Another isolated Hellenistic Mausoleum

Years ago, upon leaving the site of Ptolemais in Libya, I was pleasantly surprised by the remains of a Hellenistic Mausoleum (see: Ptolemais, heritage of the Ptolemies in the Cyrenaica). It looked abandoned and neglected; nobody could tell me anything about it. 

Presently, another similar Mausoleum has been spotted in Darende, near Malatya in eastern Turkey. In antiquity, the city’s name was Melitene, a vital crossing point over the Tigris River not unlike the role played by Zeugma (see: Zeugma, Border-town along the Euphrates River) and Dura Europos (see: Dura Europos, last stop on the Euphrates). It was also the end of the highway coming from Caesarea, modern Kayseri. The Romans fortified Melitene in the 2nd century AD to control access to the upper Tigris and southern Armenia and to defend themselves against the invading Parthians. Procopius of Caesarea, living in the 6th century AD, described Melitene’s theaters, agoras, and temples, of which nothing has been discovered until now. 

[Picture from Malatya GoTurkiye Destinations]

Scholars have established that this Mausoleum has the shape of a Greek temple built in Hellenistic style, not unlike the well-known Nereid’s Monument in Xanthos (see: Xanthos, the greatest city of Lycia), now at the British Museum in London. Based on its appearance and decorative features, the Mausoleum of Darende has been dated to the 2nd century AD. 

This building is meant to honor the deceased, although no inscription of any kind has been found to reveal his name. The monument shows four Ionian columns attached to the brick wall on each side. Between the columns and approximately four meters above ground are closed window niches, except for one on the west and one on the east side, which are open. All niches are framed between two small columns and crowned with an arch. Underneath each niche are thick wrought garlands like those often carved on Roman sarcophagi. 

The Mausoleum is about 6.5 meters high and is built in a perfect square of 6.65x6.65 meters outside. The entrance door was on the west side. The inside shape is rectangular, measuring 3.48x4.5 meters. This difference is because the interior chamber has a barrel vault supported by a thicker north and south wall. 

Presently, a restoration project has been started to support the damaged parts of the Mausoleum to preserve it in the best way possible for the future. The dirt covering the original stone floor will be removed, and the roof will also be cleared. 

Today, the Mausoleum lies hidden among the vast apricot orchards for which Malatya is famous, as the region provides 80% of Turkey’s production.

Triumphal Arch south of the Cilician Gates

Following the Via Tauri after crossing the Cilician Gates, Alexander was informed that the governor of Tarsus no longer wished to hold the city for Persia and was ready to give up the town. Afraid that the satrap would plunder the city on his way out, the people got scared and called for Alexander’s help.

[Picture from the Archaeology News Network]

At that time, the Macedonians were marching near Anazarbus, which after the first century AD the Romans renamed Caesarea. Eventually, the city grew to be much larger than Ephesos.

Anavarza, as the Turks called it today, has been constantly excavated in the last decades and revealed a double-columned highway, 2.7 kilometers long (see: A double highway in antiquity). So far, 1,360 columns have been unearthed and re-erected together with the entrance gate. This arch, which was built to commemorate the Roman victory over the Persians in the 3^rd century AD, was in a very poor state.

The picture published recently by the Archaeology News Network proves, however, that the restoration project was well done. The 14-meter high gate is 28 meters long and 5.40 meters wide, a correction of the previous dimensions giving a height of 10.5 meters and a width of 22.5 meters (see: More news from Anavarza, Roman Caesarea) – an impressive landmark anyway.

More news from Anavarza, Roman Caesarea

Restoration works are still ongoing in Anavarza, and after exposing the impressive colonnaded street (see: A double highway in antiquity) of ancient Caesarea, archaeologists are now concentrating on the Triumphal Arch which the Romans built in the 3rd century BC.

[Picture from Huriyet Daily News]

This arch is 22.5 meters wide and 10.5 meters high, one of the largest such gates in the area. Judging by the pictures, this gate looks pretty poor but since many of its construction blocks are still laying around, experts are confident to restore it to its former glory. This Triumphal Arch is one of the three access gates of Caesarea.

Once this project is completed, they will concentrate on excavating the ancient theater.

The challenge of crossing the Cilician Gates

The Cilician Gates is the name of a strategic pass in the Taurus Mountains that was used for centuries. Before Alexander, Cyrus the Great, with Xenophon and his Ten Thousand, had marched over this pass, and after him, we know that the Romans, the Mongols, and even the Crusaders were here. As recently as the 20^th century, the railroad engineers working on the train connection between Istanbul and Baghdad had to find their way over the Taurus Mountains at this point.

Xenophon mentions that the pass consisted of a “carriage track,” although the road must have been paved then. The passage through the Cilician Gates was very narrow, saying that it was wide enough for a four-horse chariot, meaning that four horses abreast could move over it at the same time. Yet the road was exceptionally steep and a near-natural barrier for any army to pass unopposed. It was and is frequently crossed by streams trickling from the walls on either side.

