Its ancient greatness
Commanding the approaches to a pass in the Cadmus range, and standing on a great high-way communicating between Eastern and Western Asia, Colossæ at an early date appears as a very important place. Here the mighty host of Xerxes halted on its march against Greece; it is mentioned on this occasion as ‘a great city of Phrygia[[51]].’ Here too Cyrus remained seven days on his daring enterprise which terminated so fatally; the Greek captain, who records the expedition, speaks of it as ‘a populous city, prosperous and great[[52]].’ But after this time its glory seems to wane. The political supremacy |and later decline.|of Laodicea and the growing popularity of Hierapolis gradually drain its strength; and Strabo, writing about two generations before St Paul, describes it as a ‘small town[[53]]’ in the district of which Laodicea was the capital. We shall therefore be prepared to find that, while Laodicea and Hierapolis both hold important places in the early records of the Church, Colossæ disappears wholly from the pages of history. Its comparative insignificance is still attested by its ruins, which are few and meagre[[54]], while the vast remains of temples, baths, theatres, aqueducts, gymnasia, and sepulchres, strewing the extensive sites of its more fortunate neighbours, still bear witness to their ancient prosperity and magnificence. It is not even mentioned by Ptolemy, though his enumeration of towns includes several inconsiderable places[[55]]. Without doubt Colossæ was the least important Church, to which any epistle of St Paul was addressed.
Uncertain orthography of the name.
And perhaps also we may regard the variation in the orthography of the name as another indication of its comparative obscurity and its early extinction. Are we to write Colossæ or Colassæ? So far as the evidence goes, the conclusion would seem to be that, while Colossæ alone occurs during the classical period and in St Paul’s time, it was afterwards supplanted by Colassæ, when the town itself had either disappeared altogether or was already passing out of notice[[56]].
Ethnological relations of the three cities.
Considered ethnologically, these three cities are generally regarded as belonging to Phrygia. But as they are situated on the western border of Phrygia, and as the frontier line separating Phrygia from Lydia and Caria was not distinctly traced, this designation is not persistent[[57]]. Thus Laodicea is sometimes assigned to Caria, more rarely to Lydia[[58]]; and again, Hierapolis is described as half Lydian, half Phrygian[[59]]. On the other hand I have not observed that Colossæ is ever regarded as other than Phrygian[[60]], partly perhaps because the notices relating to it belong to an earlier date when these several names denoted political as well as ethnological divisions, and their limits were definitely marked in consequence, but chiefly because it lies some miles to the east of the other cities, and therefore farther from the doubtful border land.
Their political relations.
Phrygia however ceased to have any political significance, when this country came under the dominion of the Romans. Politically speaking, the three cities with the rest of the Cibyratic union belonged at this time to Asia, the proconsular province[[61]]. As an Asiatic Church accordingly Laodicea is addressed in the Apocalyptic letter. To this province they had been assigned in the first instance; then they were handed over to Cilicia[[62]]; afterwards they were transferred and re-transferred from the one to the other; till finally, before the Christian era, they became a permanent part of Asia, their original province. Here they remained, until the close of the fourth century, when a new distribution of the Roman empire was made, and the province of Phrygia Pacatiana created with Laodicea as its capital[[63]].
Important Jewish settlement in this neighbourhood.
The Epistle to the Colossians supposes a powerful Jewish colony in Laodicea and the neighbourhood. We are not however left to draw this inference from the epistle alone, but the fact is established by ample independent testimony. When, with the insolent licence characteristic of Oriental kings, Antiochus the Great transplanted two thousand Jewish families from Babylonia and Mesopotamia into Lydia and Phrygia[[64]],|Colony of Antiochus the Great.| we can hardly doubt that among the principal stations of these new colonists would be the two most thriving cities of Phrygia, which were also the two most important settlements of the Syrian kings, Apamea and Laodicea, the one founded by his grandfather Antiochus the First, the other by his father Antiochus the Second. If the commercial importance of Apamea at this time was greater (for somewhat later it was reckoned second only to Ephesus among the cities of Asia Minor as a centre of trade), the political rank of Laodicea stood higher[[65]]. When mention is made of Lydia and Phrygia[[66]], this latter city especially is pointed out by its position, for it stood near the frontier of the two countries. A Jewish settlement once established, the influx of their fellow-countrymen would be rapid and continuous. Accordingly under the Roman domination we find them gathered here in very large numbers.|Confiscations of Flaccus.| When Flaccus the proprætor of Asia (B.C. 62), who was afterwards accused of maladministration in his province and defended by Cicero, forbade the contributions of the Jews to the temple-worship and the consequent exportation of money to Palestine, he seized as contraband not less than twenty pounds weight in gold in the single district of which Laodicea was the capital[[67]]. Calculated at the rate of a half-shekel for each man, this sum represents a population of more than eleven thousand adult freemen[[68]]; for women, children, and slaves were exempted. It must be remembered however, that this is only the sum which the Roman officers succeeded in detecting and confiscating; and that therefore the whole Jewish population would probably be much larger than this partial estimate implies. The amount seized at Apamea, the other great Phrygian centre, was five times as large as this[[69]]. |Other evidence.|Somewhat later we have a document purporting to be a decree of the Laodiceans, in which they thank the Roman Consul for a measure granting to Jews the liberty of observing their sabbaths and practising other rites of their religion[[70]]; and though this decree is probably spurious, yet it serves equally well to show that at this time Laodicea was regarded as an important centre of the dispersion in Asia Minor. To the same effect may be quoted the extravagant hyperbole in the Talmud, that when on a certain occasion an insurrection of the Jews broke out in Cæsarea the metropolis of Cappadocia, which brought down upon their heads the cruel vengeance of king Sapor and led to a massacre of 12,000, ‘the wall of Laodicea was cloven with the sound of the harpstrings’ in the fatal and premature merriment of the insurgents[[71]]. This place was doubtless singled out, because it had a peculiar interest for the Jews, as one of their chief settlements[[72]]. It will be remembered also, that Phrygia is especially mentioned among those countries which furnished their quota of worshippers at Jerusalem, and were thus represented at the baptism of the Christian Church on the great day of Pentecost[[73]].