to the
W another similar tower lacking the roof, the blocks
separated by earthquake. South of it is a low hill covered
with the ruins of a town, ancient Imbriogōn Komē, probably an outlying possession of Seleucia, or possibly of
Diocaesarea. There is no indication of what place the
deceased of the heroa were citizens, although Seleucia as
the closer is more likely. Well to the E of the road at a
place known as Bey Ören are the remains of a basilica,
and at Topalaryn Tsheshme house remains, a memorial
column and two heroa. Remains of four different sites
lie along or near the ravine leading SE from the Seleucia
Diocaesaria road to Persenti, at the E edge of the Calycadnus delta; these may have belonged to Seleucia or Diocaesarea/Olba.
In the school and schoolyard, where several columns,
perhaps from a stoa, have been re-erected, are collected
various blocks with inscriptions, some statuary, capitals
and other antiquities collected from Silifke and the surrounding district. At least one portrait head is in the Adana Museum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Beaufort,
Karamania (1818) 214-18;
L. de Laborde,
Voyage dans l'Asie Mineure (1838)
130f
MPI; V. Langlois,
Voyage dans la Cilicie (1861) 182-93; L. Duschesne, “Les Necropoles Chrétiennes de
l'Isaurie, I, Selefkeh,”
BCH 4 (1880) 192-202; R. Heberdey & A. Wilhelm,
Reisen in Kilikien, DenkschrWien,
Phil-Hist. Kl. 44, 6 (1896) 100-17; C. R. Cockerell,
Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant (1903); J.
Keil & A. Wilhelm, “Vorlaufiger Bericht über eine Reise
in Kilikien,”
JOAI 18 (1915) 19-34; id.,
Denkmäler aus
dem Rauhen Kilikien, MAMA III (1931) 3-33; R. Paribeni & P. Romanelli, “Studii e recherche archeologiche
nell'Anatolia Meridionale,”
MonAnt 23 (1915) 95-99;
E. Herzfeld & S. Guyer,
Meriamlik und Korykos,
MAMA II (1930)
MPI; G. H. Forsyth, “Architectural
Notes on a trip through Cilicia,”
DOPapers 11 (1957)
223-25
I (Meriamlik); L. Robert,
Documents de l'Asie
Mineure Meridionale (1966) 101-5; D. H. French, “Prehistoric Sites in the Gök Su Valley,”
AnatSt 15 (1965)
181; T. S. MacKay, “Olba in Rough Cilicia,” Diss. 1968
(Univ. Microfilm)
M; L. Budde,
Antike Mosaiken in
Kilikien II (1972) 153-62
MPI; O. Feld, “Bericht über
eine Reise durch Kilikien,”
IstMitt 13-14 (1963-64)
88-97.
T. S. MACKAY