As mentioned by Xenophon, the width of a four-horse carriage is hard to match Curtius’ statement that it was wide enough for four armed men to walk abreast. The landscape is very rugged and inhospitable, even today, and in my first passage, I tried in vain to imagine how an army could move over such a terrain. Curtius says that the natural formation resembles fortifications made by human hands – how true that is!

The route Alexander followed out of Cappadocia must have run past modern Kemerhisan, Çiftehan, and Pozantı to arrive at the Gülek Boğaz Pass, as the Cilician Gates are called today.

The Romans, great road builders as they were, have left records of their improvements together with a series of milestones all along the road, like the lonely one standing in front of the local roadside restaurant. The stone carries an inscription stating that Caracalla repaired and improved the Via Tauri, as this road was called around 217 AD. Another milestone in this same area was erected by Severus Alexander, giving the distance to the Gates, the confines of the Cilicians, which matches the figure mentioned in the inscription at the Cilician Gates further down the road.

It is fascinating to find that wall inscription off the main highway down on the adjacent valley floor, knowing that it was initially engraved high above the ancient Via Tauri that led down to the coastal city of Tarsus. It is hard to imagine that W.M. Ramsay, who visited this area in 1882, had to use a telescope to read this inscription on the cliff above the stream (now tunneled underneath the modern road). The text can be translated as “Caracalla (with the addition of his real full name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) made the road wider by cutting through the mountains.” It is a miracle that this inscription has survived modern construction works, as it now seems to stand on the valley floor, squeezed between the supportive wall of the highway, the narrow stream, and the mountain slopes on the other side.

When Alexander arrived at the spot known as Xenophon’s encampment near the Gates (probably less than three kilometers away), he investigated the situation. The narrow pass was pretty easy to defend from the high overhang above the road, where a small force could destroy the approaching enemy. It is clear, once again, that Alexander was not taking any chances. He ordered his light-armed Thracians ahead to occupy the different access paths and check them for enemy forces. At the same time, a band of bowmen was posted on the ridges above the access road, ready to attack if needed. It is so easy to see them mentally while moving over this road! Alexander left Parmenion with the heavy infantry near Cyrus’ encampment while he himself marched towards the Gates under cover of darkness to take the enemy by surprise. That surprise did not work out as his approach was noticed, and the small force supposed to defend the Gates fled at the first sight of Alexander and his men. This was much easier than Thermopylae!

The following day at the crack of dawn, Alexander marched his men through the narrows. The operation lasted a full day, but the road to Tarsus lay open to him. Justin is so optimistic as to write that Alexander reached the city in one full day, but this is a distance of some 75 kilometers, which Xenophon covered in a four-day march instead.

Before reaching Tarsus, walking over a reasonable stretch of said Via Tauri for about five or six kilometers through an unforgiving landscape of rough rocks and spiny bushes is still possible. A delicate arch is still spanning the road at the horizon, but this is a mere reconstruction since the original collapsed after repeated explosions at the mining site in the valley below. The mining company was ordered to rebuild it - thank Zeus for that.

It takes the modern traveler a lot of imagination since today’s highway across the Taurus Mountains has been widened and leveled compared to the narrow ancient passage. However, it still follows the same course. Then, as now, the road runs downhill from here onwards into the coastal plain, and gradually the landscape becomes much friendlier with cultivated fields and blossoming orchards along wide rivers. Xenophon had also noticed the difference, saying that once across the pass, Cyrus entered a beautiful, well-watered plain that produced sesame, millet, wheat, and barley – easy to picture!

Still marching on the Via Tauri, Alexander received notice that the governor of Tarsus no longer wished to hold the city for Persia and was ready to give up the town. The townspeople clearly got scared, not of Alexander, but of their governor, who might be plundering Tarsus on his way out. Alexander clearly understood this, and he immediately rode up at full speed to the people’s rescue, just in time before the man could take any booty with him as he hurried for the Persian court.

Another ancient road was discovered near the village of Anavarza (Roman Caesarea). During the first and second centuries, it was the most important city of Cilicia and larger than Ephesos. The town has suffered severely from repeated earthquakes over the centuries, the last one as recent as 1945. The most striking element, however, is a double-columned highway, approximately 35 meters wide and 2.7 kilometers long. It has been established that the columns were of the Corinthian order and were erected at 2.15-meter intervals. So far, 1,360 columns have been unearthed, and plans are to restore them and the entrance gate. I wonder how much and in what shape this portion of the road existed in Alexander’s days.

A double highway in antiquity

We like to believe that the double highway is an invention from the 20^th century. Well that is not so since remains of what is likely to be the first double highway ever have been discovered in Anavarza, near the village of Dilekkaya in the province of Adana, Turkey.

