Tarsus, Mersin
Template: Infobox city in Turkey / Maintenance / County
Tarsus is a Turkish city in the province of Mersin, about 30 km northeast of the provincial capital of Mersin, at the meeting point of the highway Mersin - Adana with the coming from the north through the Cilician Gates Europe 90th Street
History
The port city of Tarsus on the Gulf of İskenderun, trade relations to Phoenicia and Egypt maintained, lay two to three kilometers from the Mediterranean and was accessible from the navigable river Cydnus. The harbor is silted today, and the city is about 16 km away from the sea.
The oldest occupation layer dates from the 4th millennium BC, when the equation Tarsa / Tarsus ( Suppiuliuma - Sunaššuraš Treaty) is correct, the town belonged to the principality temporarily Kizzuwatna. Among the Hittites developed into an important center of Cilicia. Around 1200 BC, Tarsus was destroyed, then at least partially populated Greek, show how many Mycenaean finds. For the first time witnessed clearly in writing is Tarsus in Assyrian texts that describe the conquest by Sennacherib. Shortly thereafter, Tarsus was Assyrian provincial capital. According to Dio Chrysostom ( Orationes xxxiii, 40) Tarsus is a Phoenician foundation named Taraz. Flavius Josephus ( Antiquities of the Jews I.6, § 1) the city continued with the biblical Tarshish (Gen. 10, 4 ) the same. An inscription in Anchiale asserted against it at the time of Alexander, that Tarsus was founded by Sardanapalus.
After the Assyrian, the city came under the rule of Babylon, Persia, and finally Alexander the Great. Under the Seleucids, the city received 171 BC the name of Antioch on Cydnus, under Roman influence ( from 66 BC), it was renamed in Juliopolis ( after 47 BC), in memory of Gaius Julius Caesar, the they remained loyal during the Civil War.
Tarsus received historical fame by the meeting of Cleopatra with Marcus Antonius 41 BC Under the Sassanids Tarsus was 259 temporarily conquered, then came into the sphere of influence of Palmyra and the Roman vassal Odaenathus. From Aurelian it was recaptured in a campaign against Zenobia and ran through the division of the kingdom finally under Byzantine sovereignty. Emperor Julian was buried 363 in Tarsus. The Persians conquered the city 614. The Arabs held Tarsus to 965, as Nikiforos Fokas it conquered Byzantium. It was the seat of the governor of Cilicia. After the Battle of Manzikert Tarsus was part of the territory, the Abul Gharib dominated. The Crusaders took it in 1097 temporarily. Tarsus then became part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Finally then to the Ottomans, the city fell to the Mamelukes.
Religion
In Tarsus, a strong religious syncretism developed. Deities such as Santas, Baal, Zeus Tarz and merged into the city of God Sandan. In addition to the cult of Mithras and Judaism had a strong position in Tarsus.
The Jews of Tarsus, 171 BC, deliberately settled since the founding of the city under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, had a privileged position as well as the rights of citizenship. Born in Tarsus, Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen, thereby automatically. The city was also the seat of an archbishop. But went under the diocese, it is now but a titular of the Catholic Church.