Cilicia

“ For if I had gone straight down into Cilicia, I could easily indeed have held Cilicia itself, owing to the natural strength of Mount Amanus—for there are only two defiles opening into Cilicia from Syria, both of which are capable of being closed by insignificant garrisons owing to their narrowness, nor can anything be imagined better fortified than is Cilicia on the Syrian side—but I was disturbed for Cappadocia, which is quite open on the Syrian side, and is surrounded by kings, who, even if they are our friends in secret, nevertheless do not venture to be openly hostile to the Parthians. ”

“ Unlike the rest of Asia Minor, Cilicia was saved by the Assyrians from the ravages of the Cimmerians. Their leader, Dugdamme, whom the Greeks called Lygdamis, is said to have met his death on the frontier hills of Taurus, which, no doubt, he failed to pass. Thus, when Ashurbanipal's death and the shrinking of Ninevite power permitted distant vassals to resume independence, the unimpaired wealth of Cilicia soon gained for her considerable importance. ”

“ Well, what am I to do? Could I turn Cilicia into an Aetolia or a Macedonia? Let me tell you this, that with an army such as mine, and in a place like this, such a big business was impossible. You shall have it all en abrégé; as you agreed in your last letter to take it. You know about my arrival at Ephesus, for you have congratulated me on my enthusiastic reception on that day, which gave me as much pleasure as anything ever did in my life. ”

“ It is generally assumed that they had previously been subject to the Syro-Cappadocian empire; but, up to 1909 at all events, “Hittite” monuments had not been found in Cilicia; and we must infer that the “Hittite” civilizations which flourished in Cappadocia and N. Syria, communicated with each other by passes E. of Amanus and not by the Cilician Gates. Under the Persian empire Cilicia was apparently governed by tributary native kings, who bore a name or title graecized as Syennesis ”

“ CICERO, and the last years of the Roman Republic.
See ROME: B. C. 69-63, to 44-42.
CILICIA.-KILIKIA. An ancient district in the southeastern corner of Asia Minor, bordering on Syria. It was a satrapy of the Persian Empire, then a part of the kingdom of the Selucidæ, and afterwards a Roman province. The chief city of Cilicia was Tarsus, a very ancient commercial emporium, whose people were noted for mental acuteness. The Apostle Paul is to be counted among the distinguished natives of Tarsus, and a quite remarkable number of eminent teachers of philosophy were from the same birthplace. ”

“ Cicero complied with the request, and took the opportunity, so characteristic of him, of lauding his own administration of Cilicia, and making a kind of pun at the same time. "I have given orders to the hunters to see about the panthers; but panthers are very scarce, and the few there are complain, people say, that in the whole province there are no traps laid for anybody but for them". Catching and skinning the unfortunate provincials, which had been a favourite sport with governors like Verres, had been quite done away with in Cilicia, we are to understand, under Cicero's rule. ”

“ Till other evidence comes to hand these little objects must be our witnesses to the existence of a highly developed sub-Hittite culture in Cilicia which, as early as the ninth century, had already been refined by the influence of the Greek settlements on the Anatolian coasts and perhaps, even earlier, by the Cretan art of the Aegean area. Cilician civilization offers a link between east and west which is worth more consideration and study than have been given to it by historians. ”

“ They had their chief strongholds on the Cilician coast and the island of Crete, and Antonius proceeded to Cilicia, where he destroyed several of their towns and annexed some territory, which became the province of Cilicia.
Besides these troubles the Romans had to face revolts in Spain which broke out spasmodically down to 95 B. C., as well as continual inroads of barbarians from Thrace into the provinces of Macedonia and Illyricum. ”

“ The land of the Cilicians must at one time have stretched northwards over the Taurus range to the inner table-land as far as the sources of the Sarus, to the watershed between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, or even further. Sargon could not have transferred the sovereignty over Cilicia to the king of Tubal if his territory was not contiguous to Cilicia. And if we assume that the land of Tubal reached at that time as far as the Taurus, we are met by the objection that even Herodotus represents the Halys as passing through the land of the Cilicians on its way from Armenia. ”