[Picture from the Hurriyet Daily News]

The origins of the city go back to the days of Assyrians and was successively occupied by the Sassanids, the Byzantines (Emperor Justinian I rebuilt the city after a destructive earthquake in 525 AD and renamed it Justinopolis), the Armenians, and the Ottomans. It still holds traces from Hellenistic and Roman times, which is why it is named Caesarea. The fact that Anavarza was situated on the main road east after leaving the Cilician Gates made it one of the most important cities of Cilicia in the third and fifth centuries, after supplanting nearby Tarsus in the first and second centuries AD.

Unfortunately, Anavarza’s well-preserved remains have been damaged by powerful earthquakes as recent as 1945, during which the three aqueducts that stood there for nearly two thousand years collapsed. Among the ruins are colonnades along two streets, a gymnasium, a triumphal arch, a theater, a stadium, and a fort.

The most striking element, however, is this double-columned highway, approximately 35 meters wide and 2.7 kilometers long. It has been established that columns were of the Corinthian order and were erected at 2.15-meter intervals. At present, work is underway to restore a 250-meter section of this highway in the hope of making it accessible for tourists in a few years.

So far, 1,360 columns have been unearthed, and plans are to restore them. The entrance gate will also be put back together, as no fewer than 500 pieces have been found lying around the monument. Two more streets will be excavated, and archaeologists hope to locate the sewage system as well as the stores on either side of the streets.

Once again, Anavarza may become one of the most magnificent cities from the ancient world after being cleared and restored. After all, this city is larger than Ephesos, for instance! 

It is not unthinkable that Alexander passed through this city, this very highway even, on his way from Tarsus to Issus. In any case, it is a place worth adding to our next travel plans.

A tentative visit of Tralles

Today’s name for Tralles is Tralleis, near Aydin, where signposts point me in the right direction. Tralles seems to have reached the level of Ephesus or Pergamon, but so far, only basic excavations have been undertaken. This makes the visit more challenging for I have no idea what to expect.

My road ends at a T-crossing, where mini signs point left towards the city walls and the Roman necropolis, or right to the Gymnasium. I make a right turn, and after some turns and twists, I’m driving along some ruins carrying a sign “Roman theatre” and another one “no photographs”. I don’t understand either inscription, and the many big stones don’t make sense since I cannot make out the contours of a theatre in the landscape; only a short vaulted passageway next to the road gives me a hint. The view from here over the rolling hills where olives, figs, and cotton are grown is, however, superb; in the distance, I can see a quarry of red marble in the green landscape. Far below me lay an imposing ruin with vaults that reminded me of an aqueduct. Getting closer by driving in the opposite direction, I discover that this is the Gymnasium from the 4th century BC, and I realize that Tralles must have been huge. There is some parking space, and not a single soul is in sight. Never mind, I love this!

A large billboard welcomes me, showing the rough layout of mainly Roman Tralles, with the theatre and the adjacent Stadium, and further on the Gymnasium. Then, some houses and much further west, the Acropolis. This Acropolis may go back to Hellenistic times. Tralles was founded by the Hittites in 2500 BC and obviously occupied a strategic position. In later centuries, the city was ruled by the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans till it was totally destroyed by the severe earthquake of 26 BC. Emperor Augustus rebuilt the city, blessing it with his imperial name, Caesarea. When the Byzantines arrived, they re-baptized it again to Tralles. Then followed the Seljuks and the days of the Ottoman Empire, till in 1922, the city burnt down to the ground. A new town was built nearby, today’s Aydin, now famously reputed for its fine figs.

There is no indication of any scale or size, probably to discourage illegal digging in this remote countryside.

The three vaulted arches with thick walls, which the locals call “the three eyes”, are clear evidence that this is where the Roman Baths once stood. It seems that excavations are in progress, exposing a literal maze of water conduits running more or less parallel to each other but on different levels. This must have been quite a construction! Between the olive trees further down, I distinguish some low walls and, more to the right, a wide straight passage that could refer to a road. What a place to let my imagination run freely!

I can only guess how far Tralles spreads out in this landscape, but I am certain that Alexander must have been very happy with its surrender (see: Alexander’s presence in Ephesus).

Overall, very little is known about Tralles, except maybe the renowned Anthemius of Tralles, an architect who worked together with Isidorus of Miletus to build the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Anthemius also worked there as a professor of geometry, and his brother, Dioscorus, took over his father’s career as a physician in Constantinople, while another brother, Alexander, practiced in Rome to become one of the most celebrated medical men. He wrote a major work on pathology and therapy entitled Twelve Books on Medicine, which was known for many centuries in Latin, Greek, and Arabic. As to works of art, the only testimony I came across so far is the head of Aphrodite of Tralles at the Louvre, a free copy of Praxiteles’ famous Aphrodite of Cnidos from the 5th-4th century BC (see: What did Alexander the Great know of Cnidos?). It was taken by Kaufmann in 1885, who also seemed to have found her upper thigh and pelvis, now at the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.