Tarsus

“ The very city of his birth, Tarsus, is said to have been founded by Perseus, the son of Jupiter and Danae, famed for his exploit at another place on the shore of this part of the Mediterranean. More authentic history however, refers its earliest foundation to Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, who built Tarsus and Anchialus in Cilicia, nine hundred years before Christ. Its origin is by others ascribed to Triptolemus with an Argive colony, who is represented on some medals as the founder. ”

“ See Pyrotechny.
Tarsus (now Tersus) . Anciently the chief city of Cilicia, and one of the most important in all Asia Minor, situated on both sides of the navigable river Cydnus, about 18 miles from the sea. In the time of Xenophon, who gives us the first historical notice of Tarsus, it was taken by Cyrus. At the time of the Macedonian invasion, it was held by the Persian troops, who were prevented from burning it by Alexander’s arrival. It played an important part as a military post in the wars of the successors of Alexander, and under the Syrian kings. ”

“ The tarsus consists typically of seven bones, which are tightly packed and rarely permit any movement between them. The upper row of the tarsus consists of two bones, which are peculiarly modified to form the ankle-joint and heel; on the inner side is the ankle-bone, or astragalus, the shape of which is highly characteristic of the various mammalian orders. The upper or posterior portion of the astragalus, according to the position of the foot, is a pulley which glides upon the lower end of the tibia and is held firmly in place by the internal and the external malleolus. ”

“ The Semitic influence was doubtless very ancient; indeed, the Assyrians invaded Cilicia in the 9th century B.C., at which date Tarsus is perhaps mentioned on the monuments under the name of Tarzi (Schrader, Keilinschr. und Gesch., 1878, p. 240; the reading is not certain) . After Tarsus was Hellenized the citizens learned to boast that they were Argives sprung from the companions of Triptolemus (Strabo, xiv. 5. 12; Dio Chr., ii. 20) , and the town became the seat of a famous school of philosophy which was frequented almost exclusively by natives, but sent forth teachers as far as Rome itself. ”

“ That a tragedy so remote should seriously affect the lives and destinies of an English aviatrix and an American professor of geology, neither of whom was conscious of the existence of the other at the time this narrative begins—when it does begin, which is not yet, since Paul of Tarsus is merely by way of prologue—may seem remarkable to us, but not to Fate, who has been patiently waiting these nearly two thousand years for these very events I am about to chronicle. ”

“ At Tarsus apparently the custom was still further softened by burning an effigy instead of a man; but on this point the evidence is not explicit. It is worth observing that as late as Lucian's time the principal festival of the year at Hierapolis—the great seat of the worship of Astarte—fell at the beginning of spring and took its name of the Pyre or the Torch from the tall masts which were burnt in the court of the temple with sheep, goats, and other animals hanging from them.881 Here the season, the fire, and the gallows-tree all fit our hypothesis; only the man-god is wanting. ”

“ Tarshish, a place frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, now generally identified with Tartessus, a Phoenician settlement in the SW. of Spain, near the mouth of the Guadalquivir, which became co-extensive with the district subsequently known as Andalusia; also conjectured to have been Tarsus, and also Yemen.
Tarsus (8) , a city of great antiquity and interest, the ancient capital of Cilicia, now in the province of Adana, in Turkey in Asia, on the Cydnus, 12 m. above its entrance into the Mediterranean; legend ascribes its foundation to Sennacherib in 690 B.C. ”

“ Josephus.
Verse 39
I am a man which am a Jew - A periphrasis for, I am a Jew. See the note on [1090] .
Of Tarsus - no mean city - In the notes on [1091] , I have shown that Tarsus was a city of considerable importance, and in some measure a rival to Rome and Athens; and that, because of the services tendered to the Romans by the inhabitants, Julius Caesar endowed them with all the rights and privileges of Roman citizens. When St. Paul calls it no mean city, he speaks a language that was common to those who have had occasion to speak of Tarsus. ”

