TAVIUM
Galatia, Turkey.
The center of the
Trocmian tribe. It is described by Strabo (
12.5.2) as a
phrourion and minted coins in the 1st c. B.C. but did not
become a city, in the Greek sense, until 21-20 B.C. when
its era begins. It was always the least considerable of the
three cities of Galatia, but owed its importance to its
position in the road network of E Asia Minor. It continued to be a place of some importance during the Byzantine period.
The position of Tavium was a subject of considerable
dispute until discoveries in 1884 proved beyond question
that it lay beside Büyük Nefes köy, some 30 km W of
Yozgat. The site is on the S slope of the ridge that forms
the watershed of the basin of the Delice Irmak (Cappadox
flumen?). Two natural outcrops of rock ca. 1 km W
of the modern village carried the original site, and on
both a few walls have been exposed by village digging.
Sherds indicate that the W mound had been occupied
long before the Classical period. The main part of the
Roman city lay to the N of these two outcrops under
an area of gardens and vineyards belonging to the modern village. Architectural fragments are strewn all over
this area and built into field walls, but too little is
visible to allow any attempt to reconstruct the plan of
the city. There are traces of a Late Roman or Byzantine wall around the site. Remains from Tavium have been carried to Büyük Nefes köy and the surrounding villages and cemeteries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J.R.S. Sterrett, “An Epigraphical Journey in Asia Minor,”
Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens II (1883-84) 308-20; K. Bittel, “Kleinasiatische Studien,”
IstMitt 5 (1942) 6-38.
S. MITCHELL