COIN OF APAMEA CIBOTUS.
But, besides the classical history of Apamea, which is well enough known, this place was accredited with a tradition referring to the Ark, which, though purely legendary, cannot be omitted here; the more so as the story of the Ark resting after the Flood on one of the heights near Apamea has been supposed by some to have given that city the title of “Cibotus,” or “Apamea of the Chest.”[[101]] Indeed, Mount Ararat was placed by some on the confines of Phrygia. The coin of Alexander Severus, of which we give a copy above, is supposed to refer to this story. On the reverse is the name of the people of Apamea, and, above, a square structure resting on a rock, and surrounded by water. In this box are two figures, male and female, and in front the word ΝΩΕ (Noe). It is, therefore, a fair presumption that the maker of the medal did mean to represent Noah and wife. Two other persons, also a man and a woman, stand in front of the supposed ark. If, as we believe, the Scriptural deluge took place in Babylonia, some features of its story might easily have found their way to Phrygia; while, independently of this, we know that, even in the days of St. Paul, there were Jewish synagogues in many of the great towns of Asia Minor. Moreover, during the 150 years between St. Paul and Alexander Severus, some, at least, of the more striking events recorded in the Bible must have become popularly known.
[101]. It ought to be added that the ancient name of Apamea, when the capital of Phrygia, was Celænæ, and that, in Roman times, though Laodicea Combusta was the residence of the proconsul, it was considered, commercially, inferior only to Ephesus. Laodicea was one of the towns privileged to strike those curious silver coins known by the name of Cistophori. Though we do not accept the Ark story as the origin of this name “Kibotus,” we cannot say that we attach much, if any, weight to many other derivations that have been proposed.
The next place we notice is Azani, or Aezani (for both spellings occur), the latter, that of the coins of the place, being the more preferable. It is certain that the present Lord Ashburnham, in 1824, was the first to determine where it stood, though this discovery has, with some carelessness, been often attributed wrongly. It is now called Tchandur Hissar, and, from Keppel, Hamilton, and Fellows, appears to possess some ruins of remarkable beauty, and more than one Roman bridge. Hamilton (i. 101) states that its Ionic temple (of which Fellows and Pullan give drawings) is one of the most perfect in Asia Minor. Rather curiously, no walls have been found; but the place has suffered from plunderers severely, every tomb having been despoiled.
In Phrygia Magna, as distinguished from Phrygia Epictetus, a place of early notice and of long importance was Synnada, which we hear of first in connection with the famous march of Cn. Manlius against the Gallo-Græci. Cicero visited it in his progress towards Cilicia. In Pliny’s time, it was the judicial centre of the neighbourhood. It was chiefly famous for a beautiful marble with purple spots and veins, to which Statius alludes (Silv. i. 5, 56). Texier was the first to discover the actual quarries, which were, as the natives of old asserted, not at Synnada, but at Docimia; whence the marble itself was sometimes called “Docimites lapis.” Paulus Silentiarius, in a poem on the church of St. Sophia, has well described its character. Docimia itself was probably at the end of the plain where Synnada was itself situate. Hierocles makes Synnada a bishopric of Phrygia Salutaris. Its ruins are now called Eski Kara Hissar.
On the main road from Synnada towards Iconium stood Philomelium, the “city of nightingales,” now, since the discovery of the true site of the Pisidian Antioch, identified with Ak-shehr. It was a place of much value to the early Turkish rulers, and many handsome Saracenic buildings may still be seen; hence, too, it is often mentioned in the wars between the Greek emperors and the Sultans of Iconium, as in Procopius (Hist. Arc. 18) and Anna Comnena (p. 473).[[102]]
[102]. Philomelium, now called Afium Kara Hissar (the “black castle of opium”), has much interest as the centre of the great Asia-Minor trade in that drug, the medicinal properties of which were known to Theophrastus in the third century B.C., under the name of μηκώνιον. Scribonius Largus (A.D. 40), also, knew that the best form of it was procured from the capsules, and not from the leaves of the poppy (Berthold, Argent. 1786, c. iii. s. 2). Dioscorides, thirty years later, calls the juice of these capsules ὀπός (Angl. Sap), and the cutting them ὀπίζειν. Hence, the name, Opium. Pliny (iv. c. 65, xx. c. 76) points out the medicinal use of “Opion,” and Celsus calls the extracted juice “Lacryma papaveris.” Obviously, from this “Opion” comes the Arabic “Afyum,” which is found in many Eastern languages, and may have been spread all the more, owing to Muhammad’s interdiction of the use of wine. In India, Opium is noticed, first, in Barbosa’s Travels, A.D. 1511 (ap. Hakluyt), who found it, at that time, in Malabar and Calicut. Neither Chinese nor Sanskrit has a native word for this drug. Opium Thebaicum is mentioned as early as A.D. 1288-96, by Simon Januensis, Physician to Pope Nicholas IV. (Clavis Sanationis. Venet. 1510); and Kæmpfer (1687) remarks that compounds of opium, nutmegs, &c., were largely sold in his time, as long before, under the name of “Theriaka.”
But the most important place in the neighbourhood was Laodicea, often called “Combusta,” “the burnt,” which is to be carefully distinguished from the other town of the same name we shall presently describe in connection with Hierapolis, and which is generally called “ad Lycum,” “on the Lycus,” in the province of Lydia. Recent geographers, however, give both these towns to Phrygia. Laodicea Combusta was about nine hours N.W. of Iconium, and under its modern names of Yorgan Ladik or Ladik-el-Tchaus, is famous throughout Asia Minor for its manufacture of carpets. It has been, popularly, supposed, that it derived its name from the existence at it of some remarkable volcanic agencies. This, however, Mr. Hamilton has clearly shown, is not the case. “There is not,” he says, “a particle of volcanic or igneous rock in the neighbourhood; the hills consist of blue marble, and of the argillaceous and micaceous schists with which that rock is usually associated.” He thinks it may, at some time or other, have been burnt down, and, on being rebuilt, have received this distinguishing title. The inscriptions he found there, though in great abundance, have little interest, being chiefly funereal: they are all carved out of the dark blue-veined limestone of the adjoining hills.
The last three places in Phrygia, which we think it necessary to note especially, we shall take together, as situate near one another, and, historically, closely connected. These cities are Hierapolis, Laodicea, (ad Lycum), and Colossæ.