“ The people of Tarsus no doubt got from their murex, a shell-fish of the class mollusca and purpurifera family to be found on their coast,76 their dyeing matter; and when we remember what changes are wrought in the animal itself by the food it eats, and what strong effects are made by slight variations in climate, even atmosphere, upon materials for colouring in the moment of application, we may easily understand how the difference arose between the two tints of purple.
“Cloth of Tarsus” itself was of a rare and costly kind, of fine goats’ hair and silk. The tint was some shade of royal purple. ”

“ Week-ends would indeed be dull were it not for visits exchanged up and down the railway by missionaries in Mersina, Tarsus and Adana. A new person at any of the three stations is very soon invited to make week-end visits. Early in the autumn, Miss X arrived at Adana. When she made her first visit to Tarsus, Herbert and I invited her to have coffee in our study one Saturday evening. ”

“ The road to Tarsus, which is eight hours distant, lies over an unbroken plain. Towards the sea, there are two tumuli, resembling those on the plains east of Antioch. Stone wells, with troughs for watering horses, occur at intervals of three or four miles; but there is little cultivation after leaving the vicinity of Adana. The sun poured down an intense summer heat, and hundreds of large gad-flies, swarming around us, drove the horses wild with their stings. ”

“ I haven't even made a complete inventory of what we brought from Tarsus. We are too engrossed in the duties and problems that each day brings forth to think at all about the morrow. Honestly, Mother, during the four days we have been in Mersina, maternity hasn't had much of a place in my mind—I mean, of course, my own maternity. ”

“ By great exertion they were able to raise a little more canvas, as the only hope lay in making Tarsus, or some other port on the Cilician coast, toward which the wind was sweeping them. Though much more distant than Salamis, which they had left behind, there was no choice. They could go only where they were driven. The gods were invoked and libations poured, that the gale, which at first had brought them disaster, might continue. Could they make Tarsus before the Salapiæ would fill and go to the bottom? ”

“ At that time Tarsus was, like Alexandria, an important seat of Greek learning.
Here flourished the school of the younger Stoics, with its mixture of old Stoic, Orphic, and Platonic ideas. Here the ethical principles of that school were preached in a popular form, in street and market-place, by orators of the people. It was not at all necessary for Paul, brought up in the austerity of the Jewish religion of the Law, to visit the lecture-rooms of the Stoic teachers in [184] order to gain a knowledge of Stoic views, for in Tarsus it was as though the air was filled with that doctrine. ”

“ But it requires nothing short of absolute superstition to believe that Tarsus was founded by Io, or Perseus the Argive,440 who, with his descendant Hercules, was worshipped in this place as a tutelar deity;441 or that Mallus, Mopsuestia, Mopsucrene, and Phaselis were founded by Argive soothsayers at the time of the Trojan war.442 To these may be added Aspendus in Pamphylia, Curium in Cyprus, and even Ione, near Antiochia, in Syria,443 the founding of which place is attributed to the Argives. ”

“ TARSUS (mod. Tersous) , an ancient city in the fertile plain of Cilicia. The small river Cydnus flowed through the centre of the town, and its cool swift waters were the boast of the city (though visitors like Dion Chrysostom thought it far inferior to the rivers of many Greek cities) . The harbour, Rhegma, below the city, was originally a lagoon, though it is said also to be supplied by springs of its own. The Cydnus flowed into the lake (where were the arsenals) and thence into the sea, about 10 m. from Tarsus. ”

“ Tarsus stands north of the point of a wide indentation of the coast of Cilicia, forming a very open bay, into which, a few miles south, flow the waters of the classic Cydnus, a narrow stream which runs a brief course from the barrier of Taurus, directly southward to the sea. The river’s mouth forms a spacious and convenient harbor, to which the light vessels of ancient commerce all easily found safe and ready access, though most of the floating piles in which the productions of the world are now transported, might find such a harbor altogether inaccessible to their heavier burden. ”

“ There are also in some places springs which have the peculiarity of giving fine singing voices to the natives, as at Tarsus in Magnesia and in other countries of that kind. ”