“ From this camp, on receipt of serious news as to the Parthians, I started for Cilicia by way of that part of Cappadocia which borders on Cilicia, with the design of impressing upon the Armenian Artavasdes and the Parthians themselves that they were precluded from entering Cappadocia. After having been encamped for five days at Cybistra in Cappadocia, I got intelligence that the Parthians were at a long distance from that entrance into Cappadocia, and were rather threatening Cilicia. ”

“ At this time news came that Octavius, the governor of Cilicia, was dead, and many were eager for the place, courting Cethegus, as the man best able to serve them. Lucullus set little value upon Cilicia itself, no otherwise than as he thought, by his acceptance of it, no other man besides himself might be employed in the war against Mithridates, by reason of its nearness to Cappadocia. This made him strain every effort that that province might be allotted to himself, and to none other ”

“ The Sarus now enters the sea almost due south of Tarsus, but there are clear indications that at one period it joined the Pyramus, and that the united rivers ran to the sea west of Kara-tash. Such appears to have been the case when Alexander’s army crossed Cilicia. The plain is extremely productive, though now little cultivated. ”

“ King Leo I of Cilicia was in an alliance with the Latin princes of Antioch. The emperor of Constantinople was bent on recovering that famous city from the Crusaders. Consequently to accomplish his purpose he marched on to Cilicia with a large army. The emperor and his [Pg 96] generals seem to have been strategists and good warriors. They wrested the city of Antioch and reduced many Cilician provinces and took Leo and his two sons, Reuben and Toros, captives and carried them to Constantinople (1136) . ”

“ Cilicia was a province of considerable extent, including, as it did, the south-eastern portion of Asia Minor, together with the island of Cyprus. The position of its governor was made more anxious by the neighborhood of Rome's most formidable neighbors, the Parthians, who but two years before had cut to pieces the army of Crassus. Two legions, numbering twelve thousand troops besides auxiliaries, were stationed in the province, having attached to them between two and three thousand cavalry. ”

“ Alexandretta commands the defiles of Cilicia. By the possession of this place, an army marching from Asia Minor upon Palestine could be forced to make a long and painful circuit, across a country half desert, and across portions of Cilicia, Armenia, and Mesopotamia.
“Aleppo and Damascus are the only cities capable of resisting for a moment our ulterior operations after the reduction of Cairo. Although they are distant from the sea, they must be secured, since then we shall command all the country on this side of Mount Amanus. ”

“ The Roman provinces nearest to Egypt were Cilicia and Syria, countries situated on the eastern and northeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of Judea. The forces stationed in these provinces would be, of course, the most convenient for furnishing the necessary troops for the expedition. The province of Cilicia was under the command of the consul Lentulus. Lentulus was at this time at Rome; he had repaired to the capital for some temporary purpose, leaving his province and the troops stationed there under the command, for the time, of a sort of lieutenant general named Gabinius. ”

“ He engaged too, in war, so far as to give a defeat to the banditti who infested Mount Amanus, for which he was saluted by his army Imperator. To Caecilius, the orator, who asked him to send him some panthers from Cilicia, to be exhibited on the theater at Rome, he wrote, in commendation of his own actions, that there were no panthers in Cilicia, for they were all fled to Caria, in anger that in so general a peace they had become the sole objects of attack. On leaving his province, he touched at Rhodes, and tarried for some length of time at Athens, longing much to renew his old studies. ”

“ The three legions commanded by Quintus Marcius Rex lay equally inactive in Cilicia. The Pontic territory was again wholly in the power of king Mithradates, who made the individuals and communities that had joined the Romans, such as the town of Eupatoria, pay for their revolt with cruel severity. The kings of the east did not proceed to any serious offensive movement against the Romans, either because it formed no part of their plan, or—as was asserted— because the landing of Pompeius in Cilicia induced Mithradates and Tigranes to desist from advancing farther. ”

