A Roman bust retrieved in Soli Pompeiopolis (Mersin)

Excavations in Soli have been ongoing since 2015 (see: A two-month project to excavate the city of Soli), and each year, more remains of buildings, walls, and statues reach the news. 

[Picture from Hürriyet Daily News]

The most recent find appears to be the bust of a Roman Emperor or another high-placed nobleman. Based on the style of his curly full beard, he has been dated to the 2^nd-3^rd century AD. Emperor Hadrian, who visited Cilicia in 129-130 AD, seems to have initiated the beard fashion that had been abandoned after Alexander the Great. 

After Hadrian, Roman men were generally depicted with a beard, and many of the successive emperors followed suit. 

The bust was recovered near the colonnade street and may have belonged to one of the statues that stood on the plinth of one of these columns. 

The near life-size head has been transferred to the Museum in Mersin, which holds many of the recent finds.

Aratus of Soli, poet and astronomer

 

Aratus was an astronomer and poet who was born in Soli (near modern Mersin) in 315 BC. He came in the news after this year’s ongoing excavations in Soli, the Roman Pompeiopolis, as archaeologists discovered a memorial tomb. This grave site was surrounded by two rows of hexagonal structures and arches and is being described as “a crater with a circular plot worthy of an astronomer”.

These elements led the scholar to link the monument to their citizen Aratus, although he died in Alexander’s birthplace Pella, in 240 BC.

It so happened that Aratus was invited to the Macedonian court by Antigonus II Gonatas, the son of Demetrios Poliorcetes, in 276 BC. One year later, the poet penned down the king’s victory over the Gauls in verse form.

While he resided in Pella, Aratus wrote a hexameter poem on astronomy. In the first half of his Phenomena, he retells the work of Eudoxus of Cnidos, describing the constellations and other celestial phenomena, which he set into verse. The second half was known as Diosemeia and talks about the weather. The interest in Aratus’ poem was such that it was translated into Latin, and his work triggered a great number of comments from the Greek and Latin-speaking public.

However, he was also active in the field of philosophy, grammar, and medicine (some pretend he was a doctor).

He spent some time in Syria as a guest of Antiochus I Soter, but returned to Pella, where he died in 240/239 BC.

[Pictures from Greek City Times]

A two-month project to excavate the city of Soli (near Mersin, Turkey)

The news was announced in mid-July 2015. For years, all one could see here were two rows of columns running on each side of what seemed to be the main street of the Roman city. Tourists had no access to the site and I hope this will change after the said excavations have been carried out.

This year’s team will work on the restoration of the columns, most of which still have their Corinthian capitals, and investigate the continuation of the street as well as the Roman shops established alongside. Last year, they unearthed a very active harbor, including part of the wall dating from the period between the first century BC and the first century AD.

Soli has my interest because it is one of those Cilician cities where Alexander installed a garrison in 333 BC after having demanded a fine of 200 talents of silver for supporting the Persians against him. This fine is a considerable sum if one considers, for instance, that the yearly income of Athens in 431 BC was estimated at 1,000 talents. From Soli, Alexander marched against the Cilicians holding the hills behind the city. Some were driven off, others surrendered, and within a week, he was back in Soli – a short incursion, it seems.

It is here that Alexander received the long-awaited news that Halicarnassus had finally fallen! Ptolemy and Asander had stayed behind in 334 BC to besiege the city and to evict the Persian commander Orontobates. With the fall of Halicarnassus, the towns of Myndos, Caunos, Thera, and Callipolis came into Macedonian hands, together with Cos and Triopium (Cape Crio in southwestern Turkey). This victory called for a celebration, and Alexander is said to have offered sacrifices to Asclepius – no doubt to thank the god for his recovery from the fever he caught in Tarsus. He also held a ceremonial parade of his troops, followed by a torch race and games with music and poetic contests as well as athletics.

Whatever the situation, Soli was allowed to retain its own popular government. After the Battle of Issus in November 333 BC, Arrian tells us that Alexander cancelled the debt of fifty talents, Soli still owed and returned their hostages. This kindness was reciprocated to Alexander when he was laying siege on Tyre a year later, and three ships from Soli joined the reinforcement fleet of eighty Phoenician vessels and several others.

I doubt there will be much, if anything, left to testify from Alexander’s day since reference is generally made to the Roman and Byzantine occupation, with a faint hint towards the Seleucids who were Alexander’s successors in Cilicia.

The first to colonize the area were the Greeks from Rhodes in about 700 BC, and they named the city Soli, which eventually flourished, especially when the Persians ruled Asia Minor. After Alexander, Soli gradually lost its importance with the decline of the Seleucids in the first and second centuries BC, but gained again in prosperity with the arrival of the Roman general Pompey. He took advantage of Soli’s naval base while campaigning against the pirates who pillaged the cities of the eastern Mediterranean. From those days onward, the city was renamed Pompeiopolis in honor of their leader and liberator. New defensive walls and several public buildings and roads were built, and after Hadrian’s visit and sponsorship in 130 AD, the harbor was expanded. Pompeiopolis/Soli successfully withstood the Persian attack of 260 AD and the city’s importance kept on growing, even through the Byzantine period when it became a bishopric. However, the powerful earthquake that hit the region in 525 AD completely devastated the city, which was abandoned.

[Pictures from The Hurriyet Daily News]