“ TARGUM. See Jews.
TARSHISH, a country of this name, whither Solomon sent his fleets, 1 Kings x, 22; 2 Chron. ix, 11. There is a multitude of different opinions concerning this country. Josephus, and the Chaldee and Arabic paraphrasts, explain it of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia; the Septuagint, St. Jerom, and Theodoret, understand it of Carthage. The Arabian geographer will have it to be Tunis in Africa. Bochart makes it to be Tartessus, an island in the Straits of Gades. By Tarshish, M. Le Clerc understands Thassus, an island and city in the Ægean sea. ”

“ At this point the main highway from Antioch to Ephesus and Smyrna touched the Cydnus and thence turned northward, crossing the Taurus range by the famous Cilician Gates. Its [267] commercial prestige, however, was not so much the result of its natural position as of the energy of the early population. They had drained the marshes about the Cydnus and transformed the lake immediately south of the town into a large inland harbor. They also cut the road beside the narrow stream that penetrated the Taurus range, making Tarsus the seaport of the wide plains to the north. ”

“ The feet are of a pale flesh-colour, and furnished with white hairs; the fore feet are of moderate size; the thumb nail is small and rounded, and the carpal tubercle is covered with hairs; the tarsi are long, and the white hairs extend over the whole of the under parts; the under side of the toes, however, are but sparingly furnished. There appears to be but one large tubercle on the under side of the tarsus, and this, which is situated near the base of the toes, is thickly covered with silvery-white hairs. The tail is long, pale brown above, and pale flesh-colour beneath ”

“ I have only the typewriter to console me for having to give up my horse. Anyway, we may get away from here and into other things before Herbert tackles Tarsus. I [Pg 70] am still waiting to see his letter on the trip he took to the Holy Land. [2]
There are very few women in the bazaars. None at all are engaged in selling. ”

“ Wing moderate or relatively rather large, with longest primaries extending slightly but decidedly beyond secondaries; fifth, sixth, and seventh primaries longest, the tenth (outermost) less than half as long as longest, the ninth much shorter than secondaries. Tail about four- fifths as long as wing, graduated (graduation less than distance from nostril to tip of maxilla) , the rectrices (10) rather narrow, rounded terminally. Tarsus about as long as bill from frontal antiæ, two- fifths as long as wing, slender, the scutella of acrotarsium fairly distinct, those of the planta tarsi undivided ”

“ Tarzan’s mouth watered and a low growl escaped his patrician lips. Sloughed from him was the last vestige of artificial caste—once again he was the primeval hunter—the first man—the highest caste type of the human race. Up wind he followed the elusive spoor with a sense of perception so transcending that of ordinary man as to be inconceivable to us. Through counter currents of the heavy stench of meat eaters he traced the trail of Bara; the sweet and cloying stink of Horta, the boar, could not drown his quarry’s scent—the permeating, mellow musk of the deer’s foot. ”

“ The heavy club, launched by the mighty muscles of the beast man, would snap the leg bone that it struck, and then the enormous fowl would be at the mercy of the Sagoth. But if it did not strike the leg, what then? Almost certain death for Tar-gash.
Tarzan had long since had reason to appreciate his companion's savage disregard of life in the pursuit of flesh, but this seemed the highest pinnacle to which rashness might ascend and still remain within the realm of sanity. ”

“ For the third time Numa, the lion, uttered that low pleading whine and then, with a rueful and disgusted shake of his head, Tarzan of the Apes raised the balance of the carcass of Bara, the deer, and hurled it to the famished beast below.
"Old woman," muttered the ape-man. "Tarzan has become a weak old woman. ”

“ As the rising sun dispelled the shadows of the night, Tarzan found himself again upon the verge of a great forest into which his guide plunged, taking nimbly to the branches of the trees through which he made his way with the celerity of long habitude and hereditary instinct, but though aided by a prehensile tail, fingers, and toes, the man-thing moved through the forest with no greater ease or surety than did the giant ape-man. ”

“ Instead of soft muscles and a weak resistance, she was looking upon a veritable Hercules gone mad.
“Mon Dieu!” she cried; “he is a beast!” For the strong, white teeth of the ape-man had found the throat of one of his assailants, and Tarzan fought as he had learned to fight with the great bull apes of the tribe of Kerchak. ”