Mithra(s) in Antioch

I have written in the past of the possibility of a Mithraic shrine in Antioch here. As the city was a major military base it makes sense that there should be one of more Mithraeums in the vicinity. 

In thinking about the theme some more I went back to the most extensive research on the theme of temples and cults in the city, namely Fred Norris' masterwork "Antioch as a Religious Center. I. Paganism before Constantine" published in ANRW, Teil II, Band 18, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1990.

In this work he has to say:"Libanius has a legend which credits Cambyses with setting up a shrine to Mithra in Antioch. In accordance with the plan of his treatise, he most likely knew of the influence of the god in the city, and wanted to give it a proper place in his oration of praise to Antioch. Unfortunately this is the only reference to Mithra in the Antiochene literature. Since the Campus Martius was not thoroughly excavated, we can only suggest by analogy that Roman troops worshiped Mithra in Antioch as they did elsewhere.".

Antioch and its Lake

An important feature (and economic engine) of Ancient Antioch was its lake. The Lake of Antioch (Turkish: Amik Gölü) was a large freshwater lake in the basin of the Orontes River, located to the north-east of the ancient city. The lake was drained during a period from the 1940s-1970s and now is the site of cotton farms and Hatay's airport.

The water body was located in the centre of Amuq Plain on the northernmost part of the Dead Sea Transform and historically covered an area of some 300-350 square kilometres, increasing during flood periods. It was surrounded by extensive marshland. The 14th century Arab geographer Abu al-Fida described the lake as having sweet water and being twenty miles (32 km) long and seven miles wide.

Sedimentary analysis has suggested that the lake was formed, in its final state, in the past 3000 years by episodic floods and silting up of the outlet to the Orontes. This dramatic increase in the lake's area had displaced many settlements during the classical period; the lake became an important source of fish and shellfish for the surrounding area and the city of Antioch.

As Scott Redford notes in his paper, Trade and Economy in Antioch and Cilicia in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks: "The extensive canal system in the Amuq Plain that had contributed so much to the wealth of Roman Antioch declined in the early Byzantine era, although some canals seem to have been in use through the early Islamic period. But the lush riverine environments of the medieval Amuq contributed to a thriving pisciculture. Several freshwater bodies of water were used to farm eels - indeed the export of dried eels from Antioch under the principality was so profitable that their sale was given as a gift to monasteries".   

Once again we have a story of disaster brought about by Turkey's mistaken grasp of modernisation. Draining and reclamation of areas around the lake commenced in 1940, in order to free land for growing cotton and to eliminate malaria. A major drainage project, channeling the lake's tributary rivers (the Karasu, the ancient Labotas, and the 'Afrin, the ancient Arceuthus/Arxeuthas) directly to the Orontes was undertaken from 1966 by the State Hydraulic Works, with further works completed by the early 1970s; by this time the lake had been completely drained, and its bed reclaimed for farmland with the Hatay Airport having been constructed in the centre of the lakebed.

There have increasingly been reports that the draining has caused severe environmental damage. Reclaimed and irrigated land has been affected by increasing soil salinity, and productivity has fallen. Despite the drainage works, many areas still regularly flood, requiring constant maintenance of drainage canals and further decreasing the productivity of the reclaimed farmland, while the water table has fallen dramatically. The fall in underground water levels has been implicated in causing an increasing amount of subsidence and serious damage to buildings.

Changing the environment and bringing about unexpected side-effects is not only a modern problem. As Redford notes: "In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, expansion of olive and wine cultivation into the foothills of the Jabal Aqra, and to a  lesser extent the Amanos, had led to massive deforestation around Antioch. As the population declined in the late fifth to sixth centuries, settlement retreated to the Amuq plain, where increased alluviation caused by the deforestation had earlier encouraged the development of a large new lake in the middle of the Amuq. This deforestation also resulted in the landslides and floods that have led some to misperceive Antioch as a "lost city" buried under the alluvium". 

However, we would be amongst those that perceive Antioch as a "lost city" as the depth of overburden and accumulated layers in the centre of the old city is 11 metres at least and material descending from the mountains clearly has played a part in entombing the ancient city so deep as to be well-nigh inaccessible.  

The loss of the lake had bigger effects than just subsidence though as it destroyed significant bird breeding grounds and a migratory stop-over/destination. If it hadn't been for the airport being sited there the best thing would have been to let the lake reappear and submerge the cotton farms.  

Some Commentary on Antioch (and Daphne) by Ioannis Phocas

As I have noted frequently  eyewitness reports of Ancient Antioch are rare things indeed. I stumbled upon one a while back and didn't post on it because we weren't sure exactly how valuable it is. I am not even sure how I wandered some serendipitous path to get to it.

However, it is probably worth placing a record here in readable script. The piece in question is  Ioannis Phocae's Compendiaria descriptio castrorum et urbium. Unlike my usual practice I didn't write down the source when I found it but I suspect that it is Migne, Patrologia graeca, tom. 133. The original is in Greek with a Latin side-by-side translation.  