“ Cilicia--all that part of it at least which the Assyrians used to raid--lies low, faces south and is shielded by high mountains from northerly and easterly chills. It enjoys, indeed, a warmer and more equable climate than any part of Syria, except the coastal belt, and socially it has always been related more nearly to the south lands than to its own geographical whole, Asia Minor. A Semitic element was predominant in the population of the plain, and especially in its chief town, Tarsus, throughout antiquity. ”

“ The population of Cilicia, as might be expected from its having been from time immemorial the great arena of the nations of the Orient and the Occident, has always been of [199] the most cosmopolitan character. In ancient times Medes and Persians, Assyrians and Babylonians, Scythians and Hittites foregathered here, sometimes bent on the purpose of commerce but more frequently on the prosecution of war and conquest. To-day we find here Syrians and Arabians, Greeks and Armenians, Kurds and Ansaryii, Turkomans and Osmanlis, and representatives from divers parts of Africa and Europe. ”

“ On the forty-ninth day after he left Brundisium he brought the whole of Cilicia under the dominion of the Roman people, and all the Pirates, wherever they might be, either were captured and put to death, or surrendered to his sole authority and command. Finally, when the Cretans had followed him even into Pamphylia with envoys begging for clemency, he did not disdain their offer of submission and was content to demand hostages. ”

“ Cilicia Trachea is a rugged mountain district formed by the spurs of Taurus, which often terminate in rocky headlands with small sheltered harbours,—a feature which, in classical times, made the coast a resort of pirates, and, in the middle ages, led to its occupation by Genoese and Venetian traders. The district is watered by the Geuk Su (Calycadnus and its tributaries) , and is covered to a large extent by forests, which still, as of old, supply timber to Egypt and Syria. There were several towns but no large trade centres. ”

“ The inhabitants of Cilicia and Crete excelled above all others in the practice of this lucrative profession, and many were their depredations upon the Greek shores and islands. One pirate captain destroyed the sanctuaries of Delos and carried off the whole population into slavery; two others defeated the Roman admiral in Cretan waters. This last disgrace resulted in the conquest of that fine island by the Roman proconsul Quintus Metellus, whose difficult task fully earned him the title of “Creticus.” The islanders fought with the desperate courage which they have evinced in all ages. ”

“ Cicero, however, loved him well. He always liked the society of bright young men, and could forgive their morals if their wit were good. Clodius—even Clodius, young Curio, Cælius and afterward Dolabella, were companions with whom he loved to associate. When he was in Cilicia, as Proconsul, this Cælius became almost a second Atticus to him, in the writing of news from Rome. ”

“ The Emperor of Constantinople, Alexius, sent also a crown to Leon “the Great.” The king of Cilicia is, as far as I know, the only king who received the crown by both the emperors of the west and the east, and by the consent of the pope. The pope hoped to bring the Armenians under his sway, and the Latins and the Greeks thought Leon a very useful ally against the overpowering Saladin.—See the Letters in the Appendix. ”

“ The next province visited was Cilicia (Acts 15:41) , the land of Paul's birth. As everywhere he made the chief cities his stations of labor, we may suppose that he passed through Mopsuestia and Adana, on his way to Tarsus, the metropolis of the province. From Tarsus he journeyed westward toward Mount Taurus, the northern boundary of the province, and crossed the range through the Cilician Gates, from which he emerged upon the great Lycaonian plain. ”

“ Æmilius Paulus was the Consul, and might probably have Cilicia as a province, and would no doubt give over the Salaminians to Brutus and his myrmidons without any compunction. In strictness—with that assurance in the power of law by means of which our judges are enabled to see that their righteous decisions shall be carried out without detriment to themselves—Cicero should have caused the delegates from Salamis instantly to have deposited their money in the temple. ”