The full title of the work is Compendiaria Descriptio: Castrorum & Urbium, ab urbe Antiochia usque Hierosolymam; nec non Syriae, ac Phoeniciae, & in Palestina sacrorum locorum. As we can tell from this title, the work covers not just Antioch, but really the whole Eastern Coast on the Mediterranean. John Phocas was apparently a Cretan monk who went on a pilgrimage to Palestine in the year 1177.   

We have extracted here only the part until the author heads off to cover Laodicea.

"II, Extabat, tum cum erat ad Orontam Antiochi Theopolis, theatrorum magnitudine, stoarii splendoribus, templorum structuris, copia item civium, & divitiarum magnificentia, superba ac tumens lateque caeteras fere orientales urbes exsuperabat: sed tempus, ac vis barbara, beatitatem illius exhausit; licet conspicua adhuc sit, & turrium altitudine, & propugnacolorum validitate; & pratorum ac florum omnigena foecunditate, & in plures partes sese dividentitium aquarum sibilis; cum placide fluvius circumfluat urbem & cingat, & molli tactu ejus turres circumplectatur in super e Castilli fontis fluentis egregie irrigatur, cujus aquae, torrentium instar, pelluntur, & frequentibus fulcorum rivis urbem universam perfundunt, eamque fluxibus aspergunt; operarum copia, & conditoris magnificentia, ex illius fontibus per montes ad ipsani civitatem laticibus corrivatis. Hic fama per orbem vulgatum Daphnes suburbium, proceris omne genus arboribus exornatum, & mons est maxime nobilis; quem admirandus Simeon in habitationem adaptavit. Hisce finitimus est mons Maurus & Scopulus, in quibus antiquitus multi Deo addictissimi viri, Deum conquierentes, invenerunt, & ad haec tempora perdurant, &, laudatorum montium pulchritudine pellecti, silvas inhabitant. Castalius fons, inter duos colles exiliens, ex ejus, qui in mare procurrit, ima parte, eximia quaedam aquarum irrigua evomit, in quo praegandis assurgit porticus, cursum fontis concamerans; hinc aquae affluenter prolienetes, in duos rivos dividuntur; earum una pars per altissimos ductus, veluti fulcos, corrivata, aeque ac aerus fluvius ex parte dextra superiorique in Urbem influit, altera, sinistris fonti locis campestribus exundans, in paliudibus superstgnat, universaq, Daphnes prata irrorat; demum laevis Orontis fluentis immiscetur. Mons vero admirandus inter urbem & mare elatus, res egregia ac sectabilis, & advenientium oculis deliciu, conspicitur namque urbi Rosoque conterminus, utrisque e partibus, monte, scopulo, Caucasoque constringitur. Orontes fluvius innumeris inflexionum vorticibus ad pedes montis profluit, & in mare aquas immittit. In montis hujusce vertice magnus ille vir, tranquille vitam agens, & in corde ascensiones disponens, corpore sublimis extollitur, & cum ipso corpore aethereus fieri, interque Deum & homines medius esse, contendit. At qua ratione Deo dedito viro ista res admiratione digna evenerit, ipse dicam. Lapidacrum opera summitate montis admirandi alte excavata, Monasterium ex uno conflatum compaginatumque lapide exstruxit: in media Monasterii inter excisos lapides sua sponte nata columna gradus appinxit, super petram, ut sacro eloquio traditur, pedibus firmatis, versus exorientem solem Templum pulcherrimum Deo erexit, in quod discipulos convocabat: atque ita sub dio ipse commorans, illi tota nocte in templo stantes, ut decebat sanctos, debitum Deo cultum offerebant." 

Interesting things in this text are the description of Daphne and comments on the water situation in general. He seems very impressed by the aqueducts.

The most novel thing though is the reference to the names of the mountains at Daphne as Maurus and Scopulus, mentions that we have not seen in any other source.  

 

The Siting of the Acropolis

I must admit to being a subscriber to the traditional view that the acropolis of Antioch was well within the city, in most likelihood just above the theatre on a spur that ran out from the lower slopes of the mountain. My intrepid colleague, Jorgen Christensen-Ernst, likes to challenge the traditional though and he is on the spot in Antakya all the time. Their have been no excavations at the acropolis (as with virtually everywhere else in the city) so no-one can say definitively either way.

Jorgen did however recently stumble upon some references that he believes might signal that the acropolis was much much higher up and that, in fact, it occupied the place where the fortress now sits perched upon the mountain. An argument against such a siting is that the acropolis would have been well-nigh inaccessible to anyone in the population except those with the fortitude of a mountain goat. Certainly before the major walls were built (which was NOT under the Seleucids) that would have put the acropolis outside the city fortifications. A caveat that offers a pro case for the fortress as the site is the city of Priene where the acropolis is so vertiginously elevated that it is pretty much out of sight of the city way down below. 

In defence of the fortress option, Jorgen found two references in the book Asianic Elements in Greek Civilisation: The Gifford Lectures, 1915–1916, Edinburgh by William Mitchell Ramsay in which the author states: "That there was a Katoikia called Koloe in the neighbourhood is certain from the inscription on the accompanying monument, which is in many respects the most important of all. Despite the resemblance of the ancient Koloe to the modern Koula, the late Byzantine evidence shows that Koula was understood as the Turkish, and probably old Anatolian, kula, kale, a fort or castle.

There is a distinction now made between koula, tower, and kala or kale, strong place, fortress. The term koula, kula, is explained by Ducange, Notae in Alexiadem, p. 621, as applied by the Greeks to all acropoleis. The acropolis of Antioch on the Orontes was called Koula by Anna Comnena, ii. pp. 89 f, and Kala is mentioned as a strong tower on the west side, by Scylitzes in Niceph. Phocam, quoted by Ducange, loc. cit., which shows that the words are practically identical. In all probability the words are variants of an old Anatolian word, taken over by the Turks; but H. Kiepert in a letter to me preferred to consider them early Turkish words".

We would note that Anna Comnena lived from 1083 to 1153. In her childhood Antioch was still under Arab rule and then passed to Crusader rule. Its hard to believe that she actually ever went to Antioch, so her observations are most likely second-hand.  

Some New Views from the 18th Century

While trawling through the website of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (gallica.bnf.fr) I came across a collection of engravings that we had no seen before. My first suspicion was that these related to some other Antioch (e.g. ad Cragum) but the inclusion of an internal view of the ramparts of this "Antioch" gave us some confidence that the artist, François-Marie Rosset (1752-1824), was sketching Antioch on the Orontes in these images dating from 1790. He had left France as part of a diplomatic/scientific mission to Syria in June 1781, arriving in Aleppo in September. Presumably the intervening period is when he passed through Antioch.

The interesting thing though was these images did not contain just the same-old, same-old but had three etchings of structures that I had never seen before that definitely looked like it came from the city's antique phase or at least late antique period.

 

Here they are:

 

 

The first three are the novel ones. The second one has a look that might imply that it is at Daphne due to the water springing from the base of the structure. The other two have the look of either an arcaded portico or a ruined basilica/church. Or they could be older than the Christian period or they could be a total fantasy. Another thought strikes me that they could be the Bab Boulos (Beroea Gate) which did have a spring/pond in front of it according to other images. These structures in the Rosset works though do have a more ethereal look than the images of the Beroea gate I have seen previously, as the gate was arched but also fairly massive and solid.  

More information on Rosset and his wanderings (if indeed he ever visited the city) would maybe solve the mystery.

 

 

 

Benjamin of Tudela

Benjamin was a wandering Spanish rabbi in the 12th century who roamed as far as Jerusalem (returning to Spain in 1173 AD) and in the process wrote a sort of travel guide to the sights seen.

Benjamin of Tudela in the Sahara, in the XIIth century. Engraving by Dumouza, XIXst century


Benjamin's report on his wanderings can be found in: THE ITINERARY OF BENJAMIN OF TUDELA, CRITICAL TEXT, TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY BY MARCUS NATHAN ADLER, M.A., London 1907. 

He makes a brief mention of Antioch: "Thence it is two days' journey to Antioch the Great, situated on the river Fur (Orontes), which is the river Jabbok, that flows from Mount Lebanon and from the land of Hamath. This is the great city which Antiochus the king built. The city lies by a lofty mountain, which is surrounded by the city-wall. At the top of the mountain is a well, from which a man appointed for that purpose directs the water by means of twenty subterranean passages to the houses of the great men of the city. The other part of the city is surrounded by the river. It is a strongly fortified city, and is under the sway of Prince Boemond Poitevin, surnamed le Baube. Ten Jews dwell here, engaged in glass-making, and at their head are R. Mordecai, R. Chayim, and R. Samuel. From here it is two days' journey to Lega, or Ladikiya, where there are about 100 Jews, at their head being R. Chayim and R. Joseph". 

Footnotes to this text elaborate that by "10 Jews" he actually met heads of families, so the community would have been a multiple of this number.

An interesting thing to note is that seemingly the aqueduct system was still functioning at this time. 

A source for Jewish communities under the Byzantine Empire is here. 

An Expanded (Yet Abridged) Bibliography

In Memoriam: Aaron Swartz (1986-2013)

"May a hero and founder of our open world rest in peace."

Here we offer a bibliography of Antioch.. not complete by any means but large. This is the bibliography that accompanied the Antioch: the Lost Ancient City Exhibition held March 25 – June 3, 2001 at the  Cleveland Museum of Art. Not surprisingly it has much more of an art bias than a history slant. It was compiled by the library and archives staff. Our own far more focused bibliography for postings up until that time can be found here. 

Exhibition Catalogue

Kondoleon, Christine. Antioch: the lost ancient city. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press in association with the Worcester Art Museum, 2000.

Related Materials

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